The latest Sudan war is bloody and brutal. Two great warlords slug it out for dominion. Chances that one or other can win outright are slim. The NCF Secretary General has given his take on the reasons for this latest in the long series of Sudan wars. In this blog NCF UN Liaison Officer, Tanya Goyal, expresses her opinion:
General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the commander of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagolo, popularly known as Hemedti, the leader of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), compete with one another to exert control over Sudan. This conflict erupted both bin Sudan’s capital city of Khartoum and the Darfur area in the West.
Abdel Fattah Burhan had said in his office at the presidential palace in Khartoum during an interview with the Financial Times, “We are definitely committed to holding elections in 2023.” Instead Sudan now faces a “burgeoning civil war”.
The nature of the problem
Omar al-Bashir, a former president and military strongman, directed state-sponsored violence in the western portion of the country during the Darfur War, which resulted in accusations of war crimes and genocide. Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, a warlord who oversaw the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a group of Arab militias derived from camel-trading tribes operating in Darfur and parts of Chad, was a pivotal player in the Darfur crisis.
Burhan and Hemeti weren’t always foes. The two joined forces in 2019 to depose Omar al-Bashir as president after almost 30 years in power. They then cooperated with the demands of the pro-democracy protesters to set up a transitional civilian-military council. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Dagalo of the RSF then overthrew the new transitional government in October 2021. With Al-Burhan in charge, the Transitional Sovereignty Council was reorganised as a military junta, seizing control and putting an end to Sudan’s fleeting democratic transition. The two men have a deep relationship.
Gen. Burhan was a professional soldier, whilst Hemedti was a militia commander playing a counter-insurgency role, helping the military, albeit “with all the ambitions of the Sudanese officer corps.”
For the majority of its post-independence history, Sudan has been governed by the military.
The government’s strategies in Darfur were referred to be “counter-insurgency on the cheap” by Sudan scholar Alex de Waal. Regular troops, ethnic militias, and air power were all utilized to fend off the rebels with little or no consideration for civilian losses.
When the RSF started recruiting members from all over Sudan in February 2023, tensions between the RSF and the Sudanese junta started to rise. Following a brief military buildup in Khartoum, a de-escalation agreement was reached, and the RSF withdrew its forces. The Transitional Sovereignty Council’s chairman and deputy chairman, generals Burhan and Dagalo, eventually agreed to transfer power to a civilian-led administration, but this was postponed because of rekindled hostilities between them.
RSF troops were stationed in Khartoum and in the vicinity of Merowe on April 11, 2023. They were told to leave by government agents, but they refused. When RSF forces took control of the Soba military base south of Khartoum, this resulted in clashes. RSF soldiers mobilized on April 13, 2023, sparking concerns about a potential uprising against General Burhan. The mobilization was deemed unauthorized by the SAF.
Sudan fears the “ghost of the civil war.”
The conflict between the RSF leader, Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagolo, also known as Hemedti, and the forces commanded by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, chairman of Sudan’s transitional governing sovereign council, erupted into the city’s streets a couple of weeks ago.
Al-Burhan, who had assumed leadership of the power-sharing council, disbanded it in 2021 and announced that elections would take place in 2023 in its place.
Negotiations regarding combining the two forces prior to the expected restoration of civilian government failed, which led to the current combat between the army and the RSF. There were differences of opinion on who would be the superior general and how quickly the RSF would be integrated into the Sudanese military.
On April 8, fierce violence erupted throughout the nation, turning Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, and the nearby city of Obdurman into battlegrounds.
A plan to transition to civilian rule after the 2019 overthrow of Omar al-Bashir, the Islamist president who had himself seized power in a 1989 coup, has been derailed by the fighting that broke out between the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Khartoum.
TIMELINE
15 April 2023:
The SAF bases in Khartoum, the nation’s capital, as well as other locations were attacked by the RSF soldiers said that they had taken control of a base at Soba, Merowe Airport, El Obeid Airport, and Khartoum International Airport. Both the RSF and the SAF claimed possession of the Presidential Palace and General al-Burhan’s home, where fights between their forces broke out.
The SAF responded by announcing the shutdown of all airports throughout the nation. And artillery fire could be heard in several areas of the city as the Sudanese Air Force carried out airstrikes on RSF positions in Khartoum.
While Nyala Airport in South Darfur was shelled, fighting broke out in Al-Fashir, the capital of North Darfur state. Fighting with light and heavy weaponry continued in Al-Fashir as RSF troops attempted to take control of the airport and other structures. The airport, as well as the Signal Corps and Medical Corps headquarters in Al-Fashir, were allegedly taken by RSF forces. In Central Darfur, Zalingei saw the start of clashes.
16 April 2023:
To “preserve lives of citizens and their property,” the Khartoum State Security Committee proclaimed a citywide vacation. The SAF claimed that several RSF commanders had deserted or turned themselves in to them while also announcing the rescue of a major general and a brigadier, the arrest of numerous RSF officials at Merowe Airport, and the seizure of the airport itself.
