KHARTOUM: The intense fighting between the Sudani military and the paramilitary group — Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — has left at least 100 people, including civilians, dead and as many injured as the pitched battle entered the third day.
The country’s military and the paramilitary RSF led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, clashed on Saturday. Hemedti told CNN on Sunday that the army had violated an UN-mediated interim humanitarian ceasefire.
Eyewitnesses in Khartoum told CNN on Monday that they heard artillery and mortars in the early morning hours and that the combat grew more intense after dawn prayers in the area of the Sudanese Army garrison sites and the Khartoum International Airport. The verified video shows military aircraft and helicopters striking the airport. Other clips show the burned-out wreckage of the army’s General Command building, which closed on Sunday when it caught fire.
Residents of the areas east of the airport told CNN that they witnessed bombing operations by aircraft over targets there.
One witness said, “We saw explosions and smoke rising from Obaid Khatim Street, and then anti-aircraft artillery fired massively towards the planes.”
Conflicts and street brawls broke out in the Kafouri neighbourhood, north of Khartoum, around dawn on Monday, leading locals to start evacuating women and children, Sudanese journalist Fathi Al-Ardi posted on Facebook. Residents in the Kalakla neighbourhood, south of the capital, reported hearing explosions that caused their walls to tremble.
Over the weekend, reports of skirmishes taking place hundreds of kilometres away in the western Darfur region and the eastern city of Port Sudan also surfaced. According to the Preliminary Committee of the Sudanese Doctors Union, at least 97 individuals had died as of Monday. The World Health Organisation assessed that 1,126 people were hurt earlier on Sunday.
According to the WHO, hospitals lack specialised medical staff, especially anesthesiologists. The WHO stated on Sunday that “water and power cuts are affecting the operation of health facilities, and there are also reports of fuel shortages for hospital generators.” In the CNN interview, Dagalo accused the military of beginning the violence and stated that RSF “had to keep fighting to defend ourselves.” He conjectured that Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the army chief, and both of them had lost control of the armed forces. Dagalo said he had “no such intentions” and that a civilian government should be in place when asked if his ultimate goal was to control Sudan.
Civilians were urged to stay indoors throughout the battle. In a tweet, a resident lamented being “trapped inside our own homes with little to no protection at all.” “Bomb after bomb is all that we can hear. They wrote that we don’t know precisely where or what is happening, but it feels like it is happening above our heads. Since the national TV channel owned by the government has been taken off the air, information access is likewise restricted. CNN was informed by television staff that it is in the RSF’s possession.
