Airstrikes and explosions shook Sudan again on Monday, after a month-long war for power between two rival generals that threatens to escalate further, at the risk of destabilizing neighboring countries.
The fighting that broke out on April 15 between the army of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane and the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (FSR), commanded by General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, left nearly a thousand dead and approximately one million displaced persons and refugees.
During the night from Sunday to Monday, General Daglo posted an audio recording online where he promised his opponent that he would be “tried quickly and hanged in public”.
The head of the army had ordered Sunday evening the freezing of the accounts and the assets of the FSR, known for their financial power.
In Khartoum, a city of five million people with virtually no water and electricity, and in western Darfur, people are holed up in their homes, afraid to go out to buy food for fear of stray bullets.
The doctors’ union published on Monday a toll of 280 dead and more than 160 injured for the days of May 12 and 13 alone in the clashes in El-Geneina, Darfur.
In the large eastern suburbs of Khartoum, witnesses reported airstrikes, sounds of explosions and clouds of smoke.
Rising voltage
In Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the warring parties are negotiating a “humanitarian” truce to let civilians out and aid in. But they only agreed on the principle of respect for the rules of war, leaving the question of the cessation of hostilities to later “extended discussions”.
“Nothing has changed since the beginning of the conflict, except that people are more and more tense every day,” a resident of southern Khartoum told AFP.
“The violence on both sides is increasing day by day,” said a resident of the north of the capital.
For researcher Aly Verjee, “if the two camps do not change their way of thinking, it is difficult to imagine a translation on the ground of commitments on paper”.
In this country of 45 million inhabitants, a third of the population that depended on international food aid is almost deprived of it: it was looted or interrupted following the death of 18 humanitarian workers.
The World Food Program (WFP) nevertheless announced on Monday that it would carry out its “very first food distributions” in the state of Al-Jazeera, southeast of the capital, for the newly displaced by the fighting in Khartoum.
The money is missing because the banks, some of which were looted, have been closed for a month, or because the prices have soared: multiplied by four for food or by 20 for gasoline.
According to experts and diplomats, each of the two generals thinks they can win militarily, thanks to large numbers and foreign support. General Daglo is allied with the United Arab Emirates as well as, according to the US Treasury, Russian mercenaries of Wagner, while Egypt supports General Burhane.
The two men therefore seem more interested in a long conflict than in concessions at the negotiating table.
Administration relocated to Port Sudan
In Darfur, “we are told that snipers are shooting anyone who leaves their homes,” Mohamed Osman of Human Rights Watch (HRW) told AFP. Trapped, “people injured in fighting two weeks ago are dying at home”.
In this region, the repression under the dictatorship of Omar el-Bashir (1989-2019) of ethnic minorities by soldiers and paramilitaries who are now enemies had killed 300,000 people in the 2000s.
Médecins sans frontières (MSF) points out that in the camps for displaced people in Darfur, “people have gone from three meals a day to just one”.
Thousands of refugees enter Egypt, Chad, Ethiopia or South Sudan every day. Egypt, which is going through the worst economic crisis in its history, is worried. The other neighboring countries fear a contagion.
In Khartoum, the airport no longer works, shopping centers have been looted and administrations are closed “until further notice”.
What remains of the administration has retreated to Port Sudan, 850 kilometers east of Khartoum, spared the violence and where a small UN team is trying to negotiate the delivery of aid humanitarian.
“By destroying agri-food factories or small industries, this war has caused a partial deindustrialization of Sudan,” says Mr. Verjee. “The future Sudan will be poorer still and for a long time”.