A group of 320 Sudanese troops who were entering the nation from Darfur while evading the RSF were halted and disarmed by the Chadian Army.
An RSF adviser said that 90% of Khartoum is under RSF control while also stating that they strategically withdrew from the Karari camp in Omdurman. The RSF asserted authority over the 16th Infantry Division of the SAF in Nyala.
17 April 2023:
Fighting continued in front of the gates of the army headquarters as clashes resumed in Khartoum, with artillery being heard from both the northern and southern portions of the capital. Fighting was still going on in Omdurman, with the military using fighter jets and the RSF using anti-aircraft missiles. West of the airport at Merowe, fighting broke out.
In Darfur, a US diplomatic convoy came under fire but was able to flee uninjured. Initial reports connected the attackers to the RSF.
18 April 2023:
Fighting resumed in Khartoum when a truce was declared to start later in the day. Fighter planes continued to fly above the capital and launch strikes against what seemed to be RSF positions. To fend off the assaults, the RSF employed powerful artillery and anti-aircraft defense systems. According to reports, armed people have infiltrated a number of Khartoum hospitals. Additionally, medical facilities have reported a lack of medical staff, electricity, and water Fighting appeared to have halted in south Khartoum, according to a report by Al Jazeera, but it was still going on near the presidential palace and the army headquarters in the city.
19 April 2023:
Heavy armament was still being employed in battles in Khartoum close to the army headquarters, the presidential palace, and the airport. The Ministry of the Council of Ministers, the Ministry of the Interior, and the Civil Registry Department are just a few of the government structures that the RSF was able to take control over. The RSF was charged by the SAF with attacking citizens in Merowe, plundering and destroying a market in Khartoum Bahri, and assaulting and attacking individuals in Khartoum and other regions of the country.
Fighting reportedly continued to be intense near the Presidential Palace, Army Headquarters, and the Jabra neighbourhood in west Khartoum, where the homes of RSF leader Dagalo and his family were situated, despite the announcement of a new ceasefire. The fighting was said to have mostly subsided around Khartoum Airport.
20 April 2023:
The RSF said that despite the current truce, it successfully repulsed a SAF attack on its positions in Omdurman that morning by shooting down two helicopters.RSF forces were stopped from entering Khartoum by SAF air and ground forces. Conflicts persisted close to the army headquarters and the presidential palace, according to Al Jazeera. El-Obeid, the state capital of North Kordofan, also reported explosions.
21 April 2023:
Calls for a truce to allow for festivities of Eid al-Fitr were made on the day. Fighting persisted for a seventh day despite calls for unity from the SAF and an agreement to a truce from the RSF and SAF. The RSF charged the SAF with preparing a “sweeping attack” since there were reports of intense shelling and shooting in Khartoum, Khartoum Bahri, and Omdurman.
22-23 April 2023:
In Khartoum, there was still a lot of fighting, especially around the airport and the Presidential Palace. The main highway leaving the capital on the south-east side was also affected by fighting.
Internet connectivity was estimated to be at barely 2 percent of typical levels in Sudan, according to cybersecurity watchdog organisation NetBlocks. It implied that assaults on the electric system were to blame for the power outages.
The RSF claimed to have taken control of two military production facilities: one in Khartoum Bahri and one in the southeast Khartoum neighborhood of Masoudiya. Additionally, it claimed to have shot down a military jet that attacked one of its convoys in Omdurman while it was assisting in the evacuation of French nationals.
24-25 April 2023:
A widespread loss of internet service and decreased connection in Chad, whose internet infrastructure is integrated with Sudan, were the results, according to the SAF, of the RSF allegedly destroying the telecom exchange in Khartoum. It is believed that the RSF targeted communications facilities in an effort to stop the SAF from streaming Sudan TV content online.
According to local accounts, violence persisted in Khartoum and in Geneina, West Darfur, despite the truce. In Omdurman, where a hospital was struck and 12 people were injured, intense artillery fire was reported. According to reports, the RSF captured the West Kordofan state town of Wad Banda. As the SAF accused the RSF of targeting prisoners, there were reports of gunfire at Port Sudan Prison.
The National Public Health Laboratory, which housed dangerous materials such as cholera, measles, and polio pathogens, among others, was taken over by one of the warring sides, which the World Health Organisation did not name, and its staff was forced to leave.
26 April 2023 – 28 April 2023:
The SAF began airstrikes on RSF positions near the Presidential Palace and in Khartoum Bahri despite the existing truce. Fighting persisted in Geneina as well. The RSF said that the SAF attacked its base in the Khartoum Bahri neighbourhood of Kafuri. Despite this, a 72-hour extension of the ceasefire was later granted.
Even if the ceasefire was extended, combat went on in Omdurman, Khartoum Bahri, and Khartoum.
The fuel system of a Turkish evacuation plane that was fired upon at Wadi Seidna Airbase needed to be repaired. There were no known casualties. The SAF claimed responsibility for the incident, which the RSF rejected.
