Tag: Khartoum

Opinion | The Truth About the War in Sudan

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By

Abdel Fattah al-Burhan

Khartoum, Sudan

Sudan is a country with a long memory: Our history stretches back to the biblical Kingdom of Kush, one of Africa’s greatest civilizations. The war now waged by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia is unlike anything we’ve ever faced. It is tearing the fabric of our society, uprooting millions, and placing the entire region at risk. Even so, Sudanese look to allies in the region and in Washington with hope. Sudan is fighting not only for its survival, but for a just peace that can only be achieved with the support of partners who recognize the truth of how the war began and what is required to end it.

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Abdel Fattah al-Burhan

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November 25, 2025
Sudan Militia, Armed With Drones, Hunts Down Black Population of Darfur

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Sudan’s civil war is taking a jarring turn in Darfur, where an Arab-led militia is now using state-of-the-art drones and execution squads to dominate the region’s Black population.

Humanitarian groups say the violence has been escalating since the militia seized control of El Fasher, the largest city in the region. Videos shared online by the Sudan Doctors Network and other local rights groups appear to show militia members shooting unarmed civilians at point-blank range in the city on the fringes of the Sahara. In the streets, dead bodies are scattered alongside burned-out vehicles. At the only functioning hospital, the World Health Organization reported that the rebels killed all 460 people inside the main ward, including patients, caregivers and health workers.

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Nicholas Bariyo

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October 31, 2025
What about those who can’t flee fighting in Sudan? Many face danger and despair

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LONDON (AP) — Mahmoud almost never leaves his small apartment in east Khartoum. Electricity has been out for most of the past month, so he swelters in the summer heat. When he does venture out to find food, he leaves his mobile phone behind because of looters in the street. Otherwise, he hunkers down in fear, worried that an artillery shell could burst into his home.

Exhausted, confused and unable to escape the conflict-ravaged Sudanese capital, the young research technician tries blocking out the reality of his surroundings.

“I am reading my book collection for a second time,” he said. One work helping him get by: “Models of the Mind,” a 2021 neuroscience book about how mathematics help explain the workings of the brain.

Since the conflict broke out last month, more than 1.3 million people have fled their homes to escape Sudan’s fighting, going elsewhere in the country or across the borders. But Mahmoud and millions of others remain trapped in Khartoum and its sister cities of Bahri and Omdurman, unable to leave the central battleground between Sudan’s military and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary.

For them, every day is a struggle to find food, get water and charge their phones when electricity is cut off. All the while, they must avoid the fighters and criminals in the streets who rob and brutalize pedestrians, loot shops and storm into homes to steal whatever of value they can find.

Dollars have become hard to find and dangerous to hold, a target for looters. Amazingly, Bankak, the banking app of the Bank of Khartoum, continues to function most of the time. It has become a lifeline for many, allowing users to transfer money and make payments electronically.

Mahmoud uses the app to pay the one shop owner he visits to stock up on canned goods. During weeks when electricity was out, the shop owner still gave him what he needed and let him pay later. A technology company that Mahmoud worked for before the fighting puts 30,000 Sudanese pounds — around $50 — on his app account every few weeks.

That transfer allows him to keep eating. “If I have money in my bank account and Bankak is operating, everything will be good,” he said. Like others who spoke to The Associated Press, Mahmoud asked to be identified only by his first name for fear of reprisals.

Since April 15, the Sudanese army, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the RSF, commanded by Gen. Mohamed Hamden Dagalo, have been locked in a violent power struggle that has turned the once sleepy Khartoum into an urban battlefield. More than 800 civilians have been killed, according to the Sudan Doctor’s Union.

On Monday a week-long cease-fire began, the conflict’s seventh, with fighting easing across parts of the city. But gunbattles and bombardments still continue despite the pledge made by both forces in Saudi Arabia. Residential areas and hospitals have been pounded by army airstrikes, while RSF troops have commandeered homes and turned them into bases.

The more immediate danger is often the armed men and looters in the streets. Waleed, another resident of east Khartoum, said he has had several terrifying encounters. In one case, he saw around 30 RSF fighters, some who looked no older than 15, tormenting a passerby, waving their weapons at him and demanding he lie on the ground, then shouting at him to stand up.

“They were playing with him like a puppet,” Waleed said.

Many can’t afford to leave. Mahmoud wants to get to Ethiopia, then to Portugal where he been offered a position as a research technician. But he doesn’t have the $2,500 he estimates the trip will cost him. Waleed said he can’t leave for medical reasons.

Others say they have no choice but to stay and work. One of the many women who sell tea in the streets of Khartoum, Tana Tusafi, a single mother from Ethiopia, says her four children depend on her. “I have no one to provide for me, so I have to work,” she said.

The dangers are unpredictable. Mahmoud said that last week RSF fighters in a neighboring building started shooting at his apartment block, believing an army sniper could be there after seeing lights inside. Mahmoud said he had to confront the troops and convince them his block was only filled with civilians.

Another resident, Fatima, said her brother disappeared after having coffee with friends on May 13. That first evening when he didn’t come home, “I thought he might have stayed over at his friend’s house,” Fatima said.

