Sudan\u2019s army says it has wrested control of the capital Khartoum from a feared militia accused of genocide after ousting it from the Presidential Palace and the city\u2019s airport it had held since the start of a brutal two-year conflict. <\/p>\n
But while the capture of Khartoum marks an important moment in the conflict, with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) deeply embedded elsewhere in Sudan and attempting to form a parallel government, analysts warn there is little likelihood of a swift resolution to the war. <\/p>\n
Since April 2023, two of Sudan\u2019s most powerful generals \u2013 Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who leads the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and former ally Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) \u2013 have engaged in a bloody feud over control of the country which is split between their strongholds. <\/p>\n
The ruthless power struggle, which was essentially triggered by disagreements on how to restore civilian rule after the fall of former President Omar al-Bashir and a subsequent military coup, has left more than 28,000 people dead and 11 million homeless in what the United Nations has described as the world\u2019s \u201cmost devastating humanitarian and displacement crisis.\u201d <\/p>\n
The military claims control of swaths of Sudan but almost all of Darfur, a region roughly the size of France, is held by the RSF, which also retains footholds in the neighboring states of West Kordofan and North Kordofan, according to a map released by the SAF. <\/p>\n
\u201cKhartoum is free,\u201d declared SAF leader Burhan, who arrived at Khartoum\u2019s airport by plane later Wednesday, in what the army said was the first flight received by the airport since the start of the war. <\/p>\n
Yasser al-Atta, a deputy commander of the SAF told troops on Tuesday that the \u201cdecisive battle\u201d to \u201celiminate the (RSF\u2019s) rebellion\u201d was now \u201cin its final phase.\u201d <\/p>\n
The RSF grew out of the notorious Janjaweed militia that was accused of genocide against the non-Arab population in Darfur in the early 2000s. <\/p>\n
In January, the United States accused the RSF of committing another genocide following what it said was the systematic murder of \u201cmen and boys \u2013 even infants \u2013 on an ethnic basis.\u201d The RSF denounced the declaration as \u201cinaccurate.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIt (Darfur) is the RSF stronghold where they started as the Janjaweed and where they fought and continue to fight for land grabbing from the African indigenous population who own the land,\u201d Al-Karib said. <\/p>\n
But he added the war is far from over. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe journey is still long because our goal is to cleanse the entire country.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ridding the country of the RSF has come at a great cost for the Sudanese people who are often caught in the crossfire. <\/p>\n
Civilians in North Darfur are the latest casualties of the conflict. <\/p>\n
On Monday, many people were burned beyond recognition when bombs rained on a busy market in Tora, a rebel-run village in North Darfur, according to multiple local reports, as Sudan\u2019s military targeted RSF enclaves. <\/p>\n
Volker T\u00fcrk, a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a statement he was \u201cdeeply shocked\u201d by the reports, saying that 13 of those victims were from a single family. <\/p>\n
\u201cCivilian objects remain an all-too-frequent target,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are the ones protecting civilians and preserving their lives and property, unlike the militia, which has continued since the outbreak of this war to bombard civilians with drones, artillery, and missiles,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The SAF\u2019s military successes in Khartoum could further fracture Sudan or make the RSF \u201cmore amenable to being pushed into talks\u201d with its rival, political analyst Kholood Khair said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis war has added an ugly ethnic taint to the political and economic conflicts that will be difficult to resolve even with a national level agreement,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n
In February, the RSF began an audacious move to create a parallel government in the areas under its control, signing a charter with political and smaller armed groups allied to it that seek the \u201cestablishment of a secular and democratic state based on freedom, equality, and justice.\u201d <\/p>\n
The RSF\u2019s proposed state is \u201ca quest for legitimacy,\u201d according to Khair, who anticipates that the militia could now \u201cseek to capture El Fasher\u201d \u2014 the last major town in Darfur yet to be under its control. <\/p>\n
Sudanese human rights lawyer Mutasim Ali believes that the RSF lacks the capacity to create a parallel state as it has been cut down to size by the SAF. <\/p>\n
For activist Al-Karib, the RSF\u2019s move to form a separate government is \u201ca pressure card on (the) SAF to engage with them and to legitimize themselves as a political force in case of any political talks.\u201d <\/p>\n
As of today, the prospects for negotiations that could potentially usher in a coalition government between the SAF and RSF appear to be a long shot. <\/p>\n
The SAF\u2019s deputy commander Al-Atta told troops this week: \u201cThere will be no retreat or stop until the militia and its collaborating agents are eradicated from the lives of the Sudanese.\u201d <\/p>\n
With the military presumed to have the upper hand, it will likely press on, Ali said. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Sudan\u2019s army says it has wrested control of the capital Khartoum from a feared militia accused of genocide after ousting it from the Presidential Palace and the city\u2019s airport it had held since the start of a brutal two-year conflict. But while the capture of Khartoum marks an important moment in the conflict, with the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4861,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}