In Sudan, the paramilitaries of General Mohammed Hamdan Dogolo, known as Hemedti, continue their advance. After taking control of a large part of Darfur, on June 20, 2024 they seized the town of el-Fula, the capital of West Kordofan. In particular, they took control of the main buildings.
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After just a few hours of fighting early Thursday morning, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s army withdrew from the town of el-Fula, leaving it in the hands of General Hemedti’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who immediately took control of main installations, including the army headquarters and the seat of the provincial government. And the RSF subsequently appointed and installed a new governor of West Kordofan, one of the 18 states that make up the Sudan.
There is therefore a desire to take administrative control of the region, as they did for Darfur: the paramilitaries in fact control all the capitals of the four states of Darfur except that of el-Fasher, the capital. of North Darfur which has still not fallen into their hands after more than a month of fighting.
A symbolic and strategic take
El-Fula is a highly symbolic capture: the RSF can say that they control one more state, that they are winning the war. And above all, in West Kordofan, there is the Abyei region, a territory whose status is contested and which includes the largest concentration of oil fields in the region.
As a reminder, the war which has pitted the army, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, against the paramilitaries of his former deputy, General Mohamed Hamdane Dogolo, since April 15, 2023, has left tens of thousands dead and caused the displacement of more than nine million people, according to the UN, in this country in northeast Africa.
“ Sudan is scarred by one of the worst crises the world has seen in decades and the humanitarian response is deeply inadequate », MSF international president Christos Christou said on X. “ There are extreme levels of suffering across the country and the needs are growing by the day “, he added.
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