Khartoum becomes a battlefield again after civilian transition efforts collapse
Internal tensions and the security apparatus prevent the recovery of the country four years after the fall of Al Bashir
MADRID, 15 Abr. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Weeks of friction between the Sudanese Army and the most important paramilitary group in the country, the Rapid Action Forces (RSF) have finished degenerating this Saturday with the outbreak of large-scale fighting in the capital, Khartoum, as well as other parts of the country. , which could end up collapsing in the next few hours the long and costly process begun by the country four years ago towards the constitution of a civilian government after decades of dictatorship; efforts that are now about to die on the shore.
The fighting, still with an uncertain outcome but for the moment, has left at least three dead and dozens injured in the capital, devastated by bloody bombardments and heavy artillery fire both in the streets and at the airport, represents the definitive break between the two strong men in the country: the Sudanese military leader Abdelfatá al Burhan and the hitherto ‘number two’ and paramilitary leader, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, alias ‘Hemedti’, who have finally brought their disagreements over the functioning of the future Army into armed struggle Sudanese under civilian command.
The tortuous process initiated after the popular revolution that ended thirty years of Omar al-Bashir’s dictatorship in April 2019 has been constantly marred by mistrust among civilian groups, instrumental in the fall of the autocrat, towards an army that has never been seen – as neither the RSF – as guarantors of a process of transition to democracy, as first demonstrated by the coup d’état led by Al Burhan in 2021 that ousted Abdalá Hamdok from power, the prime minister initially agreed upon by civilians and military, and then the extremely violent military repression of 2022 against the protests against the coup, which resulted in a hundred deaths.
The RSF are by no means exempt from guilt: Amnesty International accuses the formation of massacres such as the one that occurred on June 3, 2019, shortly after the fall of the dictator, when the militias led the massacre of a hundred participants in a sitting in the capital demanding the rapid stabilization of living conditions. More than 700 people were injured, and dozens of men and women later denounced having been subjected to rape by paramilitary elements, successors of the fearsome Yanyawid militias of the Darfur conflict.
Thus, humanitarian organizations such as Human Rights Watch have pointed the finger at the international community, beginning with the mediation, which they have accused of playing into the hands of the Sudanese military and paramilitaries, ignoring their manifest incapacity, they add, to guide the country on the path of peace.
“Since the coup,” HRW researcher Mohamed Osman laments on Twitter, “international actors have tiptoed past military actors who have shown total disregard for people’s basic rights and their total disinterest in credible reform “, in reference to both the United Nations and the international quartet made up of the United States, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), who never gave their support to any type of parallel effort that did not have a military presence, such as the which took place a few months ago in Egypt.
FIGHTS ACROSS THE COUNTRY
The fighting in the capital began around 09:00 in the morning with a frustrated assault by the RSF on Al Burhan’s residence, according to the Sudanese leader himself, before staging an attempt to take Khartoum international airport and , simultaneously, the Sudanese military base in the city of Meroe, 220 kilometers north of the capital and surrounded since Thursday by paramilitaries in the first indication that the situation would hardly reverse.
What’s more, the fighting has broken out just moments after the senior leaders of the Sudanese armed groups that signed the Juba peace agreement, and now emergency mediators between the dispute between Al Burhan and ‘Hemedti’, assured that both leaders had agreed to start negotiations. urgently to resolve the situation.
As expected, both have held each other responsible for the start of hostilities. The Sudanese Army has directly accused the paramilitaries of “treason”, who in turn have blamed the Armed Forces for launching a surprise attack against their deployment in the capital.
Meanwhile, the international community has called for the immediate cessation of hostilities while the embassies have ordered their citizens in the country to stay in their homes given the bloody fighting, particularly in the capital, where military combat planes have carried out low-altitude flights to bombard RSF positions, including their headquarters in Soba camp, and artillery clashes have been repeated throughout the morning.
In the midst of all this situation, the voice of political formations and civil organizations as prominent as the Forces for Freedom and Change (FCC) has been practically muted after warning, earlier this week, of the imminent derailment of the process after warning of the presence of elements of the “old regime” obedient to Al Bashir, whom they accuse of directing current events from prison. “In this situation,” adds the head of the Umma party, Fadlalá Burma Naser, in statements to Al Jazeera, “there is no winner or loser: there are losers in the plural, and those are all the Sudanese.”