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Gunfire and Blasts Rock Sudan’s Capital as Factions Vie for Control Rival Generals Unleash Fighting in Sudan, Dashing Dreams of Democracy
(about 4 hours later)
NAIROBI, Kenya — Gunshots and explosions rang out on Saturday morning in several parts of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, as months of rising tensions between rival factions of the armed forces appeared to turn into an all-out battle for control of one of Africa’s biggest countries. NAIROBI, Kenya — Fighting raged on Saturday across the capital of Sudan as months of rising tensions between rival factions of the armed forces suddenly spiraled into an all-out battle for control of one of Africa’s biggest countries.
Fighting that started early Saturday at military bases in southern Khartoum quickly spread across the city to the presidential palace, the headquarters of the state broadcaster and the international airport. Clashes that erupted early in the day at a military base in the capital, Khartoum, quickly spread to the presidential palace, the international airport and the headquarters of the state broadcaster. Residents cowered in their homes as gunfire and explosions rang out. Warplanes screeched over rooftops at low altitudes.
Videos circulating on social media showed soldiers firing in the streets, armored vehicles speeding through residential areas and travelers taking shelter on the floor of the airport amid reports of battles inside the terminal and near the runway. By Saturday evening, it was unclear who was in control of the country.
The clashes came after weeks of mounting tensions between the Sudanese Army, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces, a powerful paramilitary group led by Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan. The chaos was an alarming turn for a nation that only four years ago was an inspiration to both Africa and the Arab world. Jubilant protesters, symbolized in part by a young woman in a white robe, toppled their widely detested ruler of three decades, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, ushering in expectations of democracy and an end to the country’s global isolation.
By lunchtime Saturday, the Rapid Support Forces claimed in a statement to have seized the presidential palace, a guesthouse inside the military headquarters, and the country’s main international airport as well as airfields in the cities of al-Obeid and Meroe. The claims could not be independently verified. The revolution faltered 18 months ago when two generals, now fighting each other, united to seize power in a coup. But the future of Sudan, a strategically important country just south of Egypt, has preoccupied pro-democracy protesters who have continued to lose their lives in demonstrations, as well as Western countries, notably the United States.
United Nations officials and foreign diplomats have struggled in recent days to prevent the tensions from turning violent. But as worried residents hunkered in their homes early Saturday, those efforts were spectacularly collapsing. In the past year, Sudan has become an important battleground in the West’s rivalry with Russia. Russia’s private military company Wagner has deployed mercenaries to Sudan and runs a major gold mining concession, while the Kremlin has pressed Sudan for permission to allow Russian warships to dock at ports on the country’s Red Sea coastline.
Each side accused the other of starting the fight. In a statement, the Rapid Support Forces said it first came under attack at a camp in Soba, in the south of Khartoum, by the regular army “with all kinds of heavy and light weapons.” Any hopes for a peaceful transition to democracy were shattered early Saturday, however, when strained relations between the two generals in charge of the country — the army chief, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, the commander of the powerful Rapid Support Forces paramilitaries — turned violent.
A military official, speaking to the Al Jazeera news network, accused the paramilitaries of shooting first, and said they were trying to seize control of the military headquarters in the city center. Videos circulating on social media showed soldiers firing in the streets, armored vehicles speeding through residential areas and travelers taking shelter on the floor of the airport amid reports of battles inside the terminal.
Sudan has a long experience of military coups: Since independence in 1956, the country has had more successful military takeovers than any other African country. But it has rarely seen open clashes between rival military units like the ones unfolding on Saturday, stirring fear that Sudan was tumbling into a civil war. Sudan’s doctors’ committee, which tracks casualties during disturbances, said by Saturday afternoon that at least three people had been killed and dozens injured.
Saudia Airlines said in a statement that one of its planes was damaged on the runway at the airport. One person posted a video, shot inside an airplane, saying that two people had been killed in the seats behind him. It was unclear if the two incidents were linked.
