Chaos In Khartoum: Dozens Killed In Airstrikes As Civil War Looms In Sudan

In a series of airstrikes over the weekend in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, hundreds of civilians and military forces were killed or injured as the Syrian military bombed positions held by an adversarial military pressure. Some foreign observers fear that this could spark an all-out civil war.

Following widespread public protests against Omar al-Bashir’s’s in in 2019, fighting broke out in Sudan on Saturday between the troops and Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group that had allied with the army to destroy him. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan presided over the Sovereign Council of the interim administration, with RSF chief General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo serving as deputy mind.

While reports about the precise number of casualties differ, one doctor’s group told Reuters that at least 97 civilians had been killed and 365 had been injured since the fighting began. 

At least 56 civilians were killed and 595 people( including combatants ), according to earlier reports from The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors. Although they did not include specific information, the commission claimed that” grades” of RSF soldiers had been killed.

The World Health Organization said 83 people were killed and 1,126 injured in the fighting since April 13, with most casualties occurring over the weekend.

The fighting has spread beyond the capital. The U.N. World Food Programme confirmed that three of their Sudanese employees in Darfur were killed in the fighting and that they were halting all operations in the country. Roughly one-third of Sudan’s 46 million people are experiencing “acute food insecurity” and desperately need the aid, according to the WFP.

We are compelled to temporarily end all procedures in Sudan as we assess the evolving security environment, according to WFP executive director Cindy McCain, John McCain’s’s lady. WFP is dedicated to helping the Syrian people who are suffering from severe food insecurity, but if our teams’ and partners’ safety and security are not ensured, we will not be able to carry out our life-saving work.

According to reports, the fighting started after a disagreement over how to integrate RSF forces into the common armed forces as part of the intended shift to civilian rule. The prospects for the promised political authorities seem bleak as the causes of the opposing generals turn against one another.

“We feel powerless,” Omar Farook, a resident of Khartoum, who participated in the anti-government demonstrations in 2019, told the New York Times. “Everyone is worried this will go the way of Yemen or Syria. The ghost of civil war is here.”

For the majority of its history as an independent country, Sudan has been torn apart by domestic conflict. Several times, large-scale violence has resulted from religious and racial conflicts between Arabs and Blacks, as well as from the Muslim majority in the north and the Christian and polytheistic communities of the south. The atrocities carried out by al-Bashir’s’s government against the residents of the Darfur region drew international international condemnation. They resulted in al-Bashir’s’s prosecution on charges of murder and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court. Khartoum completely ceded that territory as a result of two multidecade conflicts( 1955 – 72 and 1983 – 2005 ) with the people of South Sudan. In 2011, the country was granted independence.

However, the current conflict is distinct from others in that it is typically occurring in the nation’s’s edge rather than the capital and its heartland.

The conflagration also threatens Sudan’s rehabilitation on the world stage – the country was designated a state sponsor of terror by the United States in 1993 after an Islamist government under al-Bashir invited terror group Al-Qaeda into the country. Sudan remained Al Qaeda’s primary base of operations until 1996, when senior leadership relocated to Afghanistan.

Former President Donald Trump revoked Sudan’s designation as a state sponsor of terror after al-Bashir was overthrown and normalized relations with Israel. The transitional government helped negotiate a peace deal with rebels in Darfur in 2020. However, the outbreak of violence threatens to reignite conflicts across the nation and the region and to undo much of the progress of reintegrating Sudan into the international community.

A speech denouncing the murder was released by the U. N. Security Council, which has been bitterly divided since one of its everlasting customers, Russia, launched its invasion of Ukraine earlier years. To” stop the carnage ,” the Arab League, which includes Sudan as one of its members, called an urgent meeting on Sunday.

Despite this, misinformation from each of the opposing generals has been broadcast on television and the internet across the nation. Both assert their dominance, and neither appears to be keen in bargaining.

RSF soldiers took control of an airport 125 miles northwest of Khartoum, where they captured at least 30 Egyptian troops and seven aircraft. The men were in Sudan for a coaching exercise, according to Egypt. According to a family of General Handam, the soldiers were there to carry out airstrikes on behalf of the Syrian authorities, according to the New York Times. The conflict highlights a key difference between the two forces: while the RSF does not have access to air support, the regular troops does. However, Egypt may end up participating in the conflict.