The armed conflict in Sudan: geopolitics, humanitarian crisis and international law

Sudan conflict 2024: Army regains Khartoum districts after 14-month siege

By Muhammad Asghar | GlobalBeat

Sudan’s army recaptured three strategic districts of southern Khartoum from the Rapid Support Forces after 14 months of urban combat.

The military advance wrested control of the El Marrikhi and El Awdah districts plus the El Shajara industrial zone, army spokesperson Brigadier General Nabil Abdallah said on Monday.

The territorial gains marked the army’s first decisive breakthrough in the capital since war erupted in April 2023, threatening to splinter Africa’s third-largest nation of 49 million people.

Army units entered El Shajara at dawn, encountering “limited resistance” from RSF fighters who withdrew toward the White Nile bridges, Abdallah told state television. RSF representatives did not respond to requests for comment on the claims. Satellite imagery reviewed by foreign diplomats showed government troops deployed at the El Awdah petrol depot, a facility that had supplied the paramilitary group with fuel since last year. The army released photographs of soldiers raising the national flag atop a water-treatment plant that purifies 40 percent of the capital’s supply.

The United Nations confirmed that shelling during the three-day offensive killed 27 civilians and wounded 89 across southern Khartoum. “All parties must distinguish between military objectives and populated areas,” the U.N. humanitarian coordinator Clementine Nkweta-Salami told reporters in Geneva. The International Committee of the Red Cross warned that power outages triggered by the fighting had shut down the main dialysis center serving 1,100 kidney patients.

Regional capitals reacted cautiously to the army’s gains. Egypt’s foreign ministry urged both sides to “freeze military operations” and return to U.S.-mediated talks hosted in Jeddah, a statement said. Kenyan President William Ruto told diplomats in Nairobi that an RSF defeat “could trigger reprisals in Darfur” where the paramilitary group retains strongholds. Saudi Arabia postponed a planned donor conference after the army rejected a cease-fire draft that left RSF units inside Khartoum, two envoys told Reuters.

The war has displaced 10.7 million people, the largest uprooting worldwide, and pushed 25 million into acute hunger, the World Food Programme reported last week. The army’s capture of the El Shajara industrial zone severs an RSF supply route from the Darfur region 1,000 km to the west, analysts said. The paramilitary group funded operations through sales of smuggled gold from mines in Darfur, a trade worth $2.3 billion in 2023, according to U.N. investigators.

Urban combat since April 2023 reduced greater Khartoum’s population from 8.3 million to fewer than 4 million. Street battles between tanks and pickup trucks mounted with machine guns flattened entire blocks, while air strikes by the army destroyed at least 25 schools and 17 hospitals, U.N. satellite analysis shows. The RSF besieged army bases and controlled most residential neighborhoods, imposing blockades that created famine conditions in parts of the capital, aid agencies reported.

The military is led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who chaired the ruling Sovereign Council before the war. The Rapid Support Forces are commanded by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, a former camel trader who built a militia empire under ousted president Omar al-Bashir. The two generals staged a 2021 coup halting a democratic transition, then fell out over plans to fold the RSF into the regular army and transfer control of lucrative gold mines.

Background

Oil-rich Sudan endured 38 years of civil war between the Arabized north and non-Arab south, leading to South Sudan’s secession in 2011 and the loss of 75 percent of Khartoum’s export earnings. Hemedti’s RSF grew out of the Janjaweed militias accused of genocide in Darfur during the 2000s. The United Nations says 300,000 people died in that conflict. International donors spent $8 billion rebuilding Darfur only to see many areas plunge back into violence after 2019.

The current war erupted on April 15, 2023, when RSF units deployed around Khartoum triggered army accusations of a coup plot. Fighting spread within hours to Merowe, El-Obeid and Nyala, overwhelming a 2020 peace deal with rebel groups. The army used Russian-supplied Sukhoi jets and Iranian drones, while the RSF received weapons from the United Arab Emirates via airdrop to Ayn Issa in Chad, according to a confidential U.N. panel report seen by foreign diplomats in May.

What’s Next

Army commanders told foreign attaches they will attempt to clear the remaining RSF pockets in Omdurman and Khartoum Bahri before the rainy season peaks in August, when the White Nile becomes harder to cross. U.S. envoy Tom Perriello warned the Security Council on Friday that further military advances “will not end the war” and proposed a phased truce starting with Khartoum humanitarian corridors. Western diplomats expect Egypt and Gulf states to increase pressure for talks if the army reaches the national radio station that RSF still holds.

A prolonged siege of RSF-held areas risks cutting humanitarian access to 2 million civilians who remain in the capital, relief agencies cautioned. The WFP said it has pre-positioned food for 500,000 people in Port Sudan, but convoys require army escorts the government has not yet approved. Analysts warn that if the army rejects negotiations, fragmentation could accelerate with Darfur commander Abdelaziz al-Hilu holding talks on a separate cease-fire.