(Khartoum) Before the war, Sudan was mired in political and economic stagnation. After a month of fighting between the troops of the two generals who are vying for power, the country threatens to sink and worries neighbors themselves in crisis.
The war between the army, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, and the paramilitaries of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo has left more than 750 dead, thousands injured and nearly a million displaced and refugees.
In this country of 45 million inhabitants, one of the poorest in the world, the population lives in fear and hunger.
In Khartoum and Darfur (west), few go out to buy food for fear of stray bullets.
And the third of the population that depended on international food aid is now deprived of it: it has been looted or interrupted following the death of 18 humanitarian workers.
Elsewhere, the money is lacking because the banks, some of which were looted, have not opened since April 15, or because prices have soared: multiplied by four for food or by 20 for gasoline.
Barricaded in their homes without water or electricity, the five million inhabitants of Khartoum await a hypothetical ceasefire in the midst of air raids, combat with heavy weapons and artillery fire – even in homes and hospitals.
“Impunity”
In Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the two sides 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”.
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”.
Because experts and diplomats repeat it: each of the two generals thinks “they can win militarily”, thanks to large numbers and foreign support. General Daglo is the great ally of the United Arab Emirates as well as, according to the American Treasury, of Wagner’s Russian mercenaries, while the great Egyptian neighbor looms large behind Burhane.
The two men therefore seem more interested in a long conflict than in concessions at the negotiating table.
“The army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) violate truces with a regularity that shows a degree of impunity that surpasses all, even by Sudanese standards of the conflicts”, alarms Alex Rondos, former representative of the European Union for the Horn of Africa.
Conflicts, Sudan has known them. In Darfur, 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.
Everyone there now shoots everyone: soldiers, paramilitaries, tribal fighters and even armed civilians. “We are told that snipers shoot anyone who comes out of their house,” Mohamed Osman of Human Rights Watch (HRW) told AFP. Trapped, “people injured in fighting two weeks ago are dying at home”.
Médecins sans frontières (MSF) points out that in the camps for the displaced from the war in Darfur, “people have gone from three meals a day to just one”.
Exodus and deindustrialization
Because of the conflict, 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.
Khartoum no longer has an airport, or expatriates – all evacuated in the crush during the first days of the war – or shopping centers – they have been looted.
The administrations are closed “until further notice” and the two generals only express themselves to inveigh against each other through the media.
What remains of the administration has retreated to Port Sudan (850 kilometers to the east), spared the violence and where a small UN team is trying to negotiate the delivery of humanitarian aid .
“By destroying agro-food factories or small industries, this war has caused a partial deindustrialization of Sudan,” Verjee told AFP. “The future Sudan will be poorer still and for a long time”.