Global Courant 2023-04-15 14:32:10
KHARTOUM, Sudan — Continued shelling broke out in the Sudanese capital on Saturday morning amid simmering tensions between the army and the country’s powerful paramilitary forces.
The sounds of heavy shooting were heard in a number of areas, including the center of Khartoum and the Bahri district.
The clashes come as tensions between the military and the Rapid Support Forces, as the paramilitaries are called, have escalated in recent months, prompting the signing of an internationally backed deal with political parties to revive the country’s democratic transition. , has been delayed.
In a statement released Saturday morning, the RSF accused the army of attacking its troops at one of its bases in South Khartoum. The military used light and heavy weapons in the attack, it said. The military has not commented on the incident.
Commercial jets attempting to land in the capital, Khartoum, began turning around to return to their original airport. Flights from Saudi Arabia turned back after nearly landing at Khartoum International Airport, flight tracking data showed on Saturday.
Tensions between the army and the paramilitaries stem from a disagreement over how the RSF, led by General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, should be integrated into the army 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 rule of autocratic President Omar al-Bashir, who was ousted in 2019. Under the former president, the paramilitary force grew out of former militias known as the Janjaweed, who cracked down on Sudan’s Darfur region during the decades of conflict there.
In a rare televised speech Thursday, a top army general warned of potential clashes with paramilitary violence and accused it of deploying troops in Khartoum and other areas of Sudan without the army’s permission. The RSF defended the presence of its troops in an earlier statement.
The RSF recently deployed troops near the North Sudanese town of Merowe. Also, videos circulating on social media Thursday show what appear to be RSF-armed vehicles being transported to Khartoum, further south.
In Saturday’s statement, the RSF said they had been approached by three former rebel leaders, who hold government positions, in an apparent attempt to de-escalate the conflict.
Sudan has been married in turmoil since October 2021. Western-backed, power-sharing government and Sudanese aspirations for democratic rule dashed after three decades of autocracy and repression under al-Bashir.
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Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.
