Deaths soar to 185 in Sudan as political clashes intensify on third day
KHARTOUM, Sudan — As explosions and gunfire thundered outside, Sudanese huddled in their homes for a third day Monday in the capital of Khartoum and other cities, while the army and a powerful rival force battled in the streets for control of the country.
At least 185 people have been killed and more than 1,800 wounded since the fighting erupted, U.N. envoy Volker Perthes told reporters. The two sides are using tanks, artillery and other heavy weapons in densely populated areas. Fighter jets swooped overhead and anti-aircraft fire lit up the skies as darkness fell.
The toll could be much higher because there are many bodies in the streets around central Khartoum that no one can reach because of the clashes. There has been no official word on how many civilians or combatants have been killed. The Sudan Doctors’ Syndicate earlier put the number of civilian deaths at 97.
The sudden explosion of violence over the weekend between the nation’s two top generals, each backed by thousands of well-armed fighters, trapped millions of people in their homes or wherever they could find shelter, with supplies running low and several hospitals forced to shut down.
Top diplomats on four continents scrambled to broker a truce, and the U.N. Security Council was set to discuss the crisis.
“Gunfire and shelling are everywhere,” Awadeya Mahmoud Koko, head of a union for thousands of tea vendors and other food workers, said from her home in Khartoum.
She said a shell struck a neighbor’s house Sunday, killing at least three people. “We couldn’t take them to a hospital or bury them.”
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In central Khartoum, sustained gunfire erupted and white smoke rose near the main military headquarters, a major battlefront. Nearby, at least 88 students and staffers have been trapped in the engineering college library at Khartoum University since the start of fighting, one of the students said in a video posted online Monday. One student was killed in clashes outside and another was heavily wounded, he said. The group does not have food or water, he said, showing a room full of people sleeping on the floor.
Even in a country with a long history of military coups, the scenes of fighting in the capital and its adjoining city Omdurman across the Nile River were unprecedented. The fighting comes just days before Sudanese were to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting.
The fighting threatens to throw Sudan into a wider civil conflict at a time when Sudanese were trying to revive their drive for a democratic, civilian government after decades of military rule. The clashes are part of a power struggle between Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the commander of the armed forces, and Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, the head of the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, a paramilitary group. The two generals are former allies who jointly orchestrated an October 2021 military coup that derailed Sudan’s short-lived transition to democracy.
Sudan’s military coup leaders and the country’s main pro-democracy group have signed a deal to establish a civilian-led transitional government.
Under international pressure, Burhan and Dagalo had recently agreed to a framework agreement with political parties and pro-democracy groups, but the signing was repeatedly delayed as tensions rose over the integration of the RSF into the armed forces and the future chain of command.
The U.S., the U.N. and others have called for a truce. Egypt, which backs Sudan’s military, and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — which forged close ties to the RSF in recent years as it sent thousands of fighters to support their war in Yemen — have also called for both sides to stand down.
But both generals have dug in, refusing truce negotiations, engaging in verbal attacks and demanding each other’s surrender.
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The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell tweeted that the EU ambassador to Sudan “was assaulted in his own residency,” without providing further details. EU officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Dagalo, whose forces grew out of the notorious janjaweed militias in Sudan’s Darfur region, portrayed himself in a statement on Twitter as a defender of democracy and branded Burhan as the aggressor and a “radical Islamist.” Both generals have a long history of human rights abuses and their forces have cracked down on pro-democracy activists.
Heavy gunbattles raged in multiple parts of the capital and Omdurman, where the two sides have brought in tens of thousands of troops, positioning them in nearly every neighborhood.
Twelve hospitals in the capital area have been “forcefully evacuated” and are “out of service” because of attacks or power outages, the Sudan Doctors’ Syndicate said, out of a total of around 20 hospitals. Four other hospitals outside the capital have also shut down, it added in a statement late Monday.
A summit of African leaders is taking place this week in Washington, D.C., where the White House on Monday announced a $55-billion commitment to Africa over the next three years across a range of sectors.
Hadia Saeed said she and her three children were sheltering in one room on the ground floor of their home for fear of the shelling as gunfire rattled across their Bahri district in north Khartoum. They have food for a few more days, but “after that we don’t know what to do,” she said.
Residents said fierce fighting with artillery and other heavy weapons raged Monday afternoon in the Gabra neighborhood southwest of Khartoum. People were trapped and screaming inside their homes, said Asmaa al-Toum, a physician living in the area.
Fighting has been particularly fierce around each side’s main bases and at strategic government buildings — all of which are in residential areas.
The military Monday claimed to have secured the main television building in Omdurman, after days of fighting with RSF fighters trying to seize the building. State-run Sudan TV resumed broadcasting.
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On Sunday, the RSF said it abandoned its main barracks and base in Omdurman, which the armed forces had pounded with airstrikes. Online videos Monday purported to show the bodies of dozens of men said to be RSF fighters at the base, strewn over beds, the floor of a clinic and outside in a yard. The authenticity of the videos could not be confirmed independently.
The military and RSF were also fighting in most major centers around the country, including in the western Darfur region and parts of the north and the east, by the borders with Egypt and Ethiopia. Battles raged Monday around a strategic airbase in Merowe, some 215 miles northwest of the capital, with both sides claiming control of the facility.
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Only four years ago, Sudan inspired hope after a popular uprising helped depose long-time autocratic leader Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir.
But the turmoil since, especially the 2021 coup, has frustrated the democracy drive and wrecked the economy. A third of the population — around 16 million people — now depends on humanitarian assistance in the resource-rich nation, Africa’s third largest.
Save the Children, an international charity, said it has temporarily suspended most of its operations across Sudan. It said looters raided its offices in Darfur, stealing medical supplies, laptops, vehicles and a refrigerator. The World Food Program suspended operations over the weekend after three employees were killed in Darfur, and the International Rescue Committee has also halted most operations.
For the record:
3:19 a.m. April 17, 2023A previous version of this story misidentified the charitable organization that suspended work in Sudan on Monday. The International Rescue Committee halted operations, not the International Committee of the Red Cross.
With the U.S., European Union, African and Arab nations all calling for an end to fighting, the U.N. Security Council was to discuss the developments in Sudan. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was consulting with the Arab League, African Union and leaders in the region, urging anyone with influence to press for peace.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry discussed the violence in separate phone calls with his Saudi and French counterparts, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said.
At a meeting of the Group of Seven wealthy nations in Japan on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said the Sudanese “want the military back in the barracks. They want democracy. They want the civilian-led government, Sudan needs to return to that path.”
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