On Monday, Khalid finally returned. For eight days, he had been detained and interrogated by the RSF, Fatima said.

The Missing Person Initiative, an online tracker where people can report missing loved ones, said it has reports of at least 200 people unaccounted for in the capital region. It said it has received multiple reports of individuals being detained by the paramilitary.

Darker still is the growing number of rape and sexual assault allegations. According to Hadhreen, a community-led health and crisis group, there have been at least 10 confirmed rape cases in the capital area. Seven were committed by RSF soldiers, it said, while the three others were by unknown attackers within RSF-held areas.

The reports of sexual violence harken back to the Darfur conflict of the early 2000s, during which the Janjaweed militia was accused of widespread rapes and other atrocities. Many of its fighters were later folded into the RSF. They were again accused of raping dozens of women when they broke up a pro-democracy protest camp in Khartoum in 2019.

In this landscape of fear, those who remain in the city find ways to get by. Some store owners operate out of their homes, hoping to hide from the looters.

Waleed said only one remaining bakery serves his neighborhood and two others. Each customer registers their name beforehand

“If you were lucky and registered your name at 7 o’clock in the morning you might get your bread at 12 noon,” Waleed said. He too survives because of Bankak, on money that his family in Saudi Arabia puts into his account.

During the first weeks of May, there was no electricity in his neighborhood, so Waleed relied on a nearby mosque with a generator to charge his phone. But no electricity meant no running water.

“We roamed around with buckets to trying to find people who have electric generators who can activate their water pumps,” he said. Last week, the electric company restored power in his area.

Most of the city’s hospitals have also shut down, many of them damaged in bombardments or ground fighting. Since May 11 alone, there have been 11 attacks on humanitarian facilities in the capital, the World Health Organization reported. Community action groups, led in part by a grassroots pro-democracy network known as the Resistance Committees, have banded together to help treat Khartoum’s sick and deliver medicines.

Hadeel Abdelsayed, a trainee doctor at one community clinic, said patients have died because they did not have enough oxygen. The clinic was eventually evacuated due to intense shelling.

Mahmoud, the researcher, said that if he can somehow secure the funding, he will try to make his escape to Ethiopia. But time is against him.

“My passport will expire in 10 weeks, so I will have to leave before then.”

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May 25, 2023
Biden issues order setting path for sanctions in Sudan

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Thursday setting the path to sanction individuals involved in the recent violence in Sudan that’s left hundreds dead and thrown the African nation into chaos.

Biden said in a statement that his order will “hold individuals responsible for threatening the peace, security, and stability of Sudan; undermining Sudan’s democratic transition; using violence against civilians; or committing serious human rights abuses.”

The president said the violence taking place in Sudan is “a tragedy — and it is a betrayal of the Sudanese people’s clear demand for civilian government and a transition to democracy.”

Sudan’s fighting broke out April 15 between two commanders who just 18 months earlier jointly orchestrated a military coup to derail the nation’s transition to democracy.

The power struggle between the armed forces chief, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and the head of the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group, Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, has millions of Sudanese cowering inside their homes and has already displaced hundreds of thousands.

“I join the peace-loving people of Sudan and leaders around the world in calling for a durable ceasefire between the belligerent parties,” Biden said.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the Biden administration had not settled on whether sanctions will be issued against the warring generals.

“I wouldn’t read it as a warning,” Kirby said of the executive order. “It’s the president setting up the proper authorities in case we want to use those kinds of tools.”

He said the administration and the Sudanese people want the generals to “put down their arms, stop fighting, get back to the table to to work on a transition to civilian authority.”

Several countries have been racing to evacuate their citizens from the troubled nation though millions remain there amid a fragile ceasefire.

The United Nations warned on Wednesday that the country’s people are “facing a humanitarian catastrophe.”

The conflict has killed at least 550 people, including civilians, and wounded more than 4,900. At least 334,000 people have been displaced inside Sudan and tens of thousands more to neighboring countries Egypt, Chad, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Ethiopia, according to U.N. agencies.

Thousands of U.N. workers were evacuated a week into the fighting, and some U.N. agencies paused their services. The World Food Program suspended operations after three of its workers were killed in fighting in southern Sudan, but the agency has since said it will resume its work.

The fighting has included unprecedented urban warfare in the capital, Khartoum.

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May 5, 2023
3-day Sudan ceasefire announced by US Secretary of State | CNN Politics

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CNN
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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday announced that the warring factions in Sudan agreed to a a ceasefire, “starting at midnight on April 24, to last for 72 hours.”

The agreement between the Sudanese Armed Forces, or SAF, and the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, came “following intense negotiation over the past 48 hours,” Blinken said.

“The United States urges the SAF and RSF to immediately and fully uphold the ceasefire,” Blinken said. “To support a durable end to the fighting, the United States will coordinate with regional and international partners, and Sudanese civilian stakeholders, to assist in the creation of a committee to oversee the negotiation, conclusion, and implementation of a permanent cessation of hostilities and humanitarian arrangements in Sudan.”

