2023-04-22 05:39:05
image source, Getty Images
General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (left) and General Abdel Fattah al Burhan lead powerful rival forces.
The sound of explosions, a horizon dominated by bitter black smoke, a daily existence of fear and uncertainty as bullets, rockets and rumors fly.
Life in Sudan’s capital Khartoum and many other parts of the country took a sudden and dramatic turn this week when two military forces clashed for control of this African nation.
The situation has become so serious that the head of the Sudanese army announced this Saturday that diplomats and citizens of the United Kingdom, the United States, France and China would be evacuated “in the next few hours.”
At the center of the conflict are two generals: Abdel Fattah al Burhan, the leader of the Sudanese Armed Forces (FAS), and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, the head of the Rapid Support Forces (FAR) paramilitary group.
The two worked together and carried out a coup; now their battle for supremacy is tearing Sudan apart.
old acquaintances
The relationship between the two, as explained by James Copnall, BBC correspondent in Khartoum, goes back a long time.
Both played key roles in the counterinsurgency against Darfur rebels, in the civil war in western Sudan that began in 2003.
General Burhan rose to control the Sudanese army in Darfur.
Hemedti was the commander of one of the many Arab militias, collectively known as the Janjaweed, that the government used to brutally suppress the mostly non-Arab rebel groups in Darfur.
Majak D’Agoot was the deputy director of the National Intelligence and Security Services at the time, before becoming South Sudan’s deputy defense minister when he split in 2011.
D’Agoot met Burhan and Hemedti in Darfur and says they worked well together. But as she explained to the BBC, then saw little sign that either could make it all the way to the top of the State.
Hemedti was simply a militia leader “playing a counter-insurgency role, helping the military”, while Burhan was a career soldier, though “with all the ambitions of a Sudanese army officer, anything was possible”.
The military has been running Sudan for most of its post-independence history.
Government tactics in Darfur, once described by Sudan expert Alex de Waal as “cheap counter-insurgency,” included using regular troops, ethnic militias and air force to fight rebels, with little or no regard for casualties. civilians.
Darfur has been called the first genocide of the 21st century, with the Janjaweed accused of ethnic cleansing and using mass rape as a weapon of war.
Hemedti eventually became the commander of what could be described as a branch of the Janjaweed, the FAR.
image source, Getty Images
The Janjaweed militia was accused of ethnic cleansing and mass rape during the Darfur conflict.
Hemedti’s power grew enormously when he began supplying troops to fight in Yemen for the Saudi-led coalition.
Government changes
Sudan’s decades-long military ruler, Omar al-Bashir, came to rely on Hemedti and the FAR as a counterbalance to the regular armed forces, hoping it would be too difficult for a single armed group to overthrow him.
In the end, after months of popular protests, the generals united to overthrow Bashirin April 2019.
Later that year, they signed an agreement with the protesters to form a civilian-led government overseen by the Sovereign Council, a joint civil-military body, with General Burhan at its head and Hemedti as his deputy.
The government lasted for two years, until October 2021, when the military attacked and seized power for itself, with General Burhan again at the head of state and Hemedti again as his deputy.
Siddig Tower Kafi was a civilian member of the Sovereign Council, so he met regularly with the two generals.
He claims that saw no sign of any disagreement until after the 2021 coup.
Then “General Burhan began to restore Islamists and former regime members to their old posts,” he told the BBC.
“It was becoming increasingly clear that General Burhan’s plan was to restore the old regime of Omar al Bashir to power.”
Siddig notes that this was when Hemedti began to have doubts, as he felt that Bashir’s comrades had never fully trusted him.
rival forces
Sudanese politics has always been dominated by an elite made up largely of the ethnic groups established around Khartoum and the Nile River.
Hemedti hails from Darfur, and the Sudanese elite often speak of him and his soldiers in pejorative terms, as “townspeople” incapable of governing the State.
In the last two or three years, he has tried to position himself as a national figure, and even as a representative of the marginalized peripheries, trying to forge alliances with rebel groups in Darfur and South Kordofan, which he had previously been tasked with destroying.
image source, Getty Images
Flames and smoke in Khartoum in a combat of the forces controlled by the two generals.
He has also regularly spoken of the need for democracy despite his forces having brutally put down civil protests in the past.
Tensions between the army and the FAR grew as the deadline to form a civilian government approached, and were centered on the thorny issue of how the FAR should be reintegrated into the regular armed forces.
And then the fight began, pitting the FAR against the FAS, Hemedti against Burhan, for control of the Sudanese state.
In at least one sense, Hemedti has followed in the footsteps of the FAS top brass, whom he now fights: in recent years, he has built a vast business empire, including interests in gold mining and many other sectors.
Burhan and Hemedti face calls from civilian leaders and victims of the conflict in Darfur and elsewhere so that ifan tried for alleged abuses.
The stakes are high, and there are many reasons these former allies-turned-enemies should not back down.
image source, Getty Images
Local residents say many shops in Khartoum are running low on supplies.
No water or food
Meanwhile the situation for citizens is increasingly difficult. In Khartoum it was reported that the main water pumping station was attacked.
Hinda, a local resident, told the BBC that frequent water shortages have forced his family to rely on their stocks of abri, a corn drink, to quench their thirst.
He explained that all the stores in his neighborhood had closed, except for some bakeries, and even these are running out of flour.
A few days before the fighting began, the army warned civilians to collect food after the deployment of FAR personnel in different parts of the capital.
But Heba, another Khartoum resident, told the BBC that “only a few families” took the advice seriously, since nobody imagined that the situation would escalate in this way.
Residents in the capital fear their food will run out and with no clear end to the conflict in sight many, like Shakir, are consuming less in the hope that their supplies will last longer.
“We are all hoping that this conflict will end soon because our food reserves are running out,” Shakir told the BBC.
“If we want to survive this, we need to reduce what we eat each day,” he added.
image source, Getty Images
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