The United Nations said on Tuesday that the situation in Sudan is “spiraling out of control” as medicine stocks run out, refugees surge, planting time ticks away for farmers, and a deadly clash between rival junta factions threatens to escalate into a full-blown civil war.
Sudan has been gripped since April by a brutal power struggle between junta leaders Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo. Daglo, head of a brutal paramilitary force called the RSF, was Burhan’s partner in overthrowing longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019. The two had a falling-out in 2023 that swiftly escalated into violence, with horrendous civilian casualties and human rights abuses.
The U.N. said on Tuesday that over a million people have fled across Sudan’s borders to escape the fighting and over 3.4 million are internally displaced. Counting corpses is difficult given the volatile and dangerous environment, but the U.N. estimated at least 4,000 people have been killed.
People ride with furniture and other items atop a truck moving along a road from Khartoum to Wad Madani at the locality of Kamlin, about 80 kilometres southeast of Khartoum, on June 22, 2023. (-/AFP via Getty Images)
Those who remain in Sudan are running low on food and medicine, power and water are cut off with distressing frequency, and looting is rampant. The power went down across much of Sudan on Sunday and has not yet returned, taking cell phone service with it.
The U.N. urged the warring junta leaders to sit down for negotiations, but each has sworn to kill the other. Burhan gave a speech on Monday accusing the RSF of “betrayal and treachery,” claiming its leaders have been “tyrannized by greed and thirst for power.”
Burhan said Daglo, who goes by the nickname “Hemedti,” and his top officers were entirely responsible for the violence. He said Daglo launched the conflict with a campaign of “misinformation, lies, deceit, falsification of facts and buying off people, under the banner of institutional falsehood called Rapid Support Forces.”
Burhan accused Daglo’s forces of “war crimes,” including “the looting of property, killing and abusing indiscriminately, raping of women, and committing every crime that can be imagined or come to mind.”
Burhan saluted his own forces as “heroes” and “martyrs” for opposing Daglo’s plan to “take the country back to an era before the modern state” and rule over its ruins. He vowed that his forces would achieve “victory over this disastrous rebellion” with “the help of Allah.”
The deputy head of the Sovereign Council, the military-dominated hybrid government that is supposed to guide Sudan back to elected civilian rule over the next few years, said on Tuesday that the war between Burhan and Daglo “will end at a negotiating table” – but there are no negotiations currently in progress, international mediation efforts have stalled, and the feuding junta bosses have violated every ceasefire agreement.
Local eyewitnesses and humanitarian aid workers said Daglo’s RSF, which grew out of the infamous Janjaweed militia that operated under Bashir, has been hunting down non-Arab residents of Darfur and massacring them as they tried to flee. These witnesses also accused the RSF of using sexual assault as an instrument of terror, a charge the militia denied.
Burhan’s forces have also been accused by humanitarian agencies of committing atrocities, including the indiscriminate use of explosive weapons that inflict large amounts of collateral damage.
A Saudi Navy sailor carries a child as evacuees arrive at King Faisal Navy Base in Jeddah on April 26, 2023, following a rescue operation from Sudan. A ship carrying 1,687 civilians from more than 50 countries fleeing violence in Sudan docked in Saudi Arabia on April 26, the foreign ministry said. (AMER HILABI/AFP via Getty Images)
The U.N. World Food Program (WFP) director for Sudan, Eddie Rowe, said on Friday that attacks on aid workers in Sudan “must stop now.” At least 19 Sudanese nationals working for humanitarian programs have been killed since the Burhan-Daglo battle began in April.
“At least 53 humanitarian warehouses have been looted and 87 offices ransacked. More than 40,000 tons of WFP food assistance has been stolen and a logistics hub in south central Sudan – one of largest on the African continent – was overrun,” Rowe said.
“The targeting of aid workers and humanitarian assistance is against the rules of war. Humanitarians and the aid they provide are neutral and impartial in conflict. They dedicate their lives to helping people caught up in crisis. Their safety – and that of the civilians they serve – must be guaranteed,” he said.
The conflict spread to two more cities on Friday, including el-Facher in Darfur – which hosts some 600,000 internally displaced civilians – and al-Foula, capital of the West Kordofan region. Residents of al-Foula reported RSF fighters “clashing with the army and police,” setting buildings on fire, and looting shops.