In a written statement Monday, the RSF said it had agreed to the truce “in order to open humanitarian corridors, facilitate the movement of citizens and residents, enable them to fulfill their needs, reach hospitals and safe areas, and evacuate diplomatic missions.”

Previously agreed ceasefires have broken down, although brief lulls in the fighting have allowed foreign civilians to evacuate Sudan to safety.

If the new three-day cessation of fighting holds, it could create an opportunity to get much-needed critical resources like food and medical supplies to those in need.

It could also allow for the safe passage of the “dozens” of Americans who Blinken said have expressed interest in leaving Sudan.

Although a number of nations are evacuating their citizens, US officials have repeatedly said they do not plan to evacuate Americans from the country due to conditions on the ground.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told CNN’s “This Morning” Monday the situation in Sudan “is not conducive and not safe to try to conduct some kind of a larger military evacuation of American citizens.”

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday, however, that the US government is “actively facilitating the departure of American citizens who want to leave Sudan” through means like overland convoys.

All US government employees were evacuated from Khartoum in a US military operation and the US embassy was “temporarily” closed this weekend after a week of heavy fighting between rival military factions which has left hundreds dead and thousands wounded.

President Joe Biden has asked for “every conceivable option” to help Americans who remain in Sudan, Sullivan said.

“Right now, we believe that the best way for us to help facilitate people’s departure is in fact to support this land evacuation route, as well as work with allies and partners who are working on their own evacuation plans as well,” he said at a White House briefing.

Blinken, who noted that the US does not have specific counts of how many Americans are in Sudan “because Americans are not required to register” with the US State Department, said the US has been in touch with American citizens on the ground to provide “consular services, other services, advice.”

“We do know of course the number of Americans who have registered with us, and with whom we’re in very active touch, communication. Of those, I would say some dozens have expressed an interest in leaving,” Blinken said at a news conference at the State Department.

“In just the last 36 hours since the embassy evacuation was completed, we’ve continued to be in close communication with US citizens and individuals affiliated with the US government to provide assistance and facilitate available departure routes for those seeking to move to safety via land, air and sea,” said Blinken, noting that included American citizens “traveling overland in the UN convoy from Khartoum to Port Sudan.”

“We’re also deploying naval assets to Port Sudan in the Red Sea in case Americans who get out to Port Sudan want to be transported elsewhere or need any kind of care,” he added.

Sullivan said the US has “deployed US intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets to support land evacuation routes, which Americans are using, and we’re moving naval assets within the region to provide support.”

“American citizens have begun arriving in Port Sudan and we are helping to facilitate their onward travel,” he said.

Officials told congressional staffers last week that there could be an estimated 16,000 American citizens in Sudan, most of whom are dual nationals.

Both Blinken and Kirby echoed this on Monday and suggested that many of those dual nationals “don’t want to leave” the country.

“We think the vast majority of these American citizens in Sudan, and they’re not all in Khartoum, are dual nationals – these are people who grew up in Sudan, who have families, their work, their businesses there, who don’t want to leave,” he said.

In the days leading up to the evacuation, officials in Washington and the US Embassy in Khartoum repeatedly stressed that they did not envision carrying out a government-coordinated evacuation of American citizens due to the lack of an operational airport and the ongoing fighting on the ground.

Still, there are worries about how to get Americans who wish to depart out of Sudan safely, especially now that the US does not have a diplomatic presence there. Although the US State Department warned US citizens against traveling to Sudan, some Americans with loved ones in the country suggested that the government had not done enough to advise Americans already in the country to leave.

Some countries have already successfully carried out evacuations, including Spain, Jordan, Italy, France, Denmark and Germany, while the United Kingdom has evacuated embassy staff. Several of their convoys also carried citizens from other countries.

Saudi Arabia evacuated 10 Saudi nationals and 189 foreigners including Americans from Sudan, the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Twitter Monday.

More evacuations are still being planned or are underway for the countries like China and India.

There is immense concern about the safety of those who still remain in the country, regardless of their nationality, given the ongoing violence and its impact on critical resources like food, water and medical care. Internet connectivity has also been unreliable, leaving family members and friends outside of Sudan to worry if their loved ones are safe.

The US government typically does not facilitate evacuations for regular citizens, and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan presented a rare – and chaotic – exception to that norm. Although the Biden administration has sought to avoid comparisons to that event, “Kabul casts a very long shadow over Khartoum,” in the words of one former official.

Rebecca Winter, whose sister and 18-month-old niece are in Sudan, told CNN that they are in an “awful holding pattern” because her sister “has been told by both the US embassy and the international school that she works for that she has to shelter in place, and that she should not accept any offers for private evacuation.”

“So she is just stuck waiting right now in fear,” she said.

Although the US State Department warned Americans against traveling to Sudan, Winter said that according to her sister, “US employees there were not asked to leave the country.”

Fatima Elsheikh, whose two brothers are in Sudan, also pushed back on the claim that US citizens who were already on the ground were warned before the outbreak of violence.

“It makes me upset, because there was no warning. I don’t, I think it’s being painted as a country that’s been war-torn for a while, which isn’t true. This is unprecedented, what’s happening,” she said.

