by tyler | Apr 18, 2023 | africa, CNN
Gunfire, explosions and overhead fighter jets were heard across Sudan’s capital Khartoum on Tuesday, as gunmen reportedly stormed the homes of people working for the United Nations and other international organizations, amid conflicting reports of an agreed ceasefire in the country.
Fighting between the country’s armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) is in its fourth day in Khartoum both near the army command and the presidential palace, and close to two RSF bases to the north and west of the capital.
Residents remain trapped in the middle elsewhere in Sudan; 11 people were killed in the western region of North Darfur and dozens injured, including children, over the past 48 hours, medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières said. On Monday, UN officials said at least 180 people had been killed and 1,800 others injured.
Armed personnel raided the homes of UN staff and employees of other international organizations in downtown Khartoum, according to reports in an internal UN document seen by CNN.
According to the document, the gunmen sexually assaulted women and stole belongings including cars. “In Khartoum armed uniformed personnel, reportedly from RSF, are entering the residences of expats, separating men and women and taking them away,” reads the report. One incident of rape was also reported.
The RSF denied those reports, telling CNN in a statement that it “will never assault any UN staff or employees. RSF is very mindful of respecting international law.”
The statement went on to blame the opposing side in the fighting, led by Sudan’s military leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan: “That is the new desperate way of Burhan’s army of fighting. They supply their people RSF uniform clothing so they can commit crimes against civilians and embassies and other groups including the UN so the image and perspective of RSF can be damaged to everyone, international and local.”
Sudan’s Armed Forces (SAF) denied their troops were involved in the violations and pointed to a previous statement regarding crimes against humanity allegedly committed by RSF forces.
Khartoum has been wracked by violence and chaos in a bloody tussle for power between Burhan, Sudan’s military chief, and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, who is head of the RSF.
The two leaders have traded blame for instigating the fighting and breaking temporary ceasefires.
Meanwhile, tense efforts to establish a ceasefire have ramped up despite confusion over whether one will be upheld.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called for an “immediate cessation to hostilities in Sudan,” in a statement released Tuesday.
The statement says Türk “pleaded” with the rival forces to return to the negotiating table. Türk appealed to the clashing forces to consider the impact on the civilians living in Sudan who “only crave a peaceful life.”
For more than three days, students at the University of Khartoum have been trapped inside campus buildings as artillery and gunfire rain down around them in Sudan’s capital. “It is scary that our country will turn into a battlefield overnight,” said 23-year-old Al-Muzaffar Farouk, one of 89 students, faculty members and staff sheltering inside the university library.
Food and water are running low, but leaving is not an option – one student has already been killed by gunfire outside. Khalid Abdulmun’em had been trying to run to the library from a nearby building when he was struck, said Farouk.
The students retrieved his body and brought it inside “despite the bullets that were falling on us,” he added.
The university confirmed Abdulmun’em’s death in a Facebook post, saying he had been shot in the campus’ surroundings. In a separate post on Monday, the university urged humanitarian organizations to help evacuate dozens of people stranded on campus.
Eyewitnesses described the scenes across the Sudanese capital.
“I can see outside smoke rising from buildings. And I can hear from my residence blasts, heavy gunfire from outside. The streets are totally empty,” said Red Cross staffer Germain Mwehu from Khartoum.
“In the building where I stay, I saw families with children, children crying when there are airstrikes, children horrified,” Mwehu said, adding that people had little to no access to food or medicine given the fierce fighting outside.
Children are among those killed; a 6-year-old child died on Monday after the RSF shelled a hospital in Khartoum and damaged a maternity ward. Medics were forced to evacuate, leaving patients behind – some just newborns in incubators.
At least half a dozen hospitals have been struck by both warring sides, according to Sudan’s Doctors Trade Union.
Multiple diplomats and humanitarian workers have been targeted.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed there was an attack on a US diplomatic convoy on Monday.
