Nearly 100 civilians have died and hundreds more have been wounded in the ongoing battles between Sudan’s regular army and a powerful paramilitary force. The conflict erupted after long‑running, bitter brinkmanship between two rival generals—army chief Abdel Fattah al‑Burhan and his deputy, Mohamed Daglo, commander of the heavily armed Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The RSF, formed from members of the Janjaweed militia that perpetrated years of violence in Darfur, together with Burhan seized power in a 2021 coup. On Saturday, their struggle for dominance burst into open violence across Khartoum and other Sudanese cities, marked by deafening explosions, air strikes, artillery fire and intense gunfire in densely packed neighbourhoods. Each general accused the other of starting the fighting and claimed control of key sites, though these assertions could not be independently verified.
The rivalry turned into armed conflict after Burhan and Daglo orchestrated the October 2021 coup that upended a fragile transition to civilian rule begun after the 2019 ouster of longtime autocrat Omar al‑Bashir. Burhan, a career soldier from northern Sudan who rose through the ranks under Bashir’s three‑decade rule, assumed the top post, while Daglo—known as Hemeti—came from Darfur’s pastoralist Arab Rizeigat community and took the role of deputy. Independent researcher Hamid Khalafallah described their partnership as “a marriage of convenience,” noting that it was never a genuine alliance but a tactical tie‑up to present a united military front against civilians. The rift widened as Daglo began to call the coup a “mistake” that failed to bring change and instead revived remnants of Bashir’s regime. When army and civilian leaders negotiated a deal to end the political crisis, the integration of the RSF into the regular army emerged as a key sticking point. Alan Boswell, Horn of Africa director at the International Crisis Group, said Daglo saw the agreement as an opportunity to become “more autonomous from the military” and pursue “very large political ambitions.” Analyst Kholood Khair added that a December framework agreement heightened tensions by elevating Hemeti’s position to equal Burhan’s rather than deputy, turning security‑sector reform discussions into armed conflict.
The RSF was created in 2013, emerging from the Janjaweed fighters that Bashir had previously deployed against non‑Arab ethnic minorities in western Darfur—a campaign that led to war‑crimes accusations and an International Criminal Court indictment for Bashir. In 2015, the militia fought alongside regular Sudanese forces in the Saudi‑led coalition’s civil war in Yemen, boosting Daglo’s international profile, and it has also been involved in the conflict in neighbouring Libya. Since Bashir’s ouster, the RSF has been implicated in further atrocities, including a violent dispersal of a Khartoum sit‑in in June 2019 that left at least 128 people dead. Boswell notes that the RSF has continued to grow stronger since 2019.
Looking ahead, Boswell describes the situation as an “existential power struggle” for both sides, a zero‑sum game in which each general seeks total victory. Khair believes it is unlikely either will negotiate without suffering heavy losses, and both continue to issue bellicose statements. She told AFP that neither will emerge unscathed; the longer the fighting continues in the streets, the higher the civilian toll and the harder it will be for either leader to govern the resulting wreckage. Boswell warns that both sides are strong enough to make any war extremely costly, deadly and protracted. Even a partial victory in Khartoum would not end the conflict, which would likely continue elsewhere, dividing Sudan into competing strongholds. “We’re already in worst‑case‑scenario territory, and from here the scenarios only get grimmer,” he said, cautioning that the impact will ripple throughout the region.
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