Nearly a hundred civilians killed in 48 hours. Since Saturday 15 April, Sudan has been plagued by violent clashes between the regular army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a powerful militia affiliated with the government.

This conflict exposed the quarrel between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, head of the junta and de facto head of state, and Mohamed Hamdane Daglo known as "Hemedti", his former ally now determined to take control of the country by arms.

Gunfire and explosions still rocked Khartoum non-stop on Monday morning, while the balance of power between the two sides remains uncertain.

An alliance that turns into armed conflict

This explosion of violence is explained by the collapse of the military alliance formed during the October 2021 coup. General Burhane and General Daglo then joined forces to oust civilians from power.

During the popular revolt that toppled Omar al-Bashir in 2019, Daglo fighters were accused of bloodily dispersing pro-democracy protesters – killing dozens, according to official figures.

Hemedti was since then the number two of the military power. But the rivalry with its leader, General Burhane, exploded on April 15. Shortly after the start of the clashes, the latter announced in a statement that he had been "surprised at nine o'clock in the morning" by an attack on his headquarters by the RSF, denouncing a "betrayal".

For his part, the commander of the Rapid Support Forces said that the paramilitaries "will not stop until they have taken control of all the military bases", accusing his rival of being a "criminal" who has "destroyed the country".

Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who was a cog in the military-Islamist dictatorship of General Bashir, now poses as a paragon of the civil state and a fierce opponent of political Islam. He now aligns himself with civilians to denounce the army and claim the "gains of the revolution" of 2019. For months, he has been inviting himself on social networks, multiplying accounts on Facebook, Instagram or even TikTok to address the youngest – two-thirds of Sudanese are under 30 years old.

Dispute over the future of paramilitaries

Before the October 2021 coup, the two men worked together in the Sovereign Council, set up after the fall of Omar al-Bashir in 2019 and of which Abdel Fattah al-Burhane was the president.

But very quickly, tensions arose between the two men around the project to integrate the Rapid Support Forces into the regular army. Composed of former militiamen from the Darfur war, this entity remains independent of the military corps although it acts as a substitute.

In June 2021, Mohamed Hamdane Daglo spoke out against the integration of his Rapid Support Forces, which he considers an important force. He believed that addressing the subject "could break the country", publicly assuming his disagreement with his leader, General Burhane, who was in favour of this project.

Competition for resources

The armed conflict that erupted Saturday between the two men's factions is believed to be linked to their inability to find common ground. While the army insists on imposing its conditions of admission and limiting in time the incorporation of the RSF, General Daglo calls for a broad inclusion and, above all, its place within the general staff.

For Marc Lavergne, director of research at the CNRS, this conflict illustrates the "competition" around the control of resources, in this country among the poorest in the world, plagued by a worsening economic crisis.

"On the one hand, there is the regular army, heir to Omar al-Bashir's regime, which enjoys advantages and, on the other, these mercenaries from Darfur, without faith or law, who have managed to get their hands on important resources of the country," says the researcher, citing gold and migrant trafficking as an example.

In this context, "there is an existential clash over which of the two (Fattah al-Burhane or Mohamed Hamdan Daglo) will win."

05:24

Egypt as a mediator?

The armed conflict in Sudan provokes many reactions on the international scene, with some powers fearing a regional conflagration. The United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia as well as the United Nations and the European Union have called for an end to hostilities.

On Sunday, the Arab League held an emergency meeting in Cairo, at the call of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, condemning the violence and calling for a "political solution".

Nevertheless, the proximity between Egyptian leader Sisi and the Sudanese army raises questions about his ability to mediate in this conflict.

"The Egyptian and Sudanese leaders have quite similar profiles, they are both soldiers who took power during a coup d'état during democratic transitions," stresses Edouard Dropsy, correspondent for France 24 in Cairo. "It suits Abdel Fattah al-Sisi well to have a soldier like him on his southern border, especially since the other belligerent in Sudan, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, is more supported by the United Arab Emirates."

On Saturday morning, a video showing a dozen Egyptian soldiers at a Sudanese military base, captured by the Rapid Support Forces, circulated on social media. According to Cairo, the latter were present in Sudan as part of the military partnership between the two countries.

"They are safe and will be handed over to Egypt," Hemedti told Sky News Arabia at the time, anxious to dispel any possible tension with Cairo.

With AFP and Reuters

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