“Yesterday, we had an American diplomatic convoy that was fired on. All of our people are safe, but this the action was reckless, it was irresponsible and, of course, unsafe,” Blinken said in a press conference on Tuesday.
The European Union ambassador to Sudan was also assaulted in his residency on Monday, though he is now doing fine, according to a spokesperson for the EU’s top diplomat.
And three workers from the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) were killed in Darfur, prompting the WFP to temporarily halt all services in the country.
In statements early Tuesday morning, the two rival factions pointed fingers at each other.
The RSF accused the army of conducting airstrikes on residential neighborhoods and of attacking the EU ambassador’s headquarters in Khartoum; meanwhile, the army accused the RSF of targeting the ambassador’s residency, and of targeting the WFP’s headquarters in Darfur.
Various foreign leaders have called for peace, with Blinken speaking separately with Burhan and Dagalo on Tuesday.
Blinken “expressed his grave concern about the death and injury of so many Sudanese civilians,” and argued a ceasefire was necessary to deliver aid, reunify separated families, and ensure the safety of diplomatic and humanitarian staff, according to a readout from the US State Department.
And Egypt has been “in direct communication with both parties” encouraging restraint, cessation of hostilities and a return to dialogue,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told CNN’s Christina Macfarlane in an exclusive interview Tuesday.
The Sudanese Armed Forces later issued conflicting statements on a proposed 24-hour ceasefire, intended to go into effect later on Tuesday.
A statement citing a spokesperson on the official SAF Facebook page said the armed forces are “not aware of any coordination with mediators and the international community about a truce” and that the RSF announcement for a 24-hour truce “aims to cover up the crushing defeat it will receive within hours.”
But Burhan told CNN earlier that the SAF will “adhere” to a ceasefire proposal by the tripartite mechanism, comprising of the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS), the African Union (AU), and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD).
Dagalo meanwhile said on Twitter that a 24-hour ceasefire “to ensure the safe passage of civilians and the evacuation of the wounded” was approved by the paramilitary force.
Volker Perthes, the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Sudan, said on Monday the organization has been trying to convince the two rival parties to “hold the fire” for a period of time, and asked them to protect embassies, UN offices, humanitarian and medical facilities.
Both sides had previously agreed to a three-hour ceasefire on Sunday, and again on Monday, with fighting resuming afterward, Perthes said.
But both Burhan and Dagalo have since accused the other of breaking that ceasefire.
When CNN spoke to Burhan on Monday afternoon, the sound of gunshots rang out in the background despite the supposed ceasefire – and Burhan claimed Dagalo had violated it for the second day.
A spokesperson for the RSF rebutted the accusation, claiming that they had been trying to abide by the ceasefire, but “they keep firing which leaves no choice” but for the RSF to “defend itself by firing back.”
by tyler | Apr 18, 2023 | africa, CNN
As fighting between warring factions has engulfed Sudan in recent days, hospitals treating people wounded in clashes have themselves become the targets for attacks, dealing the nation’s healthcare sector a devastating blow.
In one episode, five eyewitnesses told CNN that the paramilitary group battling Sudan’s military for control of the country besieged and shelled a hospital in the capital Khartoum on Sunday, leaving at least one child dead and sending panicked medical staff fleeing for their lives.
The leaders of the opposing sides, Sudan’s military leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy and paramilitary chief Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, have traded blame for instigating the fighting that has spread across the country since Saturday. Burhan has accused Dagalo of staging an “attempted coup”; Dagolo has in turn called Burhan a “criminal.”
But at al-Moallem hospital in central Khartoum, where intense shelling forced staffers to evacuate, leaving some patients behind, witnesses said they have little doubt about what happened.
“I have no doubt that they deliberately targeted the hospital,” said one medic who evacuated the hospital on Sunday after Dagalo’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) laid siege to it. CNN is not using any of the real names of the hospital medics in this article for safety reasons.