The State Department travel advisory for Sudan prior to the outbreak of violence did not specifically tell Americans already in the country to leave, but advised them to “have evacuation plans that do not rely on U.S. government assistance” and “have a personal emergency action plan that does not rely on U.S. government assistance.”

Blinken said Monday that the effort to assist Americans will “be an ongoing process.” He said the US is looking at resuming its diplomatic presence in Sudan, including in Port Sudan, but “that’s going to be entirely dependent on the conditions in Sudan.”

Kirby said Monday morning that the violence in Sudan “is increasing,” and urged Americans remaining in the country to shelter in place.

“It’s more dangerous today than it was just yesterday, the day before, and so, the best advice we can give to those Americans who did not abide by our warnings to leave Sudan and not to travel to Sudan is to stay sheltered in place,” Kirby told CNN’s Don Lemon.

Blinken said that “some of the convoys that have tried to move people out” of Khartoum “have encountered problems, including robbery, looting, that kind of thing,” but did not specify whether those convoys were carrying US citizens.

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April 24, 2023
‘We left behind children in incubators:’ Witnesses describe hospital shelled in Sudan’s clashes | CNN

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CNN
—

As fighting between warring factions has engulfed Sudan in recent days, hospitals treating people wounded in clashes have themselves become the targets for attacks, dealing the nation’s healthcare sector a devastating blow.

In one episode, five eyewitnesses told CNN that the paramilitary group battling Sudan’s military for control of the country besieged and shelled a hospital in the capital Khartoum on Sunday, leaving at least one child dead and sending panicked medical staff fleeing for their lives.

The leaders of the opposing sides, Sudan’s military leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy and paramilitary chief Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, have traded blame for instigating the fighting that has spread across the country since Saturday. Burhan has accused Dagalo of staging an “attempted coup”; Dagolo has in turn called Burhan a “criminal.”

But at al-Moallem hospital in central Khartoum, where intense shelling forced staffers to evacuate, leaving some patients behind, witnesses said they have little doubt about what happened.

“I have no doubt that they deliberately targeted the hospital,” said one medic who evacuated the hospital on Sunday after Dagalo’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) laid siege to it. CNN is not using any of the real names of the hospital medics in this article for safety reasons.

The hospital is meters away from Sudan’s army headquarters, which the RSF has made repeated attempts to take over. Medics said it was treating scores of wounded army soldiers and their families. The hospital’s maternity ward was struck in the shelling, causing a wall there to collapse, according to hospital employees.

A 6-year-old child died in the building, one medic said. Two other children were seriously wounded. As the shelling intensified, medics and patients huddled together in the corridor and prayed.

At first we were praying for salvation,” the medic said. “Then when the shelling got worse, we started to discuss what would be the most painless part of the body to be shot in and began to pray instead to die painlessly.”

It’s unclear whether the RSF has taken control of the hospital as it attempts to take over the nearby army headquarters, a flashpoint in Khartoum’s violence.

“The evacuation was chaos,” the medic said. “I thought I was going to vomit. I was stumbling and falling on the ground.”

“Can you believe that we left the hospital and left behind children in incubators and patients in intensive care without any medical personnel,” another medic said. “The smell of death was everywhere.”

“There was no electricity, no water there inside the hospital,” said a third medic. “None of our equipment was working, a woman sheltering with us had a two-day-old baby. I don’t even know what happened to her.”

At least half a dozen hospitals have been struck by both warring sides, according to Sudan’s Doctors Trade Union.

“Sudan’s hospitals under fire,” the Central Committee of Sudan doctors said in a statement on its Facebook page, warning of the potential collapse of the health sector if clashes continue.

“Most of the large and specialized hospitals are out of service as a result of being forcibly evacuated by the conflicting military forces or being targeted by bombing and others. Some other hospitals have been cut off from human and medical supplies, water and electricity,” the committee said.

Doctors Without Borders said its teams were “trapped by the ongoing heavy fighting and are unable to access warehouses to deliver vital medical supplies to hospitals,” and that its premises in Nyala, South Sarfur, had been looted.

Food, water and power shortages are rampant as Sudan has endured a third day of fighting, that has spread from Khartoum across the nation.

“Food in the fridge and freezers have gone bad,” Eman Abu Garjah, a Sudanese-British doctor based in Khartoum, told CNN. “We don’t have any supplies at the moment, that’s why we’re trying to go somewhere where the shops are open.”

“The planes were flying overhead earlier in the day. They didn’t just wake us up, they prevented us from going back to sleep,” she said.

“It’s Ramadan, we’re up for early morning prayers and after that usually you have a little bit of a siesta and wake up again for the afternoon prayers. But sleep was just not possible. The house was rattling and the windows were shaking.”

Until recently, Dagalo and Burhan were allies. The pair worked together to topple ousted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in 2019 and played a pivotal role in the military coup in 2021.

However, tensions arose during recent negotiations to integrate the RSF into the country’s military as part of plans to restore civilian rule.

In an interview with CNN on Monday, Burhan accused Dagalo of attempting to “capture and kill” him during an attempt by the paramilitary leader to seize the presidential palace.

In response to the allegation, an RSF spokesperson called Burhan, “a wanted fugitive.”

