Agence France-Presse
Before the war, Sudan was mired in political and economic chaos. After a month of battles between the forces of the two generals fighting for power.
the country is threatening to collapse, which raises the concern of neighboring countries amid the crises that they themselves suffer from.
The war between the army commander, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.
and the commander of the Rapid Support Forces, Lieutenant General Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo.
left more than 750 dead and thousands wounded, in addition to nearly a million displaced persons and refugees.
Across Sudan, one of the poorest countries in the world, 45 million people live in fear and suffer from food crises bordering on hunger.
A third of the country’s population, who before the war depended on international food aid, is now deprived of it.
The stores of humanitarian organizations have been looted, and many of these organizations have suspended their work after the killing of 18 of their employees.
– Sharp price hike –
Liquidity became scarce. Banks, some of which were looted, have not opened their doors since the fifteenth of April, while prices have risen sharply, reaching four times for foodstuffs and 20 times for fuel.
The five million residents of Khartoum live in hiding in their homes, awaiting a cease-fire that has not yet been achieved, while air raids.
battles with heavy weapons and artillery fire continue that do not even reach hospitals and homes.
In Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the two sides are holding talks about a “humanitarian” ceasefire to allow civilians out and aid to enter.
But so far they have only agreed on humanitarian rules on evacuating civilians from combat zones and providing safe passage for aid.
Researcher Ali Faraji says, “If the two parties do not change their way of thinking, it is difficult to imagine a real translation on the ground of the commitments they sign on paper.”
Experts and diplomats repeat that both generals are “convinced that they can resolve the matter militarily.”
And each of them has a large number of men and great support from abroad, as Daglo is a great ally of the Emirates .
and enjoys the support of the mercenaries of the Russian Wagner Group, while neighboring Egypt throws its weight behind Al-Burhan.
– Escape from accountability –
This makes the two generals prefer a long-term dispute to making concessions at the negotiating table in order to reach a settlement.
In fact, every time they pledge to a ceasefire, they violate it from the first minutes.
Alex Rondos, former EU representative for the Horn of Africa, said, “The army and RSF regularly breach the truce, demonstrating an unprecedented degree of impunity, even by Sudanese standards for the conflict.”
Sudan has known many conflicts. In Darfur, the repression of ethnic minorities at the turn of the millennium during the era of Omar al-Bashir (1989-2019).
by the army forces and the then allied Dagalo forces resulted in 300,000 deaths and the displacement of more than 2.5 million people.
The region is still unstable today. And with the outbreak of war between the two generals in Khartoum, everyone is fighting in the western region of Sudan.
the army, the Rapid Support Forces, tribal fighters, and armed civilians.
“We are getting reports that snipers are shooting at anyone who goes out of their house,” Mohamed Othman of Human Rights Watch told AFP.
He added that “people who were wounded in battles two weeks ago are dying in their homes” because they cannot leave.
Doctors Without Borders says that the Darfur displaced in the camps “are now eating one meal a day instead of three meals.”
The United Nations has warned that hunger will affect 19 million Sudanese within six months, if the war continues.
– Deindustrialization and de-industrialization –
Every day, thousands of refugees enter Egypt, Chad, Ethiopia and South Sudan, which are the border countries with Sudan, which raises the concern of Cairo, which is experiencing the worst economic crisis in its history, while other countries fear that the contagion of war will spread to their rebel movements.
There is no longer an airport in Khartoum, nor foreigners after they were all hastily evacuated in the first days of the fighting, nor commercial centers, as they were all looted.
Government departments were also closed “until further notice,” and the two generals only spoke to exchange accusations through the media.
The remnants of the state moved to Port Sudan, 850 kilometers east on the Red Sea coast.
There, a small United Nations team seeks to negotiate the passage of humanitarian aid, and some ministers and senior officials hold daily press conferences in which they are keen to send messages of reassurance.
“With the destruction of food processing plants or small factories, this war caused a partial decline in industrialization in Sudan,” Faraji told AFP.
“This means that Sudan will become a poorer future for a long time,” he added.
