2023-04-16 11:53:13
The Army of the Sudan and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF, by its acronym in English) began an armed escalation on Saturday that has already caused dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries. The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors, the civilian organization keeping the casualty count, has warned that the actual number of victims may be much higher. These are some keys to the conflict that may result in a new civil war on the African continent:
To understand what is happening at the moment in Sudan you have to go back to in April 2019, when, after months of public protests in the streets over the lack of bread, fuel shortages and the galloping economic crisis sweeping the country, septuagenarian President Omar al-Bashir was deposed in a military coup after almost 30 years exercising power with an iron fist. The Army then promised that it would remain at the head of the Government for a maximum of two years and that it would call elections. The protest in the street was maintained, the demonstrators demanded a process of democratic transition headed by a civilian, not by the leadership of the Army, which harshly repressed the contestation causing hundreds of deaths. In August of that year, the military agreed with the opposition civilian platform Forces of Freedom and Change the formation of a sovereign council made up of five military, five civilians and one consensus member and it was established that Abdullah Hamdokan internationally respected economist forged in the agencies of the United Nations, was its prime minister.
Relative political stability in the country lasted just over two years, when on October 25, 2021, the Army staged a coup and arrested Prime Minister Hamdok, his wife and several members of the sovereign council. The uproar occurred after, following a failed attempt the previous month, Hamdok proposed “reform the military and security organs» and accused the «remains of the regime» of ex-dictator Omar al-Bashir of orchestrating regime change. The military was to hand over leadership of the council to a civilian figure in the coming months and general elections were to be called at the end of 2023. On November 21, after reaching an agreement with the military to “prevent further spills of blood” in the streets, Hamdok was restored. The pact, however, did not have support in the streets or in the opposition, which described it as “treason”. On January 3, 2022, Hamdok submitted his resignation.
Since the 2021 coup, two military men have been vying for power in Sudan: the general Abdel Fattah al-Burhanwho is the head of the armed forces and the country’s de facto president, and Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, alias Hemedti, vice president of the sovereign council and leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The RSF is a paramilitary group formed in 2013 and has its origins in the Yanyanuid militia, which brutally fought rebels in Darfur. Since then, Dagalo has built a powerful force that has intervened in conflicts in Yemen and Libya and in the control of some gold mines in Sudan. She has also been accused of violating human rights, including the massacre of 120 protesters in June 2019.
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Al-Burhan and Dagalo maintain disagreements about the direction the country should follow and about the transition to a civilian Government. Two of the main points of conflict are plans to include the 100,000-strong RSF in the Army and who will be in charge of leading the new force.
Why is violence breaking out now?
The violence that broke out this Saturday is the result of days of tension due to the redistribution of RSF members across the country without warning, a move the military has seen as one threat. On Thursday, the Army warned that the country was going through a “dangerous situation», in full negotiations to reach a definitive political agreement to bring Sudan to a real democratic transition, a pact that has been postponed twice this April precisely because of the rivalries between the Army and the paramilitaries. It is still unknown which side fired the first shot on Saturday morning and it is feared that the current escalation could worsen an already very unstable situation. If the fighting drags on, it could further fracture the country and deepen political turmoil.
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