“We are seeking to capture him and bringing him to justice. We are fighting for all Sudanese people,” the RSF spokesperson said.

Burhan also accused the RSF of breaking a proposed ceasefire on Sunday and Monday.

“Yesterday and today a humanitarian ceasefire proposal was put forward and agreed upon,” said Burhan from army headquarters, as gunshots rang out in the background.

“Sadly, he did not abide by (the ceasefire),” he added. “You can hear right now the attempts to storm the Army headquarters, and indiscriminate mortar attacks. He’s using the humanitarian pause to continue the fight.”

The RSF denies that it broke ceasefire.

It is unclear how much control the RSF has wrested from the country’s military. Dagalo claims he now controls the country’s main military sites, a claim repeatedly disputed by Burhan.

“We’re under attack from all directions,” Dagalo told CNN’s Larry Madowo in a telephone interview on Sunday. “We stopped fighting and the other side did not, which put us in a predicament and we had to keep fighting to defend ourselves,” he claimed.

The RSF is the preeminent paramilitary group in Sudan, whose leader, Dagalo, has enjoyed a rapid rise to power.

During Sudan’s Darfur conflict, starting in the early 2000s, he was the leader of Sudan’s notorious Janjaweed forces, implicated in human rights violations and atrocities.

An international outcry saw ex-President Bashir formalize the group into paramilitary forces known as the Border Intelligence Units.

In 2007, its troops became part of the country’s intelligence services and, in 2013, Bashir created the RSF, a paramilitary group overseen by him and led by Dagalo. Dagalo turned against Bashir in 2019.

Months before the coup that unseated Bashir in April 2019, Dagalo’s forces opened fire on an anti-Bashir, pro-democracy sit-in in Khartoum, killing at least 118 people.

He was later appointed deputy of the transitional Sovereign Council that ruled Sudan in partnership with civilian leadership.

International powers have expressed alarm at the current violence in Sudan. Apart from concerns over civilians there are likely other motivations at play, the country is resource-rich and strategically located. CNN has previously reported on how Russia has colluded with its military leaders to smuggle gold out of Sudan.

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April 18, 2023
Students trapped, hospitals shelled and diplomats assaulted as Sudan fighting intensifies | CNN

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CNN
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For more than three days, students at the University of Khartoum have been trapped inside campus buildings as artillery and gunfire rain down around them in Sudan’s capital.

Fierce fighting between the country’s army and a paramilitary group has spread across the nation since erupting Saturday – but the university area is a particular hotspot due to its proximity to the General Command of the Armed Forces, with warplanes hovering overhead and nearby buildings destroyed by fire.

“It is scary that our country will turn into a battlefield overnight,” said 23-year-old Al-Muzaffar Farouk, one of 89 students, faculty members and staff sheltering inside the university library.

Food and water are running low, but leaving is not an option – one student has already been killed by gunfire outside. Khalid Abdulmun’em had been trying to run to the library from a nearby building when he was struck, said Farouk.

The students retrieved his body and brought it inside “despite the bullets that were falling on us,” he added.

The university confirmed Abdulmun’em’s death in a Facebook post, saying he had been shot in the campus’ surroundings. In a separate post on Monday, the university urged humanitarian organizations to help evacuate dozens of people stranded on campus.

Khartoum has been wracked by violence and chaos in a bloody tussle for power between Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Sudan’s military leader, and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, head of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The two leaders have traded blame for instigating the fighting and breaking temporary ceasefires. Meanwhile, civilians are paying the price, with at least 180 people killed and 1,800 others injured, according to UN officials on Monday.

“I can see outside smoke rising from buildings. And I can hear from my residence blasts, heavy gunfire from outside. The streets are totally empty,” said Red Cross staffer Germain Mwehu from Khartoum.

“In the building where I stay, I saw families with children, children crying when there are airstrikes, children horrified,” Mwehu said, adding that people had little to no access to food or medicine given the fierce fighting outside.

Children are among those killed; a 6-year-old child died on Monday after the RSF shelled a hospital in Khartoum and damaged a maternity ward. Medics were forced to evacuate, leaving patients behind – some just newborns in incubators.

At least half a dozen hospitals have been struck by both warring sides, according to Sudan’s Doctors Trade Union.

Even diplomats and humanitarian workers have been targeted.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed there was an attack on a US diplomatic convoy on Monday.

“Yesterday, we had an American diplomatic convoy that was fired on. All of our people are safe, but this the action was reckless, it was irresponsible and, of course, unsafe,” Blinken said in a press conference on Tuesday.

The European Union ambassador to Sudan was also assaulted in his residency on Monday, though he is now doing fine, according to a spokesperson for the EU’s top diplomat.

And three workers from the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) were killed in the western region of Darfur, prompting the WFP to temporarily halt all services in the country.

In statements early Tuesday morning, the two rival factions pointed fingers at each other.

The RSF accused the army of conducting airstrikes on residential neighborhoods and of attacking the EU ambassador’s headquarters in Khartoum; meanwhile, the army accused the RSF of targeting the ambassador’s residency, and of targeting the WFP’s headquarters in Darfur.