By Saturday afternoon, both sides had issued dueling statements accusing each other of starting the fight and making conflicting claims about who controlled key positions, like the presidential palace, the Khartoum airport and military airfields in other cities, including al-Obeid and Meroe. The claims could not be independently verified.
An official at a Western embassy in Khartoum said clashes had also erupted in the city of Nyala, in the western Darfur region.
“We are sorry to be fighting our countrymen, but this criminal is the one who forced us to do it,” General Hamdan told Al Jazeera Mubasher, an Arabic-language television station, during a strongly worded interview in which he also called General al-Burhan a liar and a “thief.”
“We will capture Burhan and bring him to justice, or he dies like any dog,” he added.
An army spokesman called General Hamdan the leader of “rebel” forces, and said the only viable future for the country was “under one army under disciplined military command.”
The scenes of combat and chaos unfolding on Saturday, often outside the windows of terrified residents filming with their cellphones, were alarming even in a country with a long experience of military takeovers. Although Sudan, which gained independence in 1956, has had more successful coups than any other African country, none have involved such intensive combat between two wings of the armed forces in the center of the capital.
Although it was too early to say if the country was tumbling into a civil war, several people reached by phone said it felt like that.
“There is fighting in Khartoum. There is fighting in Meroe. There is fighting around the Khartoum airport,” Amgad Fareid Eltayeb, a former adviser to Abdalla Hamdok, Sudan’s civilian prime minister who was ousted in the bloodless October 2021 military coup, said in a phone interview. “How else do you define civil war?”“There is fighting in Khartoum. There is fighting in Meroe. There is fighting around the Khartoum airport,” Amgad Fareid Eltayeb, a former adviser to Abdalla Hamdok, Sudan’s civilian prime minister who was ousted in the bloodless October 2021 military coup, said in a phone interview. “How else do you define civil war?”
Mr. Eltayeb, who said he could hear gunfire outside his home in central Khartoum, cut short the call after receiving a report that a relative’s house in Omdurman, on the other side of the Nile, had been hit during fighting there. The violent mayhem was also a major blow to American, United Nations, African Union and other foreign officials who had been scrambling this past week to head off the possibility of just such clashes.
The ouster of Sudan’s longtime dictator, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, in a popular revolution in 2019 spurred hopes for an end to decades of internal strife and international isolation. Mr. al-Bashir, who ruled for three decades, oversaw a ruinous conflict in the south of the country that culminated in the secession of South Sudan in 2011. The United States secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, said on Twitter that he was “deeply concerned” by the reported clashes, and urged the warring generals to “continue talks to resolve outstanding issues.”
He also oversaw a campaign of state-sponsored violence in the western region of Darfur from 2013 that led to him being indicted on charges of war crimes and genocide at the International Criminal Court at The Hague. Mr. al-Bashir was never brought to trial on those charges, but was convicted of corruption and other offenses after the 2019 revolution, and is currently incarcerated at the Kober prison in Khartoum. The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell Fontelles, issued a similar call. “Protection of citizens is a priority,” he wrote.
But the popular euphoria, and hopes for democracy, that accompanied his ouster were crushed in October 2021 when the military seized power in a coup. The confrontation was also a cause of “serious concern” in Moscow, where the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement urging “restraint and urgent steps toward a cease-fire.”
In December, amid a crushing economic crisis, the military agreed to hand over authority as of this month to a civilian-led government. But the process was dominated by an increasingly open rivalry between General al-Burhan and General Hamdan, who is widely known as Hemeti. In fact, this was supposed to be a moment when Sudan’s warring generals would surrender power, not battle over it. Under a Western-backed deal signed in December, General al-Burhan and General Hamdan agreed to hand power back to a civilian-led government as early as this month.
In recent months, the two generals have issued lightly veiled criticism of each other in speeches, and moved reinforcements and armored vehicles to rival military camps across the city. In an interview last month, Abdul Rahim Dagalo, the deputy commander of the Rapid Support Forces, said that a large new wall that had been built around the military headquarters was intended to protect the military chief, General al-Burhan. But the handover required them to agree on how quickly they would merge their forces into a single army, and that became a source of burning, apparently insurmountable, disagreement. Diplomats involved in the talks said that army hard-liners wanted General Hamdan to disband his Rapid Support Force within two years. General Hamdan insisted it would take at least 10 years.
