On Monday, as the Sudanese capital was attacked for the third day in a row by rival armed forces, the US demanded a cease-fire, warning that it would jeopardize the country’s faltering transition from dictatorship to democratic government.
According to the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors, an advocacy group, at least 97 people have been murdered and 365 have been injured in Sudan since the violence started early Saturday. The government has not established an official fee.
Khartoum was exposed to heavy shelling and air raids early Monday morning, which lasted almost two hours.
The armed forces are pitted against the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the capital’s first significant outbreak of violence in decades. Fighting has already spread to other parts of Sudan. Leaders from the two groupings hold the top two positions on Sudan’s governing council.
Four years after long-ruling autocrat Omar al-Bashir was toppled in an uprising, the risk of civil war in Sudan has grown due to a protracted power struggle that has stymied internationally sponsored efforts to launch a civilian transition that was expected to begin earlier this month.
The United States Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has urged for a swift cease-fire, which he believes is supported by the international community.
Blinken stated on the sidelines of a Group of Seven Foreign Ministers meeting in Japan, “There is a shared deep concern about the fighting, violence that is going on in Sudan — the threat that poses to civilians, that it poses to the Sudanese nation, and potentially even to the region.”
General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the Sudanese armed forces’ commander, and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), were both asked to take precautions to protect civilians.
Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, serves as Burhan’s deputy in Sudan’s governing council.