The UN and various foreign leaders have called for peace, with Blinken speaking separately with Burhan and Dagalo on Tuesday.

Blinken “expressed his grave concern about the death and injury of so many Sudanese civilians,” and argued a ceasefire was necessary to deliver aid, reunify separated families, and ensure the safety of diplomatic and humanitarian staff, according to a readout from the US State Department.

In his own statement, Dagalo said the RSF “will have another call” to continue dialogue. Burhan’s office also confirmed he had spoken with Blinken about the critical situation in Sudan.

The foreign ministers of G7 nations, comprised of some of the world’s largest economies, urged the factions to “end hostilities immediately” in their joint statement from Japan on Tuesday.

Volker Perthes, the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Sudan, said on Monday the organization has been trying to convince the two rival parties to “hold the fire” for a period of time, and asked them to protect embassies, UN offices, humanitarian and medical facilities.

Both sides had agreed to a three-hour ceasefire on Sunday, and again on Monday, with fighting resuming afterward, Perthes said.

But both Burhan and Dagalo have since accused the other of breaking that ceasefire.

When CNN spoke to Burhan on Monday afternoon, the sound of gunshots rang out in the background despite the supposed ceasefire – and Burhan claimed Dagalo had violated it for the second day.

A spokesperson for the RSF rebutted the accusation, claiming that they had been trying to abide by the ceasefire, but “they keep firing which leaves no choice” but for the RSF to “defend itself by firing back.”

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April 17, 2023
Hospitals under attack as fighting grips Sudanese capital for third day | CNN

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CNN
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Intense fighting has gripped Sudan for a third day and hospitals are under attack from missiles as they battle to save lives, amid a bloody tussle for power that has left close to 100 people dead and injured hundreds more.

Clashes first erupted Saturday between the country’s military and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, who told CNN on Sunday the army had broken a UN-brokered temporary humanitarian ceasefire.

On Monday, residents in the capital Khartoum endured sounds of artillery and bombardment by warplanes with eyewitnesses telling CNN they heard mortars in the early hours. The fighting intensifying after dawn prayers in the direction of Khartoum International Airport and Sudanese Army garrison sites.

Hospitals in the country – which are short of blood supplies and life-saving equipment – are being targeted with military strikes by both the Army and the RSF, according to eyewitness accounts to CNN and two doctors’ organizations, leaving medical personnel unable to reach the wounded and to bury the dead.

One doctor at a Khartoum hospital – whom CNN is not naming for security reasons – said his facility has been targeted since Saturday. “A direct strike hit the maternity ward. We could hear heavy weaponry and lay on the floor, along with our patients. The hospital itself was under attack.”

CNN has reached out to the Sudanese military and the RSF for comment.

Another doctor at the same al-Moallem Hospital told CNN that hospital staff stayed on site under bombardment from the RSF for two days, before being evacuated by the Sudanese military. “We were living in a real battle,” the doctor said. “Can you believe that we left the hospital and left behind children in incubators and patients in intensive care without any medical personnel? I can’t believe that I survived dying at the hospital, where the smell of death is everywhere.”

Hemedti said Monday his group will pursue the leader of Sudan’s Armed Forces Abdel Fattah al-Burhan “and bring him to justice,” while Sudan’s army called on paramilitary fighters to defect and join the armed forces.

Verified video footage shows military jets and helicopters hitting the airport; other clips show the charred remains of the army’s General Command building nearby after it was engulfed in fire on Sunday.

Residents in neighborhoods east of the airport told CNN they saw warplanes bombing sites east of the command. “We saw explosions and smoke rising from Obaid Khatim Street, and immediately after that, anti-aircraft artillery fired massively towards the planes,” one eyewitness said.

Amid the chaos, both parties to the fighting are working to portray a sense of control in the capital. The armed forces said Monday the Rapid Support Forces are circulating “lies to mislead the public,” reiterating the army have “full control of all of their headquarters” in the capital Khartoum.

Sudan’s national state television channel came back on air on Monday, a day after going dark, and is broadcasting messages in support of the army.

A banner on the channel said “the armed forces were able to regain control of the national broadcaster after repeated attempts by the militias to destroy its infrastructure.” Although the armed forces appear to have control of the television signal, CNN cannot independently verify that the army is in physical control of the Sudan TV premises.

A banner on the channel said “the armed forces were able to regain control of the national broadcaster after repeated attempts by the militias to destroy its infrastructure.”

In the Kafouri area, north of Khartoum, clashes and street fights broke out at dawn Monday, prompting residents to begin evacuating women and children from the area, Sudanese journalist Fathi Al-Ardi wrote on Facebook. In the Kalakla area, south of the capital, residents reported the walls of their houses shaking from explosions.

Reports also emerged of battles hundreds of miles away in the eastern city of Port Sudan and the western Darfur region over the weekend.

As of Monday, at least 97 people have been killed, according to the Preliminary Committee of Sudanese Doctors trade union. Earlier on Sunday, the World Health Organization estimated more than 1,126 were injured.

The WHO has warned that doctors and nurses are struggling to reach people in need of urgent care, and are lacking essential supplies.

