In recent days, thousands of people have been fleeing Sudan, where a very violent conflict has been going on since Saturday between the country’s regular army and the powerful paramilitary group called Rapid Support Forces (RSF). At least 300 civilians have died in the clashes between the two groups and more than 3,000 have been injured, according to several international organizations.
Fighting continued despite two attempts to arrange a ceasefire. Both the truce announced for Tuesday and that of Wednesday have been violated, and in particular in the capital Khartoum the clashes have continued without interruption. In this climate of uncertainty, many people have decided to leave the country to seek shelter elsewhere. On Thursday, the Rapid Support Forces proposed a new truce for Friday, when Eid al-Fitr will be celebrated, one of the most important holidays of the Islamic religion which marks the end of Ramadan, but the army has announced that it has no intention of start new negotiations with the paramilitaries.
The news arriving from Sudan is fragmentary, and it is difficult to make an exact estimate of the people who are fleeing: according to what local witnesses told various international newspapers, there are “thousands” of civilians who are leaving the country these days. They are mainly people who live in the peripheral areas of Khartoum, where for the moment there have not been many clashes. They are fleeing on foot, by car or traveling by bus: the airport is instead inaccessible, given that it has been one of the places at the center of the fighting for days.
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Throughout the country the situation is very critical, but it is in Khartoum that there are the greatest problems. Many civilians are unable to leave the city due to the fighting and are stuck in their homes: there have also been interruptions to electricity and water supplies, and food is starting to run out. Local doctors and representatives of the Red Crescent, the equivalent of the Red Cross for Islamic countries, said that many hospitals were seriously damaged in the clashes, and that there is a lack of medicines and personnel to treat all the people who need assistance these days .
There are currently no plans to organize an evacuation of civilians by governments of other countries. In recent days there had been insistent talk of a possible evacuation plan for US diplomats but for the moment this hypothesis has been denied by the US State Department.
There was also talk of a mission by Germany that would be canceled on Wednesday shortly after the take-off of three planes destined for Sudan to evacuate German citizens, but there was no government confirmation in this regard. The Japanese government has instead said it wants to send a military plane to evacuate about 60 Japanese citizens, but the details of the operation have not been disclosed.
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At the center of the fighting are the regular army of Sudan, commanded by the president of the country, General Abdel Fattah al Burhan, and the powerful paramilitary group RSF, which is in fact a parallel army (it has between 70 and 100 thousand members). and is commanded by the country’s vice president, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti.
The two are formally allies within the military junta that governs the country, but Dagalo has always maintained great autonomy, and the Rapid Support Forces have remained a separate group from the army, under its direct control. The alliance between the two has begun to become increasingly precarious in recent months, after Burhan’s government agreed to a deal in December 2022 to return power to a civilian administration.
The agreement provided for the disbandment of the Rapid Support Forces, among other things. However, Dagalo immediately opposed it, fearing losing his power, and since then he and Burhan had begun to exchange harsh accusations, making it clear that they were ready for armed confrontation, which finally took place on Saturday.