The growing tensions between the two rival military leaders they were to become violentweighed down like storm clouds in the sky of Khartoum for weeks. At dawn on Saturday the showdown between the general started Abdel Fattah al Burhan (right in the photo)general and head of the military junta, and his deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (left in photo)the man who all in Sudan they call Herewhich has an armed militia, the RSF – Rapid Support Forcedirect descendant of the bloodthirsty Janjaweed. One hundred thousand men, armed like an army, including tanks, who are giving the regular army a hard time. You shoot in the capital but also in the strategic city of Merelya ona Kassala, around air bases close to the Egyptian border. It’s not a battle for the democracy, is the showdown between two former cronies of the dictator Omar al-Bashir. The post is in total control of one of the largest African countries.
Fighting erupted on Saturday morning at a military base in Khartoum they quickly expanded to include the presidential palace, the international airport and the headquarters of the state broadcaster. While the residents huddled in their homes between gunshots and explosions, warplanes screeched over the low-flying rooftops. Since late Saturday afternoon it has not been clear who is in control of the country. The paramilitaries of Fight they seem to have an advantage, more agile in moving around the streets of the capital than the regular army, which it has of the Aviation but which is almost useless in urban combat. And who controls Khartoum he won militarily.
The attempt of RSF to overthrow the Burhan it arrived after weeks of go deeper tensions between the two military leaders on the planned integration of Rsf in the regular army. This has been a key element of the talks to finalize the deal to bring the country back to civilian government and put an end to crisis triggered by their 2021 coup, which detonated a economic crisis ever deeper in what is one of the richest countries of resources of Africa but among the poorest in the world. 45 million people always on the abyss of the humanitarian emergency.
The head of the RSF Wars he promised not to give up. “We will not stop fight until we catch all the army bases and the honorable members of the armed forces they will not join us,” he told the network Al Jazeera. He was echoed on the same network Al Burhan: “We have been attacked, no truce, we will disarm i paramilitaries”. Created in 2013, the RSF emerged from the militia Janjaweed that the then dictator Omar al-Bashir unleashed against non-Arab ethnic minorities in the western Darfur region a decade earlier, accusing them of war crimes.
Even the general Al Burhan was sent in Darfur and Al Bashir and that’s where he came into contact with the powerful “warlord” Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. After the 2019 revolution that brought down Bashir the former camel trader made himself general and transformed the militia into the Rapid Support Forces. Here is the man of Russia in Sudan as evidenced by mutual visits with Sergey Lavrov, the head of Moscow diplomacy. It is clear therefore also aside are the numerous mercenaries of the Wagner who protect the gold mines of the north east.
If we take him at his word, the general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan he was one of three generals who went to the dictator’s residence in 2019 Omar al-Bashir – while the streets were invaded by crowds demanding democracy – to say that after 30 years it was over. That conversation must have been difficult for the top general of Sudan. veteran soldier, Burhan he was one of the dictator’s most reliable lieutenants. Now, three years later, he sits in the chair he was Bashir. Al Burhan he is a good friend of the Egyptian president Al Sisi – have been together in accademia – but needs more allies quickly.
Here he is also enormously wealthy, he is vice president of the transitional military council and his family and the RSF benefit enormously from the control of the gold mines in the Darfur as well as the patronage of United Arab Emirates e Saudi Arabia. The Army of Sudan has a smaller budget than the RSF. These sources of power and wealth have felt threatened by the civilian-led government of the Sudan promised by the December agreements within the next two years.
Meanwhile many rapacious hands reach out to the potential riches of the weak Sudan: China, Russia, Turkey, the Emirates, the Saudis, Qatar, Egypt of course. Even the Americans they reopened their embassy after ten years, as it is back the European Union. But this West is losing ground every day, offering aid and money but asking in return reformselections, transparency. Exactly what at the moment in Sudan no one can assure as i demonstrate kalashnikov who bark in the streets of Khartoum.