The hospital is meters away from Sudan’s army headquarters, which the RSF has made repeated attempts to take over. Medics said it was treating scores of wounded army soldiers and their families. The hospital’s maternity ward was struck in the shelling, causing a wall there to collapse, according to hospital employees.
A 6-year-old child died in the building, one medic said. Two other children were seriously wounded. As the shelling intensified, medics and patients huddled together in the corridor and prayed.
At first we were praying for salvation,” the medic said. “Then when the shelling got worse, we started to discuss what would be the most painless part of the body to be shot in and began to pray instead to die painlessly.”
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.
“The evacuation was chaos,” the medic said. “I thought I was going to vomit. I was stumbling and falling on the ground.”
“Can you believe that we left the hospital and left behind children in incubators and patients in intensive care without any medical personnel,” another medic said. “The smell of death was everywhere.”
“There was no electricity, no water there inside the hospital,” said a third medic. “None of our equipment was working, a woman sheltering with us had a two-day-old baby. I don’t even know what happened to her.”
At least half a dozen hospitals have been struck by both warring sides, according to Sudan’s Doctors Trade Union.
“Sudan’s hospitals under fire,” the Central Committee of Sudan doctors said in a statement on its Facebook page, warning of the potential collapse of the health sector if clashes continue.
“Most of the large and specialized hospitals are out of service as a result of being forcibly evacuated by the conflicting military forces or being targeted by bombing and others. Some other hospitals have been cut off from human and medical supplies, water and electricity,” the committee said.
Doctors Without Borders said its teams were “trapped by the ongoing heavy fighting and are unable to access warehouses to deliver vital medical supplies to hospitals,” and that its premises in Nyala, South Sarfur, had been looted.
Food, water and power shortages are rampant as Sudan has endured a third day of fighting, that has spread from Khartoum across the nation.
“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.”
“The planes were flying overhead earlier in the day. They didn’t just wake us up, they prevented us from going back to sleep,” she said.
“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. But sleep was just not possible. The house was rattling and the windows were shaking.”
Until recently, Dagalo and Burhan were allies. The pair worked together to topple ousted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in 2019 and played a pivotal role in the military coup in 2021.
However, tensions arose during recent negotiations to integrate the RSF into the country’s military as part of plans to restore civilian rule.
In an interview with CNN on Monday, Burhan accused Dagalo of attempting to “capture and kill” him during an attempt by the paramilitary leader to seize the presidential palace.
In response to the allegation, an RSF spokesperson called Burhan, “a wanted fugitive.”
“We are seeking to capture him and bringing him to justice. We are fighting for all Sudanese people,” the RSF spokesperson said.
Burhan also accused the RSF of breaking a proposed ceasefire on Sunday and Monday.
“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.
“Sadly, he did not abide by (the ceasefire),” he added. “You can hear right now the attempts to storm the Army headquarters, and indiscriminate mortar attacks. He’s using the humanitarian pause to continue the fight.”
The RSF denies that it broke ceasefire.
It is unclear how much control the RSF has wrested from the country’s military. Dagalo claims he now controls the country’s main military sites, a claim repeatedly disputed by Burhan.
“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.
The RSF is the preeminent paramilitary group in Sudan, whose leader, Dagalo, has enjoyed a rapid rise to power.
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.
An international outcry saw ex-President Bashir formalize the group into paramilitary forces known as the Border Intelligence Units.
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. Dagalo turned against Bashir in 2019.
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.
He was later appointed deputy of the transitional Sovereign Council that ruled Sudan in partnership with civilian leadership.
International powers have expressed alarm at the current violence in Sudan. Apart from concerns over civilians there are likely other motivations at play, the country is resource-rich and strategically located. CNN has previously reported on how Russia has colluded with its military leaders to smuggle gold out of Sudan.
by tyler | Apr 17, 2023 | africa, CNN
Sudan’s paramilitary forces besieged and shelled a hospital in central Khartoum on Sunday, five eyewitnesses told CNN, as fighting between militants and the country’s military claimed nearly 100 lives over the weekend.
