Since the beginning of the Sudanese revolution, both the commander of the Sudanese army, Major General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the commander of the Rapid Support Forces militia, Major General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, nicknamed "Hemedti", hide mutual resentment motivated by an alliance of interest between them in order to thwart the democratic transition, but these frosty relations soured this week and clashes broke out on Saturday in the northern town of Meroe, then in the capital Khartoum and in several other cities, to erupt the escalation that he had feared for several months.
With these sentences, the French magazine "Le Point" summarized the opinion of its correspondent in Khartoum, Augustine Bassili, who described the clouds of smoke that fill the sky of the capital Khartoum at the time of the Maghrib call to prayer, noting the continued roar of intermittent bombings after dark, in an open conflict between the two strongmen in the country that began shortly after nine in the morning in Khartoum and the towns of Omdurman and Bahri.
The political process that began in December 2022 has exacerbated this entrenched rivalry, and since the rejection of the issue of security sector reform by pro-democracy political forces, and the failure of the workshop mission that was supposed to decide on the integration of the RSF into the army, neither leader can bear the vision of the other, as a diplomatic source points out.
Spark Meroe
Then came the spark from the movement of 100 vehicles belonging to the Rapid Support Forces last Wednesday to Meroe, where Sudanese and Egyptian fighter jets are stationed, to condemn the move, considering it outlawed, prompting the army to seize the RSF camp in Soba, south of Khartoum on Saturday morning, to start battles and contradictory statements on social media and the press between the two sides throughout the day Saturday.
On Qatar's Al Jazeera, Hemedti harshly criticized his former partner, the correspondent says, calling him a "criminal," while Burhan now accused his enemy of running a "foreign-backed militia," at a time when observers believe that the two leaders who have an interest in starting hostilities now are suspected of committing crimes during the Darfur conflict, the sit-in massacre on June 2019, <>, and the brutal repression practiced since the coup.
Specter of Civil War
A Sudanese researcher specializing in militarization fears "civil war when citizens choose one side on the basis of its ethnic origin," and a source close to the RSF warned that the conflict "if it spreads to other states will be a disaster, and chaos is likely to spread internationally," at a time when clashes were reported in the Darfur and Kordofan regions in the southwest of the country.
Calls by the United Nations, the United States and the European Union for a cessation of hostilities are not enough, activist Dalia Abdel Moneim said, noting that Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Russia and China, which did not stop their financial support due to the coup as the Westerners did, "could have a greater impact in solving this crisis than the rest of the international community, because they retain great influence over both the army and the RSF," as the researcher specializing in militarization stresses.
Whether this is just a passing bloody episode or the beginning of a longer conflict, this day has become the first military confrontation in the capital since Sudan's independence in 1956.