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The ongoing war in Sudan, the large African state that borders Egypt to the north, entered its second week on Sunday. It began on Saturday 15 April, with violent clashes between the regular army, commanded by the country’s president Fattah al Burhan, and a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which is in fact a parallel army and is commanded by vice president Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti. The clashes quickly escalated into warfare, with bombings, airstrikes and artillery shelling. Over the past week the violence has spread far beyond the capital, Khartoum.
So far in the clashes between the two groups have died more than 400 people and there are thousands of injured. The greatest risk is that a long-lasting civil war will develop in a country that is already unstable and in which ethnic conflicts are ongoing.
To date, Sudan is governed by a military junta called the Sovereign Council, which took power with a military coup in October 2021 and which includes al Burhan and Hemedti themselves. The paramilitary group RSF was born from the so-called janjawidethnic Arab militiamen who during the war in the Darfur region, which began in 2003, were accused of genocide.
Between al Burhan and Hemedti a tough political clash had been going on for weeks over the fate of the Sudanese government, and in particular over the conditions under which the transition to civilian government should have taken place. The disagreements were on various points, including the condition that the RSF should join the Sudanese army creating a single armed force under a single command. Heavy accusations had been leveled against Burhan and Hemedti in recent weeks and it was now clear that the political confrontation could lead to a military confrontation at any moment.
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The war began on the morning of Saturday 15 April in Khartoum, with artillery shelling and some explosions. The violence began especially near a military base south of the city, controlled by the RSF, and then spread to the presidential palace, the headquarters of Sudanese state television and the airport. These are all infrastructures that both sides, the regular army and the RSF, claim control of.
In the days immediately following the fighting intensified and spread to some cities nearby in Khartoum, such as Omdurman and Bahri. Just in Bahri, the day after the beginning of the conflict, in addition to explosions and firefights, aerial bombardments also began. The fighters of the regular army, which is in control of the aviation, have hit some of the basis of the RSF. The bombing destroyed civil buildingsinfrastructure, the seat of government and that of the Ministry of Education and Research, in this case in Khartoum.
In the following days, the fighting reached other cities and regions of the country, even densely populated ones. Among these are Kabkabiya, in the western region of Darfur, where they are the day after the start of the conflict been killed three employees of the World Food Program (WFP), a UN agency that deals with food assistance: the episode prompted the agency to temporarily suspend its activities in Sudan for security reasons.
The fights are spread out also in the west, in the cities of Al Fasher and Nyala, and in areas and zones in the east of the country: Kassala, Gedarif, Damazin and Kosti. Some cities further north, such as Merowe and Port Sudan, have also been involved in the conflict. Port Sudan is located on the Red Sea, about 800 kilometers from the capital Khartoum, and in recent days has been used by the governments of Saudi Arabia and Jordan as a starting point for evacuations of their citizens.
At Khartoum airport, which has now been closed, a passenger plane of the Saudia company of Saudi Arabia ended up in the midst of firefights. Meanwhile, electricity and water have gone out in various parts of the country, and thousands of people have fled from areas where the fighting was most intense. They did it on foot, by car or traveling by bus, reaching both other parts of Sudan and neighboring states: in the last few days, for example, about 400mila refugees in Chad, a state west of Sudan with insufficient resources to accommodate large numbers of people.
Latest: Sudan — airline jets at Khartoum Intl Airport appear to have been destroyed amid the ongoing military coup currently under way in the capital. Saudia Airbus A330 and SkyUp Boeing 737 on fire at the airport amid heavy gunfire & blasts #Sudan pic.twitter.com/VW6SflNgvR
— Alex Macheras ✈️ (@AlexInAir) April 15, 2023
As the fighting intensified, the situation also became increasingly risky for diplomatic personnel. On Monday 17 April, just two days after the start of the war, he was attacked at his home in Khartoum Aidan O’Harahead of the European Union diplomatic delegation in Sudan.
For this reason, one week after the start of the conflict, the governments of the United Kingdom, United States, France, China and even Italy have prepared to evacuate their diplomats and citizens residing in Sudan. The United States they announced the completion of an initial evacuation operation in the early hours of Sunday morning. About 100 people were evacuated with three helicopters that landed near the US embassy in Khartoum, which has now been temporarily closed. Canada has also already carried out some evacuations, sending its officials and diplomats to the port of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
In the last week there have been two attempts at a truce, both of which failed. The first truce had been agreed on April 18, three days after the start of the war: it was to last 24 hours and allow for the evacuation of the wounded and civilians from the places where the fighting had concentrated. Despite the truce, however, they continued, especially in Khartoum.
The second truce was instead agreed on Friday after complicated negotiations. It was supposed to last three days, on the occasion of theEid al Fitr, one of the most important holidays of the Islamic religion which marks the end of Ramadan, the month in which Muslims purify themselves by fasting from sunrise to sunset. Initially the fighting had decreased in intensity, but especially in Khartoum, shooting and air attacks had resumed shortly after. Speaking about the truce, former Sudanese foreign minister, Mariam al-Mahdi, he said a BBC which “had no effect”.
The situation is very critical throughout the country, but the biggest problems are in Khartoum. Many civilians are unable to leave the city due to the fighting and are stuck in their homes. There have also been disruptions to electricity and water supplies, and food is starting to run out. Local doctors and representatives of the Red Crescent, the Islamic equivalent of the Red Cross, said that many hospitals were seriously damaged in the clashes, and that there is a lack of medicine and personnel to treat all the people who need assistance these days.
The NGO Doctors Without Borders writes that most of the injured are civilians hit by stray bullets, and that many are children, with fractures and gunshot wounds in their legs, abdomen and chest. Many of them need blood transfusions.
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