The leaders of the opposing sides, Sudan’s military leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy and paramilitary chief Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, have traded blame for the instigating the fighting that has engulfed the country.
Burhan has accused Dagalo of staging an “attempted coup and rebellion against the state.”
Witnesses have little doubt about what happened at Al-Moallem hospital, where intense shelling forced staffers to evacuate, leaving some patients behind.
“I have no doubt that they deliberately targeted the hospital,” said one medic who evacuated the hospital on Sunday after Dagalo’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) laid siege to it. CNN is not using any of the real names of the hospital medics in this article for safety reasons.
The hospital is meters away from Sudan’s army headquarters, and medics said it was treating scores of wounded soldiers and their families. The hospital’s maternity ward was struck in the shelling, causing a wall there to collapse, according to hospital employees.
A 6-year-old child died in the building, one medic said. Two other children were seriously wounded. As the shelling intensified, medics and patients huddled together in the corridor and prayed.
At first we were praying for salvation,” the medic said. “Then when the shelling got worse, we started to discuss what would be the most painless part of the body to be shot in and began to pray instead to die painlessly.”
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.
“The evacuation was chaos,” the medic said. “I thought I was going to vomit. I was stumbling and falling on the ground.”
“Can you believe that we left the hospital and left behind children in incubators and patients in intensive care without any medical personnel,” another medic said. “The smell of death was everywhere.”
“There was no electricity, no water there inside the hospital,” said a third medic. “None of our equipment was working, a woman sheltering with us had a two-day-old baby. I don’t even know what happened to her.”
At least half a dozen hospitals have been struck by both warring sides, according to Sudan’s Doctors Trade Union.
“For the second day in a row, amid the absurd and bloody fighting between the People’s Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, there is a large number of deaths and moderate and critical injuries,” the Central Committee of Sudan Doctors said in a statement posted overnight.
Food, water and power shortages are rampant as Sudan has endured a third day of fighting, that has spread from Khartoum across the nation.
“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.”
“The planes were flying overhead earlier in the day. They didn’t just wake us up, they prevented us from going back to sleep,” she said.
“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. But sleep was just not possible. The house was rattling and the windows were shaking.”
Until recently, Dagalo and Burhan were allies. The pair worked together to topple ousted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in 2019 and played a pivotal role in the military coup in 2021.
However, tensions arose during recent negotiations to integrate the RSF into the country’s military as part of plans to restore civilian rule.
In an interview with CNN on Monday, Burhan accused Dagalo of attempting to “capture and kill” him during an attempt by the paramilitary leader to seize the presidential palace.
In response to the allegation, an RSF spokesperson called Burhan, “a wanted fugitive.”
“We are seeking to capture him and bringing him to justice. We are fighting for all Sudanese people,” the RSF spokesperson said.
Burhan also accused the RSF of breaking a proposed ceasefire on Sunday and Monday.
“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.
“Sadly, he did not abide by (the ceasefire),” he added. “You can hear right now the attempts to storm the Army headquarters, and indiscriminate mortar attacks. He’s using the humanitarian pause to continue the fight.”
The RSF denies that it broke ceasefire.
It is unclear how much control the RSF has wrested from the country’s military. Dagalo claims he now controls the country’s main military sites, a claim repeatedly disputed by Burhan.
“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.
The RSF is the preeminent paramilitary group in Sudan, whose leader, Dagalo, has enjoyed a rapid rise to power.
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.
An international outcry saw ex-President Bashir formalize the group into paramilitary forces known as the Border Intelligence Units.
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. Dagalo turned against Bashir in 2019.
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.
He was later appointed deputy of the transitional Sovereign Council that ruled Sudan in partnership with civilian leadership.
