“It’s an all-out war in the streets,” says a prominent rights advocate in Sudan’s Omdurman city and Khartoum
Sudan’s military and paramilitary groups battled for control of the nation for a second day Sunday despite mounting diplomatic pressure to end the fighting.
The Preliminary Committee of Sudanese Doctors trade union says that at least 97 people have been killed. Earlier on Sunday, the World Health Organization estimated more than 1,126 were injured.
The pair had worked together to topple ousted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in 2019, and played a pivotal role in the military coup in 2021, which ended a power-sharing agreement between the military and civilian groups.
There were intense battles in the city of Omdurman and the capital of Khartoum early Sunday morning, said a prominent rights advocate.
She said from her house that the battles had not stopped. “They are shooting against each other in the streets. It’s an all-out war in residential areas.”
Abass said her family spent the night huddling on the ground floor of their home. Everyone was too exhausted to sleep and the children were too upset to sleep. Sounds of gunfire were heard while she was speaking to The Associated Press.
The Sudanese Security Council and the Secretary of State of State urged an end of the hostilities in the wake of Bashir’s coup
The military and the RSF both claimed to be in control of strategic locations in Khartoum and elsewhere in the county. Their claims couldn’t be independently verified.
In 2007, its troops became part of the country’s intelligence services and, in 2013, Bashir created the RSF, a paramilitary group overseen by him and led by Dagalo. Bashir was turned against by a man in 2019.
Top diplomats, including the U.S. Secretary of State, the U.N. secretary-general, the EU foreign policy chief, the head of the Arab League and the head of the African Union Commission urged the sides to stop fighting. Members of the U.N. Security Council, at odds over other crises around the world, called for an immediate end of the hostilities and a return to dialogue.
The secretary of state consulted with the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia. “We agreed it was essential for the parties to immediately end hostilities without pre-condition,” he said in a statement early Sunday.
Months before the coup that unseated Bashir in April 2019, Dagalo’s forces opened fire on an anti-Bashir, pro-democracy sit-in in Khartoum, killing at least 118 people.
Eyewitnesses in Khartoum told CNN on Monday they heard mortars and artillery in the early hours of the morning, with the fighting intensifying after dawn prayers in the direction of Khartoum International Airport and Sudanese Army garrison sites.
CNN spoke to people in the neighborhoods east of the airport who said they had seen warplanes bombing sites. After we saw explosions and smoke rising from obaid kham street, anti-aircraft weapons fired towards the planes.
NPR’s Up First coverage of the Sudan war and the role of the civilian army in tackling the war in the 21st century
The WHO said hospitals were suffering shortages of specialized medical personnel, including anesthesiologists. Water and power cuts are affecting the functioning of health facilities and there are shortages of fuel for hospital generators, according to the WHO.
He thought that the army chief and his rival had lost control of the military. When asked if his endgame was to rule Sudan, Dagalo said he had “no such intentions,” and that there should be a civilian government.
NPR’s Emmanuel Akinwotu described on Up First a “nightmare” for civilians, where “places they used to eat, buy groceries, see family and friends have basically been turned into a battlefield right before their eyes.”
“All we can hear is continuous blast after blast. What exactly is happening and where we don’t know, but it feels like it’s directly over our heads,” they wrote.
There was limited access to information, and the national TV channel is no longer on the air. Television employees said it is in the hands of the RSF.
U.S. response to the Sudan conflict: Warring factions in a new warring region, and a proposal to return to civilian leadership
The conflict has put other countries and organizations on high alert, with the United Nations’ World Food Program temporarily halting all operations in Sudan after three employees were killed in clashes on Saturday.
The aid agency said that the UN and other facilities in Darfur have been looted, as well as a WFP managed plane that was seriously damaged by gunfire in Khartoum.
Mexico is working to come up with a solution to evacuate its citizens from Sudan, according to the country’s foreign minister.