“Supplies distributed by WHO to health facilities prior to this recent escalation of conflict are now exhausted, and many of the nine hospitals in Khartoum receiving injured civilians are reporting shortages of blood, transfusion equipment, intravenous fluids, medical supplies, and other life-saving commodities,” the organization said on Sunday.

Water and power cuts are affecting the functionality of health facilities, and shortages of fuel for hospital generators are also being reported,” the WHO added.

In the CNN interview, Dagalo blamed the military for starting the conflict and claimed RSF “had to keep fighting to defend ourselves.”

He speculated that the army chief and his rival, al-Burhan, had lost control of the military. When asked if his endgame was to rule Sudan, Dagalo said he had “no such intentions,” and that there should be a civilian government.

Amid the fighting, civilians have been warned to stay indoors. One local resident tweeted that they were “trapped inside our own homes with little to no protection at all.”

“All we can hear is continuous blast after blast. What exactly is happening and where we don’t know, but it feels like it’s directly over our heads,” they wrote.

Access to information is also limited, with the government-owned national TV channel now off the air. Television employees told CNN that it is in the hands of the RSF.

The conflict has put other countries and organizations on high alert, with the United Nations’ World Food Program temporarily halting all operations in Sudan after three employees were killed in clashes on Saturday.

UN and other humanitarian facilities in Darfur have been looted, while a WFP-managed aircraft was seriously damaged by gunfire in Khartoum, impeding the WFP’s ability to transport aid and workers within the country, the international aid agency said.

Qatar Airways announced Sunday it was temporarily suspending flights to and from Khartoum due to the closure of its airport and airspace.

On Sunday, Dagalo told CNN the RSF was in control of the airport, as well as several other government buildings in the capital.

Meanwhile, Mexico is working to evacuate its citizens from Sudan, with the country’s foreign minister saying Sunday it is looking to “expedite” their exit.

The United States embassy in Sudan said Sunday there were no plans for a government-coordinated evacuation yet for Americans in the country, citing the closure of the Khartoum airport. It advised US citizens to stay indoors and shelter in place, adding that it would make an announcement “if evacuation of private US citizens becomes necessary.”

The fresh clashes have prompted widespread calls for peace and negotiations. The head of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki, is scheduled to arrive in Khartoum on Monday, in an attempt to stop the fighting.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly also for an immediate ceasefire.

“People in Sudan want the military back in the barracks, they want democracy, they want a civilian-led government. Sudan needs to return to that path,” Blinken said, speaking on the sidelines of the G7 foreign minister talks in Japan on Monday.

The UN’s political mission in Sudan has said the country’s two warring factions have agreed to a “proposal” although it is not yet clear what that entails.

At the heart of the clashes is a power struggle between the two military leaders, Dagalo and Burhan.

The pair had worked together to topple ousted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in 2019, and played a pivotal role in the military coup in 2021, which ended a power-sharing agreement between the military and civilian groups.

The military has been in charge of Sudan since then, with Burhan and Dagalo at the helm.

But recent talks led to cracks in the alliance between the two men. The negotiations have sought to integrate the RSF into the country’s military, as part of the effort to transition to civilian rule.

Sources in Sudan’s civilian movement and Sudanese military sources told CNN the main points of contention included the timeline for the merger of the forces, the status given to RSF officers in the future hierarchy, and whether RSF forces should be under the command of the army chief, rather than Sudan’s commander-in-chief, who is currently Burhan.

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April 17, 2023
Sudan’s generals, pro-democracy group ink deal to end crisis

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KHARTOUM, Sudan — Sudan’s coup leaders and the main pro-democracy group signed a deal Monday to establish a civilian-led transitional government following the military takeover last year. But key players refused to participate, and no deadline was set for the transition to begin.

The framework — signed by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo and the leaders of the Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change — appears to offer only the broadest outlines for how the country will resume its progression to democracy. That process was upended in October 2021, when Burhan unseated the civilian half of Sudan’s ruling Sovereignty Council with Dagolo’s backing.

Since the coup, international aid has dried up and bread and fuel shortages, caused in part by the war in Ukraine, have become routine, plunging Sudan’s already inflation-riddled economy into deeper peril. Security forces have ruthlessly suppressed near-weekly pro-democracy marches. Deadly tribal clashes have flared in the country’s neglected peripheries.

It’s not clear whether or how quickly the deal signed Monday can offer a way out for Sudan, given that it appears to leave many thorny issues unresolved and doesn’t have the support of key political forces, including the grassroots pro-democracy Resistance Committees. That network’s leaders called for demonstrations against the agreement.

Several former rebel leaders, who have formed their own political bloc, have also rejected the deal.

Many of the points in a draft of the deal were already promised in a 2020 agreement that saw Sudan’s previous transitional government make peace with several rebels in Sudan’s far-flung provinces.

According to the draft, the deal envisions Sudan’s military eventually stepping back from politics. The document says it will form part of a new ’’security and defense council” under the appointed prime minister. But it does not address how to reform the armed forces, saying only they should be unified and controls should be imposed on military-owned companies.