International powers have expressed alarm at the current violence in Sudan. Apart from concerns over civilians there are likely other motivations at play, the country is resource-rich and strategically located. CNN has previously reported on how Russia has colluded with its military leaders to smuggle gold out of Sudan.
by tyler | Apr 17, 2023 | africa, CNN
Sudan’s military leader condemned what he called an “attempted coup” after a day of intense fighting left close to 100 people dead in the country and saw hospitals coming under attack from missiles as they battled to save lives.
Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who is involved in a bloody tussle for power that has gripped Sudan for three days, told CNN that the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) is leading “an attempted coup and rebellion against the state.”
Clashes first erupted Saturday between the country’s military and the RSF, led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, who told CNN on Sunday the army had broken a UN-brokered temporary humanitarian ceasefire.
Burhan, who alongside Dagalo ousted Sudan’s long-time leader Omar al-Bashir in 2019 and played a key role in the military coup two years later, said his former ally had “mutinied” against the state, and if captured, would be tried in court of law.
On Monday, residents in the capital Khartoum endured sounds of artillery and bombardment by warplanes with eyewitnesses telling CNN they heard mortars in the early hours. The fighting intensifying after dawn prayers in the direction of Khartoum International Airport and Sudanese Army garrison sites.
Hospitals in the country – which are short of blood supplies and life-saving equipment – are being targeted with military strikes by both the Army and the RSF, according to eyewitness accounts to CNN and two doctors’ organizations, leaving medical personnel unable to reach the wounded and to bury the dead.
One doctor at a Khartoum hospital – whom CNN is not naming for security reasons – said his facility has been targeted since Saturday. “A direct strike hit the maternity ward. We could hear heavy weaponry and lay on the floor, along with our patients. The hospital itself was under attack.”
CNN has reached out to the Sudanese military and the RSF for comment.
Another doctor at the same al-Moallem Hospital told CNN that hospital staff stayed on site under bombardment from the RSF for two days, before being evacuated by the Sudanese military. “We were living in a real battle,” the doctor said. “Can you believe that we left the hospital and left behind children in incubators and patients in intensive care without any medical personnel? I can’t believe that I survived dying at the hospital, where the smell of death is everywhere.”
The sound of gunshots rang out in the background as Burhan spoke to CNN on Monday, despite an agreed-on ceasefire at 4 p.m. local time (10 a.m. ET). He claimed that for a second day, the RSF’s leader had violated that agreed ceasefire.
“Yesterday and today a humanitarian ceasefire proposal was put forward and agreed upon. Sadly, he did not abide by it. You can hear right now the attempts to storm the Army headquarters, and indiscriminate mortar attacks. He’s using the humanitarian pause to continue the fight,” he said.
When asked about that allegation, a spokesperson for the RSF told CNN that the RSF was trying to abide by the ceasefire, but “they keep firing which leaves no choice” but for the RSF to “defend itself by firing back.”
Hemedti said Monday his group will pursue the leader of Sudan’s Armed Forces Abdel Fattah al-Burhan “and bring him to justice,” while Sudan’s army called on paramilitary fighters to defect and join the armed forces.
Verified video footage shows military jets and helicopters hitting the airport; other clips show the charred remains of the army’s General Command building nearby after it was engulfed in fire on Sunday.
Residents in neighborhoods east of the airport told CNN they saw warplanes bombing sites east of the command. “We saw explosions and smoke rising from Obaid Khatim Street, and immediately after that, anti-aircraft artillery fired massively towards the planes,” one eyewitness said.
Amid the chaos, both parties to the fighting are working to portray a sense of control in the capital. The armed forces said Monday the Rapid Support Forces are circulating “lies to mislead the public,” reiterating the army have “full control of all of their headquarters” in the capital Khartoum.
Sudan’s national state television channel came back on air on Monday, a day after going dark, and is broadcasting messages in support of the army.
A banner on the channel said “the armed forces were able to regain control of the national broadcaster after repeated attempts by the militias to destroy its infrastructure.” Although the armed forces appear to have control of the television signal, CNN cannot independently verify that the army is in physical control of the Sudan TV premises.
