The United States on Thursday announced sanctions against army and paramilitary troops at war for power in Sudan, where about 20 civilians were killed in bombings at a market in Khartoum.
“There is heavy artillery fire”, reports to AFP a resident of the northern suburbs of Khartoum, under a deluge of fire since the day before.
Monday evening, the army of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane and the paramilitary troops of the Rapid Support Forces (FSR) of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo had nevertheless accepted a new truce. But like a dozen others, it fizzled out.
After the military walked out of talks meant to create safe corridors for civilians and humanitarian aid, the White House got tough. She announced sanctions against four companies: two army arms groups and two companies, including one involved in Sudan’s gold mines, run by General Daglo and two of his brothers. According to a 2019 study, these two companies provided millions of dollars to FSRs from and to dirham accounts in the United Arab Emirates.
“Sanctions are a tool,” agrees researcher Alex de Waal. But Sudan, targeted by US sanctions for two decades, represents “a classic case of sanctions that have never solved anything”, he continues. Because the two warring generals are elusive: General Daglo is considered one of the richest men in Sudan – Africa’s third largest gold producer – and General Burhane, like all his peers, has developed under the embargo of techniques to circumvent international sanctions.
For the Sudanese author Raga Makawi, the sanctions can have “devastating consequences on the population: they destroy the economy and turn everything into illegal transactions”.
A “catastrophic situation”
On the ground, the violence only increases. On Wednesday, “18 civilians were killed and 106 others injured” by artillery fire and aerial bombardment by the army on a market in southern Khartoum, reports a committee of human rights lawyers. The “resistance committee”, which organizes mutual aid between the inhabitants of the district, denounced a “catastrophic situation”, launching an “urgent” appeal for “doctors and blood donations”.
At the same time, the FSR fired on civilians “who wanted to prevent them from stealing the car of one of them”, indicates the committee. “Three civilians died after being hit by bullets and prevented by the RSF from going to the hospital. »
The war has already claimed more than 1,800 lives, according to the NGO ACLED, and more than 1.2 million displaced.
In addition, more than 350,000 people have fled to neighboring countries: more than 100,000 people are in Chad, according to the UN, driven out by deadly fighting in Darfur, on the other side of the border. There, new calls to arm civilians raise fears of a “total civil war”, according to the civilian bloc ousted from power by the 2021 putsch of the two generals then allied.
Heba Rachid fled Khartoum for Port-Sudan in the hope of finding a donor to pay for a plane or boat ticket abroad. “The FSR destroyed everything in our house,” she told AFP. And today, “we don’t know how to find food or take care of our children”.
Significant humanitarian needs
No corridor has been cleared for humanitarian aid, which 25 of the 45 million Sudanese now need. The rare shipments that have been able to be transported cover only a tiny part of the immense needs.
“The security situation significantly reduces our ability to carry out humanitarian activities in Khartoum beyond telephone follow-up”, reports Fatima Mohammed Cole, number two of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Sudan. “All our attempts to enter the city to help the refugees there have failed and our two offices have been looted,” she continues.
The director of the World Food Program, Cindy McCain, denounces looting threatening “vital” food stocks for “4.4 million people”. Already, before the war, one in three Sudanese suffered from hunger, long power cuts were a daily occurrence and the health system was on the verge of collapse.
The Ministry of Health accused the FSRs of having stolen “29 ambulances” and of having transformed “34 hospitals” in the capital into “barracks”. Three-quarters of hospitals located in combat zones are out of order; the others have to deal with almost empty reserves and generators stopped for lack of fuel.