Heavy gunfire, blasts heard in Sudan’s capital Khartoum
BREAKBREAK,
Witnesses reported ‘showdowns’ and explosions and gunfire near a paramilitary Rapid Support Forces base in southern Khartoum.
Heavy gunfire and explosions were heard in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum after days of tension between the army and a powerful paramilitary group.
Shelling and explosions took place near the headquarters of the Sudanese army and the Ministry of Defense in the center of Khartoum on Saturday.
Columns of smoke rose in various places in the city and soldiers were deployed on the streets.
Witnesses reported “showdowns” and loud explosions and gunfire near a paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) base in southern Khartoum.
“The Rapid Support Forces were surprised on Saturday with a large army force entering camps at Soba in Khartoum and besieging paramilitaries there,” the RSF said in a statement.
The army “launched a sweeping attack with all kinds of heavy and light weapons,” it said.
However, a spokesman for the Sudanese army said paramilitary forces were attacking military bases.
“Rapid Support Forces fighters attacked several army camps in Khartoum and elsewhere in Sudan,” Brigadier General Nabil Abdallah said. “The clashes are ongoing and the army is carrying out its duty to protect the country.”
‘Much confusion’
Alaa Eldin of the Sudanese Professionals Association said: “There are now army vehicles at Khartoum airport. I think something is going on there now.”
Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan, reporting from Khartoum, said there was fighting.
“We hear gunshots in the capital near the presidential palace in the northern part of the capital, as well as in Soba,” Morgan said. “There is a lot of confusion here about what is happening right now. People are terrified.”
The rift between the armed forces surfaced on Thursday when the military said recent actions by RSF – a powerful paramilitary group – had been uncoordinated and illegal.
The heads of both the Army and the RSF told mediators they were ready to take steps to de-escalate the situation.
A confrontation between them could lead to protracted strife in a vast country already experiencing economic collapse and flare-ups of tribal violence.
The current tensions stem from disagreements over how to integrate the RSF into the military and which authority should oversee the process. The merger is a key condition of Sudan’s unsigned transitional agreement.
However, the rivalry between the military and the RSF dates back to the reign of autocratic President Omar al-Bashir, who was ousted in 2019.
Under the former president, the paramilitary force, led by the powerful General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, grew from former militias known as the Janjaweed who acted brutally in Sudan’s Darfur region during the decades-long conflict there.