A banner on the channel said “the armed forces were able to regain control of the national broadcaster after repeated attempts by the militias to destroy its infrastructure.”
In the Kafouri area, north of Khartoum, clashes and street fights broke out at dawn Monday, prompting residents to begin evacuating women and children from the area, Sudanese journalist Fathi Al-Ardi wrote on Facebook. In the Kalakla area, south of the capital, residents reported the walls of their houses shaking from explosions.
Reports also emerged of battles hundreds of miles away in the eastern city of Port Sudan and the western Darfur region over the weekend.
As of Monday, at least 97 people have been killed, according to the Preliminary Committee of Sudanese Doctors trade union. Earlier on Sunday, the World Health Organization estimated more than 1,126 were injured.
The WHO has warned that doctors and nurses are struggling to reach people in need of urgent care, and are lacking essential supplies.
“Supplies distributed by WHO to health facilities prior to this recent escalation of conflict are now exhausted, and many of the nine hospitals in Khartoum receiving injured civilians are reporting shortages of blood, transfusion equipment, intravenous fluids, medical supplies, and other life-saving commodities,” the organization said on Sunday.
Water and power cuts are affecting the functionality of health facilities, and shortages of fuel for hospital generators are also being reported,” the WHO added.
In the CNN interview, Dagalo blamed the military for starting the conflict and claimed RSF “had to keep fighting to defend ourselves.”
He speculated that the army chief and his rival, al-Burhan, 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.
Amid the fighting, civilians have been warned to stay indoors. One local resident tweeted that they were “trapped inside our own homes with little to no protection at all.”
“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.
Access to information is also limited, with the government-owned national TV channel now off the air. Television employees told CNN that it is in the hands of the RSF.
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.
UN and other humanitarian facilities in Darfur have been looted, while a WFP-managed aircraft was seriously damaged by gunfire in Khartoum, impeding the WFP’s ability to transport aid and workers within the country, the international aid agency said.
Qatar Airways announced Sunday it was temporarily suspending flights to and from Khartoum due to the closure of its airport and airspace.
On Sunday, Dagalo told CNN the RSF was in control of the airport, as well as several other government buildings in the capital.
Meanwhile, Mexico is working to evacuate its citizens from Sudan, with the country’s foreign minister saying Sunday it is looking to “expedite” their exit.
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. It advised US citizens to stay indoors and shelter in place, adding that it would make an announcement “if evacuation of private US citizens becomes necessary.”
by tyler | Apr 17, 2023 | africa, CNN
Intense fighting has gripped Sudan for a third day and hospitals are under attack from missiles as they battle to save lives, amid a bloody tussle for power that has left close to 100 people dead and injured hundreds more.
Clashes first erupted Saturday between the country’s military and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, who told CNN on Sunday the army had broken a UN-brokered temporary humanitarian ceasefire.
On Monday, residents in the capital Khartoum endured sounds of artillery and bombardment by warplanes with eyewitnesses telling CNN they heard mortars in the early hours. The fighting intensifying after dawn prayers in the direction of Khartoum International Airport and Sudanese Army garrison sites.
Hospitals in the country – which are short of blood supplies and life-saving equipment – are being targeted with military strikes by both the Army and the RSF, according to eyewitness accounts to CNN and two doctors’ organizations, leaving medical personnel unable to reach the wounded and to bury the dead.
One doctor at a Khartoum hospital – whom CNN is not naming for security reasons – said his facility has been targeted since Saturday. “A direct strike hit the maternity ward. We could hear heavy weaponry and lay on the floor, along with our patients. The hospital itself was under attack.”
CNN has reached out to the Sudanese military and the RSF for comment.
Another doctor at the same al-Moallem Hospital told CNN that hospital staff stayed on site under bombardment from the RSF for two days, before being evacuated by the Sudanese military. “We were living in a real battle,” the doctor said. “Can you believe that we left the hospital and left behind children in incubators and patients in intensive care without any medical personnel? I can’t believe that I survived dying at the hospital, where the smell of death is everywhere.”
