Al-Burhan in Egypt for talks with El-Sisi as deadly conflict continues
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According to his office, El-Sisi reaffirms Egypt's firm position in "standing by Sudan and supporting its security, stability, and territorial integrity."
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Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi greets Sudan's army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan at the Presidential Palace in El-Alamein city in Egypt on August 29, 2023. (AP)
General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of the Sudanese army, visited Egypt on Tuesday, his first travel overseas since the conflict broke out in April, with the current violence killing hundreds of people, especially in battle-torn Darfur.
As Abdel Fattah al-Burhan prepared to meet with key ally Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, medics and witnesses reported that 39 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed in shelling of Nyala, Sudan's second city in South Darfur state, where fighting between the army and paramilitary forces has intensified.
Last week, al-Burhan made his first public appearance outside of the army command compound in Khartoum since the conflict started more than four months ago in a video circulated by the army on August 24.
Al-Burhan appeared among the people after he had been absent from the public eye and videos for weeks at a time, while the Rapid Support Forces controlled most of the capital, excluding the Sudanese army bases.
Wearing a suit and tie, al-Burhan flew from Port Sudan to El-Alamein on Egypt's north coast, where he claimed his forces faced "rebel groups who have committed war crimes in their attempt to seize power."
During the meeting, El-Sisi's office said he had "reaffirmed Egypt's firm position in standing by Sudan and supporting its security, stability, and territorial integrity."
On Monday, al-Burhan addressed his troops from Port Sudan where he vowed to "put an end to the rebellion."
A day earlier, Dagalo had unveiled a 10-point vision that would end the war and "build a new state." The vision calls for "civilian rule based on democratic norms" and "a single, professional, national military institution."
Al-Burhan told Egyptian media Tuesday that Sudan's military is "committed to ending the war" and "does not seek to continue ruling" the country.
"We seek free, fair elections where the Sudanese people can decide what they want."
Hostilities force about 5mln people out of Sudan's Khartoum Province
Since hostilities broke out between the Sudanese armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group, around 5 million people have left Khartoum, the capital province of Sudan, according to a statement to Sputnik by Siddiq Hassan Freini, the province's minister for social provision, on August 17.
"According to current estimates, about 5 million residents of Khartoum province have moved to other provinces in Sudan," the Minister said.
According to Freini, the armed conflict has made the province's poverty worse.
Read next: Aid staff slams lack of support for Sudan as ‘unapologetically racist'
It is worth noting that in July, the conflict displaced some three million people out of their homes in less than three months, the United Nation's International Organization for Migration said.
With more than 2.2 million internally displaced Sudanese people and nearly 700,000 others who had to flee the country as a whole, the figures obtained back then by the IOM through its Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) revealed that the conflict displaced close to three million people.
The IOM revealed that the majority of the people were displaced from Khartoum (67%) and Darfur (33%) toward the Northern State (16%), the River Nile (14%), West Darfur (7%), and White Nile states.
Darfur, a vast western region on the border with Chad, has witnessed the deadliest violence since the war erupted.