It makes specific mention of Sudan’s wealthy paramilitary force, the Rapid Support Forces, headed by Dagalo. The force amassed wealth through its gradual acquisition of Sudanese financial institutions and gold reserves in recent years.

It also does not address creating a transitional judiciary system or say when the transitional government will be put in place. Only then will a two-year transition officially begin — the end goal of which is elections.

Analysts have cast doubt over whether the aims of the agreement are achievable, given its lack of detail on key issues and the boycott of key players.

‘‘Realistically none of these complex processes can be dealt with within a transitional time frame of two years,’’ said Kholood Khair, founder and director of Confluence Advisory, a think tank in Khartoum.

Sudan has been plunged into turmoil since the coup threw off course a democratic transition that began after three decades of autocratic rule by President Omar al-Bashir. The former leader was toppled in April 2019, following a popular uprising.

The U.N. special envoy to Sudan, Volker Perthes, attended Monday’s signing and later, at a speech at the palace, described the deal as ‘‘Sudanese-owned and Sudanese-led.’’

Monday’s development came after months of negotiations between the military and the Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change, facilitated by a mediating team of the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Britain.

In a joint statement issued after the signing, the four countries commended the agreement.

“A concerted effort to finalize negotiations and reach agreement quickly to form a new civilian-led government is essential to address Sudan’s urgent political, economic, security, and humanitarian challenges,” the group said.

The hope is the deal could draw in new international aid, after donor funds dried up in response to the coup.

Sudan has also seen a sharp increase in inter-tribal violence in the country’s west and south. In the southern Blue Nile province, two days of clashes between the Berta and Hausa killed over 170 peopl e in October. Last month some 48 were killed in tribal clashes in Darfur. Many commentators have attributed the rising tribal violence to the power vacuum caused by last year’s military takeover and the subsequent political and economic crisis.

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Jeffery reported from Cairo.

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December 5, 2022
Thousands march in Khartoum on 1st anniversary of Sudan coup

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CAIRO — Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Sudan’s capital of Khartoum on Tuesday, marking the first anniversary of a military coup that upended the nation’s short-lived transition to democracy.

Videos published on social media showed marchers with flags and drums, most of them bound for the Presidential Palace. Other footage showed protesters standing in front of convoys of security forces.

Netblocks, an online network tracker, announced early Tuesday that internet services across the country were blocked. Various Sudanese pro-democracy activists and local journalists reported security forces fired tear gas at protesters and earlier closed off bridges leading into Khartoum. The Associated Press has been unable to verify these claims.

Since its takeover, the military has cracked down and suppressed near-weekly pro-democracy marches, with as many as 118 protesters killed, according to statistics published by the Sudan Doctors Committee.

Sudan’s top general, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and paramilitary deputy Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo were meant to oversee a democratic transition after Sudan’s autocratic ruler Omar al-Bashir was toppled in a popular uprising in 2019.

But last year, Burhan dissolved the ruling Sovereign Council, arrested the transitional prime minister and unseated the civilian faction of a power-sharing government that had been in place. He later said he acted to stop a civil war.

Rights groups say hundreds have been detained since the military takeover, many without charge.

In recent weeks, internationally backed talks between Sudan’s pro-democracy movement and the ruling military have made some progress.

According to The Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change — an alliance of political parties and protest groups — the military has agreed on a draft constitutional document written by the country’s Bar Association. This would allow the appointment of a civilian prime minister who would lead the country through elections by 2024.

But Sudan’s more ardent pro-democracy groups, including the grassroots Resistance Committees who spearhead anti-coup street protests, reject any settlement with the military. Along with the Communist Party, they have demanded that those responsible for the year’s deadly crackdown on demonstrations be tried in court.

‘‘I have no trust in the army’s intentions, the new negotiation is just a new division of wealth and power” said Ammar Yahya, the spokesperson for a Khartoum branch of the Resistance Committees.

The coup has plunged Sudan’s already inflation-riddled economy into deeper peril. International aid has dried up while bread and fuel shortages, caused in part by the war in Ukraine, have become increasingly routine.

In a statement also marking the coup’s anniversary, the head of The U.S. Agency for International Development condemned the takeover but said she was ‘encouraged’ by the recent agreement over the Bar Association’s constitutional document.

‘‘I reiterate the call for the military to cede power back to civilian authorities,’’ Samantha Powell added.

The year has also seen a resurgence of deadly tribal clashes in the country’s neglected peripheries. Fierce clashes between the Hausa and Berta people last week killed at least 230 people in southern Blue Nile province.

Many analysts consider the rising violence in the south a product of the power vacuum caused by the military takeover, with the ruling generals’ clampdown focused on the center of power, Khartoum and the country’s heartland, while the peripheries descend into chaos.

Burhan and Dagalo have separately promised to step back from politics following the reinstatement of a civilian government. But amid the chaos, both have also sought to further their political influence.

Dagalo’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, implicated in the killing of more than 100 sit-in protesters in June 2019 in Khartoum, have continued to expand across the country. Meanwhile, Burhan has overseen the reinstatement of dozens of civil servants sacked by the previous government for their association with al-Bashir’s circle.

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October 25, 2022