Sudanese army accuses RSF of storming several embassies

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
16 May 2023 10:26

A month into Sudan's brutal war, around 1,000 people have been killed and more than 700,000 people have been internally displaced.

Black smoke and fire at Omdurman market in Omdurman, Sudan, May 15, 2023 (Reuters)

One month since Sudan's conflict erupted, residents of the capital, Khartoum, have endured desperate food shortages, power blackouts, communications outages, and increasing inflation.

Violence also renewed in El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state, leaving hundreds killed and the health system in "total collapse", medics said.

Fighting continued on Monday, with loud explosions heard across Khartoum and thick smoke in the sky while warplanes drew anti-aircraft fire, according to witnesses.

"The situation is becoming worse by the day," said a 37-year-old resident of southern Khartoum who did not wish to be named because of safety concerns.

"People are getting more and more scared because the two sides... are becoming more and more violent."

Another witness reported "clashes with various types of weapons" in Omdurman, the capital's twin city.

Battles erupted on April 15 between army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohammad Hamdan Dagalo, who leads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

What remains of the government has retreated to Port Sudan about 850 kilometers (500 miles) away, the hub for mass evacuations.

The United Nations says more than 700,000 people have been internally displaced by the fighting, and nearly 200,000 have fled Sudan for neighboring countries.

Around 1,000 people have been killed, mainly in and around Khartoum, as well as the ravaged state of West Darfur, according to medics.

Violence on Friday and Saturday in El Geneina, the West Darfur capital, killed at least 280, according to the Sudanese Doctors' Union.

The overall number of civilians killed in the clashes in Sudan has reached 822, as per the latest toll provided by the Union on Tuesday.

"The number of killed civilians since the beginning of the clashes has risen to 822, [the number of] injured [increased] to 3,215," the Union wrote on social media.

After a month of war, Al-Burhan declared he was freezing the assets of the RSF which, according to analysts, has interests in Sudan's gold mines.

Al-Burhan dismissed the central bank governor and the police director general, while Dagalo threatened in an audio recording that the army chief would be "brought to justice and hanged" publicly.

Multiple truce deals in the current conflict have been violated. The security breakdown has extended beyond Khartoum and Darfur to other regions. Ethnic violence last week killed more than 50 people in West Kordofan and White Nile states, according to the UN.

Army accuses RSF of storming several embassies

The fighting has deepened the humanitarian crisis in Sudan, where one in three people already relied on humanitarian assistance before the war.

Since then, aid agencies have been looted and at least 18 of their workers killed.

Diplomatic facilities have also been targeted. Jordan on Monday issued a condemnation after its Khartoum embassy building "was stormed and attacked."

The Kuwaiti Ministry of Foreign announced that the residence of the head of the military office in its embassy in Khartoum was stormed and vandalized.

The Sudanese army accused the RSF of storming the embassies of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, South Sudan, and Somalia.

Across the Red Sea, in the Saudi city of Jeddah, envoys from both sides have been negotiating. By May 11 they had signed a commitment to respect humanitarian principles and allow in badly needed aid.

"Scarcely had the two warring parties signed the Jeddah Agreement on Thursday night when chaos erupted once again in Geneina," William Carter, the Norwegian Refugee Council's country director, said.

Doctors Without Borders said food shortages in Darfur displacement camps mean "people have gone from three meals a day to just one."

The fighting has caused "the partial deindustrialization" of the country, said Aly Verjee, a researcher at Sweden's University of Gothenburg, meaning "any future Sudan will be much poorer for much longer."