“He doesn’t care what happens outside the wall,” Mr. Dagalo told The New York Times at his Khartoum villa. “He doesn’t care if the rest of the country burns.” As fighting intensified on Saturday, internet access remained open, which allowed some Sudanese to vent their anger at the warring military leaders they said were holding the country hostage. But some also turned their ire against foreign diplomats they accused of pushing forward with an unviable political deal, while failing to defuse Sudan’s most pressing problem: the explosive tensions inside the military.
Residents’ worst fears of wider violence appeared to be coming true on Saturday as the fighting, which started in the south of Khartoum, quickly spread across the Nile to its twin city of Omdurman, where residents said that armed men had surrounded the offices of the state broadcaster. “The political process did not address the most dangerous issue,” said Mr. Eltayeb, the former official. “There was an assumption that by ignoring it, it would solve itself. That was nonsense.”
A United Nations official said clashes were occurring “literally everywhere,” in Khartoum, including near the sprawling American Embassy in the southeastern corner of the capital. Mr. Eltayeb, who said he could hear gunfire outside his home as he spoke, cut short the call after receiving a report that a relative’s house in Omdurman, on the other side of the Nile, had been hit during fighting there. He later messaged to say his relatives were OK.
As the violence escalated and spread on Saturday afternoon, powerful Arab nations joined the diplomatic scramble to try to end it. The United Arab Emirates, which has sway over both sides, called publicly for a de-escalation, urging them to work out the differences through dialogue, the Emirati state news agency reported.
In many ways, the turmoil was yet another byproduct of the ruinous three decades of rule under Mr. al-Bashir, who has been incarcerated at Khartoum’s Kober prison for much of the time since his ouster in 2019.
Mr. al-Bashir oversaw a campaign of state-sponsored violence in the western region of Darfur from 2003 that badly fractured the country and led to him being indicted on charges of war crimes and genocide at the International Criminal Court at The Hague. The Darfur conflict was also responsible for the rise of General Hamdan, widely known as Hemeti.
General Hamdan cut his teeth as a commander of the notorious janjaweed militias that carried out the worst atrocities in Darfur in the 2000s. In 2013, Mr. al-Bashir appointed him to lead the newly created Rapid Support Forces, as a hedge against perceived threats from inside the military.
Since Mr. al-Bashir’s ouster, General Hamdan has promoted himself as a reborn democrat — and a possible future leader of Sudan. He made an unlikely alliance with a coalition of civilian political parties, some of whom previously came under attack from the Rapid Support Forces.
But at the same time, a war of words with the army, led by General al-Burhan, grew steadily more intense.
In recent months, the two generals criticized each other in speeches and moved more troops into rival camps across Khartoum. Speaking to The New York Times last month, Abdul Rahim Dagalo, the deputy commander of the Rapid Support Forces, accused the army chief of building a wall around his headquarters to isolate him from the country.
“He doesn’t care what happens outside the wall,” Mr. Dagalo said at his Khartoum villa. “He doesn’t care if the rest of the country burns.”
John Godfrey, the United States ambassador to Sudan, said on Twitter that he had returned to Sudan on Friday night, only to wake to “the deeply disturbing sounds of gunfire and fighting.”John Godfrey, the United States ambassador to Sudan, said on Twitter that he had returned to Sudan on Friday night, only to wake to “the deeply disturbing sounds of gunfire and fighting.”
“I am currently sheltering in place with the Embassy team, as Sudanese throughout Khartoum and elsewhere are doing,” he wrote. “I urgently call on senior military leaders to stop the fighting.”“I am currently sheltering in place with the Embassy team, as Sudanese throughout Khartoum and elsewhere are doing,” he wrote. “I urgently call on senior military leaders to stop the fighting.”
Abdi Latif Dahir contributed reporting.