What is in jeopardy for the area, its neighbors, the US, and other countries?
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Sudan’s Federal Health Ministry, as of April 25, at least 559 people had died and more than 4,000 others had been injured. According to the Sudan Doctors Syndicate, 1,848 people were injured and at least 303 civilians were murdered. According to the UN Children’s Fund, the conflict has claimed the lives of at least nine children and injured another 50. Doctors on the ground cautioned that the reported numbers may not include all fatalities because many victims had trouble getting to hospitals. The number of victims “was not small,” according to a representative for the Sudanese Red Crescent.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the UN’s World Health Organisation, further stated that there had been at least 270 fatalities and more than 2,600 injuries since hostilities started, although he did not specify whether the dead were civilians or fighters. According to the WHO, hospitals are running low on essential supplies.
Reminiscing about the earlier times , On April 21, a battle brewing in Sudan is unsettling surrounding nations and troubling the United States and others for reasons ranging from concern over shared Nile waters and oil pipelines to the structure of a new government and the potential for a new humanitarian disaster.
Sudan, which is largely dependent on international help, has experienced violence before. The nation’s capital, which is located in an unsteady area bordering the Red Sea, the Sahel, and the Horn of Africa, is being torn apart this time around as opposed to a remote area.
Ethiopia, Chad, Central African Republic, Libya, and South Sudan are the five of Sudan’s seven neighbours that have recently experienced political unrest or violence.
Significant geopolitical factors are also at play, as the US, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other countries compete for influence in Sudan. The transformation in Sudan has been viewed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as a chance to counteract Islamist influence in the area. They are members of the “Quad,” which also includes the US, Britain, and the UN and has funded mediation in Sudan. Western nations are concerned about the possibility of a Russian facility on the Red Sea, which Sudanese military authorities have said they are open to.
EGYPT – Politics, trade, culture, and the shared Nile waters have all played a part in tying the histories of Sudan and Egypt together. Egypt is the most populous Arab nation and has a strong army. Since the 2019 uprising that ousted Bashir, Cairo has been concerned about political unrest in its southern neighbour. Burhan is friendly with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who similarly won election through a military coup.
LIBYA – Sudanese militia members and mercenaries have participated in both sides of the civil war that tore Libya apart after 2011. Many former Sudanese combatants have recently returned to their home country, raising tensions in western Darfur, where a different conflict raged for years and where violence resumed following an agreement with certain rebel groups in 2020.
Russia – Moscow, which has long coveted warm water ports for its navy, reached an agreement with Bashir for Sudan to serve as the location of a naval facility; however, Sudan’s military authorities have stated that this agreement is still being reviewed. The construction of a Russian naval port in Sudan with the ability to anchor surface ships with nuclear power was given the go-ahead by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2020.
In 2022, Western diplomats in Khartoum claimed that Russia’s Wagner Group was smearing the country’s government and engaged in illegal gold mining there. Two years prior, the US placed sanctions on two Sudanese firms it connected to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Wagner.
THE UNITED STATES AND THE WEST – The United States, like other Western nations, were glad to see Bashir go after the Darfur crisis, for which he was accused by the International Criminal Court of committing genocide and war crimes.
However, detractors claim that Washington took too long to support the transition to elections. The 2021 coup led by Burhan and Hemedti dashed Sudanese dreams for democracy. With neither of the two sides in Khartoum indicating any willingness to make concessions, the most recent violence is predicted to stall any quick transition back to civilian control.
U.S. Embassy personnel left
The advent of violence has prompted other countries to keep an eye on the situation in Sudan and prepare to evacuate and repatriate their citizens. Egypt, which has more than 10,000 citizens living there, and the United States, which has more than 16,000 citizens living there, the majority of them are dual nationalities, are two nations with significant numbers of expats in Sudan.
The White House said that the U.S. will be “temporarily suspending operations” at its embassy after the U.S. military safely but hastilly evacuated less than 90 diplomatic staff members, including the ambassador.
How many Americans are in Sudan is still a mystery, but according to The Associated Press, the American embassy has registered about 16,000 of them there.
According to American Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the administration would “continue to coordinate with allies and partners who are conducting their own operations and to leverage those efforts to include Americans.”
Other evacuations were carried out through airlifts or land crossings, with the direct assistance of the troops of certain home nations, from diplomatic offices and other authorised sites. The port of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and Djibouti, which is home to military installations for the United States, China, Japan, France, and other European nations, are two significant transit hubs that were utilised during the evacuation.
Background
Foreign invasions and resistance, ethnic tensions, religious disagreements, and rivalry for resources have all played a role in Sudan’s history of wars. Two civil wars between the central government and the southern regions resulted in the deaths of 1.5 million people in modern times, and a protracted conflict in the western area of Darfur has resulted in the displacement of two million people and the deaths of over 200,000 people. Sudan has seen more than fifteen military takeovers since gaining independence in 1956, and it has been governed primarily by the military with only occasional intervals of democratic civilian parliamentary government.
