NAIROBI, Kenya – Sudan’s nightmare scenario is coming to an end.
Warplanes roared over the capital Khartoum on Sunday, firing rockets at the city of millions. The artillery barrages hit the army headquarters, turning it into a tower of fire. Civilian planes were bombed at the city’s airport, where frightened passengers cowered on the terminal’s floors.
The country has been on a tightrope for four years now, desperately clinging to dreams of the 2019 people’s revolution, as protesters toppled a brutal dictator and inspired sweet hopes. about democracy.
But two power-hungry generals still dominate Sudan. And when their relationship dissolve into violence This weekend, it began a breathtaking downhill that seemed to be the realization of many people’s worst fears.
Fighting spread in all four corners of the country, where the army and a paramilitary unit known as the Support Force quickly battled for control of airfields and military bases. One of the factions even captured and detained Egyptian soldiers, along with seven Egyptian fighters, threatening to draw a powerful neighbor into the war and spark the specter of a war. conflict in the region.
The war has also spread deep into Darfur, an area the size of Spain that for 20 years has been tormented by its own cycle of violence.
For a country just beginning to emerge from international isolation, the chaos is a blow. As Sudan moved towards democracy, the United States lifted its designation as a state sponsor of terrorism. International aid has been promised and Russia’s moves to establish a foothold there have enhanced its geostrategic value.
But Sudan’s revolution, like many others, ran aground.
For Omar Farook, it marked the end of a dream.
Like tens of thousands of others, Mr Farook risked his life to join the protesters in 2019 that defiance brought. overthrow President Omar Hassan al-BashirSudan’s autocratic ruler for three decades.
But this weekend, as Mr Farook and his wife huddled in their home on the outskirts of Khartoum listening to bombs and gunfire, their hopes for democracy were dashed.
“We feel helpless,” he said over the phone. “Everybody is worried this will happen to Yemen or Syria. The specter of civil war is here.”
More than 83 people have been killed and more than 1,126 others injured since April 13, most of them this weekend, The World Health Organization said. The damage figure, including civilians caught in the crossfire, is expected to increase.
The United Nations World Food Program said three of its staff were killed in the western region of Darfur and one of its planes was destroyed at the airport. The group announced the immediate suspension of all programs in Sudan, where a third of the country’s 45 million people are in need of food aid.
Sudan is set to usher in an important new era this month: a return to civilian rule. The army promised to hand over power last Tuesday, the fourth anniversary of al-Bashir’s ouster. But that transition depends on the two generals running the country – the army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan; and his deputy, the paramilitary commander Lieutenant General Mohamed Hamdan – keep their smoldering rivalry under control.
Instead, they began fighting, dragging Africa’s third-largest nation into a spiral of chaos that many feared would end in a full-blown civil war.
So far, the world’s attention has been mainly focused on Khartoum, where uninterrupted internet service allowed residents to broadcast footage of the terrifying street battles raging outside their doors.
Stunned by the sudden outbreak of violence early Saturday, the powerful Western and Arab nations on Sunday ramped up their efforts to persuade General al-Burhan and General Hamdan to stop fighting.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke to his counterparts in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, united in calls for immediate peace talks. The Arab League, of which Sudan is a member, has called on the warring parties to “stop the bloodshed”.
During an emergency session of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, a regional bloc including Sudan, the presidents of Kenya, South Sudan and Djibouti agreed to make a joint visit to Khartoum, an official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. . No date has been set.
Even the United Nations Security Council issued a rare statement since Russia invaded Ukraine last year, condemning the violence and calling on both sides to resume negotiations.
Sudan’s warring generals don’t seem to be listening.
As rival troops exchanged guns and fired rockets in the streets of Sudan, General Hamdan and General al-Burhan engaged in intense verbal attacks. on television and the internet. Both men professing to win the war and making bellicose threats seem to leave little room for negotiation.
In an interview, General Hamdan said General al-Burhan “will die like any dog” if he is not brought to justice. And as the violence spread, the Sudanese Army posted a video on Facebook showed soldiers in the eastern city of Qadarif stepping on a photo of General Hamdan.
Another element of unpredictability emerges in a murky episode involving at least 30 soldiers being detained from Egypt, Sudan’s northern neighbor and former colony. General Hamdan’s forces captured Egyptian troops and seven fighters on Saturday at an air base at Meroe, 125 miles north of Khartoum.
Egypt says soldiers are in Sudan during an exercise.
But a relative of General Hamdan, Izzeldin Elsafi, said by phone that the captured soldiers were mostly pilots and aircraft mechanics who traveled to Sudan to carry out airstrikes on behalf of the Sudanese military. He blamed Egypt for the air strikes on General Hamdan’s Rapid Support Force in Port Sudan and Omdurman, across the Nile from Khartoum, on Sunday morning. He said the planes had taken off from a second Egyptian camp in Sudan.
Those claims could not be verified, but facts have made clear the volatile nature of the conflict and its ability to involve other nations. They also highlight a serious imbalance between two conflicting military forces: the Sudanese Army has fighter jets. Rapid Support did not.
The fighting in Darfur added another flammable element to the conflict. Darfur is home to a number of rebel groups that may be caught up in the war, and it has also been a base for the Russian Wagner Private military company mines gold there and allied with General Hamdan.
In Khartoum on Sunday, satellite images showed black smoke blanketing the airport, where two large Ilyushin transport planes caught fire. At least four other planes have burned since Saturday, according to satellite images reviewed by The Times.
Many Sudanese said they could not believe what was happening.
Although tensions have been growing between General al-Burhan and General Hamdan for months, foreign officials pushing the transition to a civilian government have insisted it is on the right track – a source of Bitter accusations among Sudanese say foreigners should defuse tensions in the military.
And although Sudan has experienced many wars in its 67-year history, as catastrophic as they have been, they have mostly taken place on the country’s periphery, hundreds of miles from the capital.
The conflict led to the secession of South Sudan in 2011; allegation of genocide in Darfur at the International Criminal Court; and massive amounts of death, displacement and suffering, mainly affects disadvantaged ethnic groups.
But they rarely affect Khartoum directly.
That changed dramatically this weekend as residents of the capital experienced the kind of trauma that was previously limited to more remote parts of the country. It coincides with the last 10 days of Ramadan, a month-long fasting period and the holiest time in the Islamic calendar.
Even after the warring factions announced a three-hour ceasefire in Khartoum on Sunday to allow residents to travel safely, the gunfire and explosions did not stop, several people said by phone.
In Kafouri, an affluent residential area north of the Nile, Reem Sinada watched in horror as a line of paramilitary combat vehicles carrying more than 50 warriors stopped at her doorstep. Her family ran to her brother’s house nearby — but a day later, she cringed again when the windows and doors of her new shelter shook from shells falling nearby.
“I am deeply saddened,” Ms. Sinada said by phone. “But, hopefully, we’ll get over this soon.”
Report contributed by Farnaz Fassihi And Christoph Koettl from New York; Vivian Yee from Cairo; Andrés R. Martinez from Seoul; Edward King from Karuizawa, Japan; And Isabella Kwai from London.