Hemedti said Monday his group will pursue the leader of Sudan’s Armed Forces Abdel Fattah al-Burhan “and bring him to justice,” while Sudan’s army called on paramilitary fighters to defect and join the armed forces.
Verified video footage shows military jets and helicopters hitting the airport; other clips show the charred remains of the army’s General Command building nearby after it was engulfed in fire on Sunday.
Residents in neighborhoods east of the airport told CNN they saw warplanes bombing sites east of the command. “We saw explosions and smoke rising from Obaid Khatim Street, and immediately after that, anti-aircraft artillery fired massively towards the planes,” one eyewitness said.
Amid the chaos, both parties to the fighting are working to portray a sense of control in the capital. The armed forces said Monday the Rapid Support Forces are circulating “lies to mislead the public,” reiterating the army have “full control of all of their headquarters” in the capital Khartoum.
Sudan’s national state television channel came back on air on Monday, a day after going dark, and is broadcasting messages in support of the army.
A banner on the channel said “the armed forces were able to regain control of the national broadcaster after repeated attempts by the militias to destroy its infrastructure.” Although the armed forces appear to have control of the television signal, CNN cannot independently verify that the army is in physical control of the Sudan TV premises.
A banner on the channel said “the armed forces were able to regain control of the national broadcaster after repeated attempts by the militias to destroy its infrastructure.”
In the Kafouri area, north of Khartoum, clashes and street fights broke out at dawn Monday, prompting residents to begin evacuating women and children from the area, Sudanese journalist Fathi Al-Ardi wrote on Facebook. In the Kalakla area, south of the capital, residents reported the walls of their houses shaking from explosions.
Reports also emerged of battles hundreds of miles away in the eastern city of Port Sudan and the western Darfur region over the weekend.
As of Monday, at least 97 people have been killed, according to the Preliminary Committee of Sudanese Doctors trade union. Earlier on Sunday, the World Health Organization estimated more than 1,126 were injured.
The WHO has warned that doctors and nurses are struggling to reach people in need of urgent care, and are lacking essential supplies.
“Supplies distributed by WHO to health facilities prior to this recent escalation of conflict are now exhausted, and many of the nine hospitals in Khartoum receiving injured civilians are reporting shortages of blood, transfusion equipment, intravenous fluids, medical supplies, and other life-saving commodities,” the organization said on Sunday.
Water and power cuts are affecting the functionality of health facilities, and shortages of fuel for hospital generators are also being reported,” the WHO added.
In the CNN interview, Dagalo blamed the military for starting the conflict and claimed RSF “had to keep fighting to defend ourselves.”
He speculated that the army chief and his rival, al-Burhan, 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.
Amid the fighting, civilians have been warned to stay indoors. One local resident tweeted that they were “trapped inside our own homes with little to no protection at all.”
“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.
Access to information is also limited, with the government-owned national TV channel now off the air. Television employees told CNN that it is in the hands of the RSF.
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.
UN and other humanitarian facilities in Darfur have been looted, while a WFP-managed aircraft was seriously damaged by gunfire in Khartoum, impeding the WFP’s ability to transport aid and workers within the country, the international aid agency said.
Qatar Airways announced Sunday it was temporarily suspending flights to and from Khartoum due to the closure of its airport and airspace.
On Sunday, Dagalo told CNN the RSF was in control of the airport, as well as several other government buildings in the capital.
Meanwhile, Mexico is working to evacuate its citizens from Sudan, with the country’s foreign minister saying Sunday it is looking to “expedite” their exit.
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. It advised US citizens to stay indoors and shelter in place, adding that it would make an announcement “if evacuation of private US citizens becomes necessary.”
The fresh clashes have prompted widespread calls for peace and negotiations. The head of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki, is scheduled to arrive in Khartoum on Monday, in an attempt to stop the fighting.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly also for an immediate ceasefire.