The United States embassy in Sudan said Sunday there were no plans for a government-coordinated evacuation yet for Americans in the country, citing the closure of the Khartoum airport. If there is an need to evacuate private US citizens, it would make an announcement, and advise US citizens to stay indoors and shelter in place.
The fresh clashes have prompted widespread calls for peace and negotiations. The head of the African Union Commission is going to Sudan on Monday in an attempt to stop the fighting.
The people in Sudan want the military back in the barracks and a civilian-led government. Sudan needs to return to that path,” Blinken said, speaking on the sidelines of the G7 foreign minister talks in Japan on Monday.
The UN’s political mission in Sudan has said the country’s two warring factions have agreed to a “proposal” although it is not yet clear what that entails.
The Battle of Khartoum: The Case for a Resolution of the Sudan’s Armed Forces and Military Power: Akinwotu’s Case
“There’s heavy gunfire all over the city. Military jets are over us all the time. There’s a small market nearby but there’s a shortage in food. And you can’t go out,” she told Up First on Monday.
The relationship didn’t define who would end up being on top. There is a fight to the death for who is going to win in Sudan and who should remain in power.
Feltman says Sudan’s effort toward democracy, which had been galvanized by widespread protests, was effectively derailed in October 2021 when the civilian government was overthrown and Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and his cabinet were jailed by the military leadership.
During civilian protests and coups in Sudan, it is common for authorities to shut down internet access across the country. That has not happened this time, and Akinwotu’s reporting suggests that is because there’s a propaganda war going on, as well, and for that, both sides need the internet.
The cease-fire should not be used as a basis to divvy up the spoils of power, says Dennis Feltman, a Visiting Fellow at the John C. Whitehead Visiting Fellow in International Diplomacy in the Foreign Policy program.
The leaders of the opposing sides blamed each other for inciting the fighting that has engulfed the country.
Some patients were left behind when staff at Al-Moallem hospital were forced to evacuate because of intense shelling.
It’s unclear whether the RSF has taken control of the hospital as it attempts to take over the nearby army headquarters, a flashpoint in Khartoum’s violence.
A 6-year-old child died in the building, one medic said. The two children were in critical condition. As the shelling intensified, medics and patients huddled together in the corridor and prayed.
At first we were praying for salvation,” the medic said. When the shelling got worse we began to discuss the part of the body that would be painless to shoot and pray to die painlessly.
A third medic said there wasn’t water or electricity in the hospital. “None of our equipment was working, a woman sheltering with us had a two-day-old baby. I have no idea what happened to her.
“Food in the fridge and freezers have gone bad,” Eman Abu Garjah, a Sudanese-British doctor based in Khartoum, told CNN. “We don’t have any supplies at the moment, that’s why we’re trying to go somewhere where the shops are open.”
“It’s Ramadan, we’re up for early morning prayers and after that usually you have a little bit of a siesta and wake up again for the afternoon prayers. It was not possible to sleep. The windows were shaking as the house rattled.
Burhan, the Janjaweed leader of Sudan’s military headquarters, and the smuggle of gold out of Sudan in the 21st century
They were allies until recently. The duo played a crucial role in the military coup that resulted in the removal of Sudanese President al- Bashir in 2019.
“Yesterday and today a humanitarian ceasefire proposal was put forward and agreed upon,” said Burhan from army headquarters, as gunshots rang out in the background.
He said that he did not abide by the ceasefire. There were attempts to storm the Army headquarters and indiscriminate mortar attacks. He’s using the humanitarian pause to continue the fight.”
“We’re under attack from all directions,” Dagalo told CNN’s Larry Madowo in a telephone interview on Sunday. “We stopped fighting and the other side did not, which put us in a predicament and we had to keep fighting to defend ourselves,” he claimed.
During Sudan’s Darfur conflict, starting in the early 2000s, he was the leader of Sudan’s notorious Janjaweed forces, implicated in human rights violations and atrocities.
There is alarm at the current violence in Sudan. There are other motives at play and the country is resource-rich and strategically located. CNN reported on how the military leaders from Russia colluded to smuggle gold out of Sudan.