The Sudanese Army corners the paramilitaries
The civil war in Sudan has continued and has experienced a very important episode with the siege that the Sudanese Army commanded by Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan has imposed on the presidential palace in Khartoum, which has been controlled by the paramilitary force Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.
Sudanese state television revealed that Al-Burhan's army surrounded the presidential palace to take it, cornering the Rapid Support Forces in the capital Khartoum, a key move in the national war that has been going on for more than two years between the two sides, locked in a struggle for power in the vacuum left after the overthrow of Omar Al-Bashir, the president who ruled the country with an iron fist in a harsh regime that lasted 30 years.
The military forces overthrew Omar Al-Bashir in 2019 to end a regime that had been accused of political abuses and corruption, and a power vacuum was created that was partly filled by the Armed Forces to lead a supposed constitutional process together with the civilian sphere to establish a democratic political regime that was never fully developed. .
In 2021, factions of the army staged a coup against the transitional government of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and a military regime was established with Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan as its figurehead, who also continued to promise the development of a constitutional procedure towards a democratic regime, which ultimately did not materialise.
Within the army itself, dissension arose from internal struggles and a bloody civil war was generated over the last two years between the Sudanese army itself under the command of Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, a strongman in Sudan, and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) of Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo.
The paramilitary group RSF took control of important enclaves, such as part of the capital Khartoum, in the face of the army's action, which has now taken an important step with the decision to take the presidential palace controlled by Hemedti's paramilitaries, as reported by Sudanese state television.
The Reuters news agency quoted eyewitnesses and military sources to report on Wednesday night's action in which violent clashes broke out near the presidential palace, as explosions and army air strikes on central Khartoum were heard.
Sudanese state television already reported on Thursday that the Armed Forces had taken action against the presidential palace, cornering the Rapid Support Forces. In recent months, the soldiers had advanced north as far as the Freedom Bridge in central Khartoum, after bloody fighting against the Rapid Support Forces, who were forced to retreat to the presidential palace and other headquarters of the Sudanese administration.
Despite everything, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) control key locations in the capital, such as Khartoum Airport, the Central Bank of Sudan, the Zain Telecommunications Tower, the Al-Fateh Tower, the offices of the prime minister, the headquarters of the Security and Intelligence Service, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and installations of the Air Defence Department.
The fighting has recently left Dantesque scenes. Sudanese authorities reported the discovery of 185 ‘decomposed’ bodies and some 1,900 graves on roads and in houses in the greater Khartoum area, where Al-Burhan's army made its last major advances against FAR detachments.
This civil war between Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan's army and Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo's Rapid Support Forces, which has been going on since April 2023, has already left more than 20,000 people dead and around 14 million refugees and displaced persons, in what is a political, social and humanitarian crisis of exceptional dimensions, as denounced by the United Nations (UN).