“People in Sudan want the military back in the barracks, they want democracy, they want 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.
At the heart of the clashes is a power struggle between the two military leaders, Dagalo and Burhan.
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.
The military has been in charge of Sudan since then, with Burhan and Dagalo at the helm.
But recent talks led to cracks in the alliance between the two men. The negotiations have sought to integrate the RSF into the country’s military, as part of the effort to transition to civilian rule.
Sources in Sudan’s civilian movement and Sudanese military sources told CNN the main points of contention included the timeline for the merger of the forces, the status given to RSF officers in the future hierarchy, and whether RSF forces should be under the command of the army chief, rather than Sudan’s commander-in-chief, who is currently Burhan.
by tyler | Apr 17, 2023 | africa, CNN
Fierce fighting across Sudan has left hopes for a peaceful transition to civilian rule in tatters.
Forces loyal to two rival generals are vying for control, and as is so often the case civilians have suffered the most, with dozens killed and hundreds injured.
Here’s what you need to know.
At the heart of the clashes are two men: Sudan’s military leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
Until recently, they were allies. The pair worked together to topple ousted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in 2019 and played a pivotal role in the military coup in 2021.
However, tensions arose during negotiations to integrate the RSF into the country’s military as part of plans to restore civilian rule.
The key question: who would be subordinate to who under the new hierarchy.
These hostilities, sources told CNN, are the culmination of what both parties view as an existential fight for dominance.
It is difficult to overstate how seismic Bashir’s overthrow was. He had led the country for nearly three decades when popular protests that began over soaring bread prices toppled him from power.
During his rule, South Sudan split from the north while the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Bashir alleged war crimes in Darfur, a separatist Western region.
After Bashir’s ouster, Sudan was ruled by an uneasy alliance between the military and civilian groups.
That all ended in 2021, when the power-sharing government was dissolved by armed forces.
The Rapid Support Forces are the preeminent paramilitary group in Sudan, whose leader, Dagalo, has enjoyed a rapid rise to power.
During Sudan’s Darfur conflict in the early 2000s, he was the leader of Sudan’s notorious Janjaweed forces, implicated in human rights violations and atrocities.
An international outcry saw Bashir formalize the group into paramilitary forces known as the Border Intelligence Units.
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.
Dagalo turned against Bashir in 2019, but not before his forces opened fire on an anti-Bashir, pro-democracy sit-in in Khartoum, killing at least 118 people.
He was later appointed deputy of the transitional Sovereign Council that ruled Sudan in partnership with civilian leadership.
Burhan is essentially Sudan’s leader. At the time of Bashir’s toppling, Burhan was the army’s inspector general.
His career has run an almost parallel course to Dagalo’s.
He also rose to prominence in the 2000’s for his role in the dark days of the Darfur conflict, where the two men are believed to have first came into contact.
Al-Burhan and Hemedti both cemented their rise to power by currying favor with the Gulf powerhouses.
They commanded separate battalions of Sudanese forces, who were sent to serve with the Saudi-led coalition forces in Yemen.
Now they find themselves locked in a power struggle.
Where the fighting will end is unclear. Both sides claim control over key sites and fighting has been reported across the country in places far from the capital Khartoum.
While various official and non-official estimates place the Sudanese armed forces at around 210-220,000, the RSF are believed to number approximately 70,000 but are better trained and better equipped.
International powers have expressed alarm. Apart from concerns over civilians there are likely other motivations at play – Sudan is resource-rich and strategically located.
CNN has previously reported on how Russia has colluded with Sudan’s military leaders to smuggle gold out of Sudan.
Dagalo’s forces were a key recipient of Russian training and weaponry, and Sudan’s military leader Burhan is also believed by CNN’s Sudanese sources to have been backed by Russia, before international pressure forced him to publicly disavow the presence of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, in Sudan.
Sudan’s neighbors Egypt and South Sudan have offered to mediate, but in the meantime all that is certain is more misery for the Sudanese people.
