After months of tension, fighting broke out on Saturday morning between soldiers of the regular army and the FSR, the militia of the number 2 of the Transition General Hemedti. The provisional toll, announced this Sunday morning by the doctors’ union, is 56 dead among civilians, dozens more among belligerents and several hundred injured.
Day broke in Khartoum to the sound of Dushka machine guns and artillery fire. All night, the explosions continued, like a thunderstorm in the background, to shake the windows, reports our correspondent in Khartoum, Elliott Brachet. The inhabitants of the capital have not slept a wink, caulked at home. Only soldiers fight in the streets.
This Sunday morning, the clashes seem to have redoubled in intensity, mainly located on the military bases which surround Khartoum in the South, North and West. But also in the heart of the capital, around the headquarters of the army from which plumes of smoke escape.
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Reinforcements for the FSR this Sunday morning
The conflict has spread to many towns, to Port-Sudan and Kassala in eastern Sudan, to El-Obeid in the centre, and still to Darfur in the big towns. General Hemedti said it yesterday: his paramilitary troops will not stop until they have control of all the military bases in the country. Several reports indicate that the RSF received reinforcements this morning in Khartoum. An army fighter jet carried out strikes this morning.
It was in 2013 that the FSR were created in Darfur by former President Omar el-Bashir. It is then a question of using janjawid militias against rebel groups. But these paramilitaries have grown, as explained by Roland Marchal, researcher at Sciences Po Paris on Sudan, at the microphone of Gaëlle Laleix, of the Africa editorial staff.
” The military created the RSF [Rapid support forces, NDLR], and in the rest of the decade of the 2010s – thanks in particular to the United Arab Emirates and the war in Yemen – there was a much greater empowerment of these paramilitary forces which were used in different conflicts, with the agreement of the president Sudanese Omar al-Bashir, particularly in Yemen and then even in Libya in their support for General Haftar. This economic empowerment has made this force… grow. Today, it is estimated at more than 110,000 men. It’s really a second army, and obviously, its leader, acquiring both a much larger military profile and a much larger economic surface, decided that it was perhaps necessary to engage in politics. It’s not so much that we have to do with a great sincere democrat, it’s above all someone who sees his political space increasingly restricted and who knows that his political and economic survival will be much more linked to a transition to civilian power, than to maintaining a dysfunctional junta that allows nothing at all. »
The command of the regular forces continues to communicate claiming that victory is near, General al-Burhan appeared on Saturday evening saluting his troops in the streets. But it is a propaganda war that is launched. Everything can change very quickly. In view of their antagonistic declarations, the two generals -Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Hemedti, former allies during the 2021- coup seem to have engaged in a fight to the death. The two notably disagree on how to integrate the RSF into the army. Provision provided for in the future political agreement supposed to eventually return power to civilians. agreement of which the signature has been postponed indefinitely
International concern, Arab League meeting
On Saturday, calls for a cessation of hostilities multiplied from the United Nations, the United States, Russia, the European Union and neighboring countries. Chad thus closed its border with Sudan on Saturday evening.
The Arab League announced an emergency meeting this Sunday in Cairo, at the request of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Cairo expressed its deep concern. Egyptian soldiers were taken prisoner by the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces while they were taking part in aerial maneuvers with the Sudanese air force, reports our correspondent in Cairo, Alexandre Buccianti. ” Egyptian military are invaders and therefore prisoners of war: this is what officers of the Rapid Support Force (FSR) said in a video showing Egyptian soldiers being mistreated at the Sudanese airport of Meroe.
Egyptian Mig 29s which were taking part in aerial maneuvers were sabotaged on the airport runway. Egypt’s military spokesman said the Armed Forces are following the worrying events in Sudan very closely. A few hours later, the head of the Rapid Support Force, General Hemedti declared that the Egyptian soldiers were not detained and regretted the publication of the video of their arrest. A statement aimed at preventing Egypt from becoming a party to the conflict between the Rapid Support Force and the Sudanese army. Many voices, especially on Egyptian social media, are calling for ” revenge through a military operation.