‘We Are Simply Trying to Survive’: New Wave of Violence Hits Sudan

Gun battles and explosions were reported in heavily populated parts of Sudan’s capital Khartoum on Monday as fighting between Sudan’s Armed Forces (SAF) and the country’s largest paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) entered a third day.

According to multiple local sources, today’s fighting is concentrated around key installations including the Presidential Palace, the airport, as well as the General Command of the Sudan Armed Forces. Intense clashes have also spilled over to several states in the east as well as in Darfur region in the west of the country. 

According to the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors, nearly 100 people have died and over 1,100 more injured since fighting broke out in Khartoum on Saturday. It is not clear who is in control of the country, with both sides claiming critical infrastructure and crucial victories. 

Residents in Khartoum told VICE World News that they remain trapped in their homes, even as food and water supplies dry up and there are reports of electricity blackouts across the capital, home to more than 5 million people. Major hospitals are unable to care for patients as medical workers stay home due to the continued fighting and communication from both the army and the RSF leadership that civilians should stay at home as they vie for control in a dangerous game of urban warfare.

Several residents in the city told VICE World News that the sounds of fighting and air strikes intensified throughout Monday and that neither side honoured an hours-long ceasefire called for by the United Nations in order to allow residents to reach food supplies and aid. Sheltering in his home like millions of others across the city, one resident in the upscale Burri neighbourhood told VICE World News “we are simply trying to survive this chaos” as he sheltered with small children at home and a dwindling stock of food and medicine.

This latest escalation followed weeks of tension between the army — under the command of the country’s de facto ruler and the Chairman of Sudan’s Transitional Sovereignty Council General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan — and his deputy, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, who controls the RSF. The two men came into power in October 2021 after jointly overthrowing Sudan’s transitional government, installed after historic street protests to overthrow Omar al-Bashir, the dictator who ruled the country for 30 years.

General al-Burhan and General Hemedti are both relics of the former dictatorial regime and had long-running disputes dating back to before the 2019 revolution, leading many analysts to speculate that the country now teeters on the edge of large scale civil war largely due to the agendas of two power-hungry generals. 

Despite staging the 2021 coup hand in hand, the two generals are now at odds over an April 1, 2023 framework deal that stated that the Army will quit politics and hand over power to a civilian-led transitional government. The framework agreement also included a raft of  security reforms that would see the RSF disarmed and integrated into the army, but it collapsed following the Junta’s internal wrangling.

In a series of tweets on Monday, Hemedti, the commander of the RSF, claimed that his forces are fighting against "radical Islamists" and called for the international community to intervene, accusing the army chief of attacking his troops.  “We will continue to pursue Al-Burhan and bring him to justice.”

The RSF has been accused of using its influence to gain control of the country’s resources and institutions, making the government and national army to see their growing strength as a ‘threat’. The paramilitary is an evolution of the notorious Janjaweed militia, which enacted some of the most brutal attacks in the former government’s prolonged genocide against the people of Sudan’s Darfur region. 

A prolonged confrontation between the RSF and the army could significantly worsen the security situation across a vast country already dealing with economic breakdown and flare-ups of tribal violence. 

Beyond the air strikes and street fighting in the capital, violence has erupted in critical cities like Port Sudan and across Darfur, a highly militarised region that is deeply familiar with state-backed violence after the genocide.  

In Zalingei, the capital of Central Darfur, there are heavy clashes between RSF and allied militias and the army. Local NGO sources told VICE World News that the RSF looted the main market and healthcare centres, as well as the offices of NGOs and UN agencies. 

“The whole city is out of water and services at Zalingei hospital are suspended. The city is full of [RSF] militias,” a medical aid worker told VICE World News in a text message. 

Local government officials told VICE World News that the RSF controls an airport in the Nyala region of Darfur but that much is still under dispute and unknown. 

“It’s very serious,” Adeeb Yousef, former governor of Central Darfur and current political analyst, told VICE World News. “The indicators for these clashes was always here and last month the RSF moved soldiers from the periphery to Khartoum. Likewise the military ordered troops movements.” 

“I blame Hemedti and al-Burhan,” Yousef continued, “their failure and lack of vision for the country will bring us back to the past regime. They opened this door.” 

Ultimately, Yousef worries most about a backslide into the ethnic conflict that characterised the genocide, even if the violence in the capital settles. 

“It’s going to turn into armed ethnic conflict here and I’m worried about civilian protection,” he said.

Just three days into the violence, humanitarian aid is already a challenge. UN flights are grounded as fighting continues near the airport in Khartoum and the UN’s World Food Programme suspended all operations after one of its planes was damaged in Khartoum and three of the staff members were killed, two injured in North Darfur. 

International pressure is mounting as world leaders call for a cessation of hostilities. The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) has agreed to send South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir, Kenya’s William Ruto and  Ismail Omar Guelleh of Djibouti to help broker a ceasefire in the conflict in Sudan following a virtual summit. Civilian political parties that had signed an initial power-sharing deal with the army and the RSF called on them to cease hostilities.