2023-08-31 12:36:02
CAIRO (AP) — Sudan’s army chief warned Thursday that the East African nation might be divided if the conflict between the military and a rival paramilitary force is not resolved.
Sudan descended into chaos in mid-April when months-long simmering tensions between the army, led by General Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the powerful Rapid Support Forces, commanded by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, erupted into open fighting.
“We are facing a war and if it is not resolved quickly, Sudan will fragment,” Burhan said in a speech to police forces in the Red Sea city of Port Sudan.
Burhan’s remarks echoed those he made Tuesday in Egypt, on his first trip abroad since the start of the war. There he met with the country’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, and they discussed ways to end the standoff, but neither side offered details on possible initiatives or conditions.
In another speech on Monday, Burhan ruled out any reconciliation with the FAR.
Nearly five months of fighting has reduced the country’s capital, Khartoum, to an urban battlefield, with neither side having managed to gain control of the city. In the western region of Darfur, the scene of a genocide in the early 2000s, the conflict has escalated into ethnic violence, with the FAR and allied Arab militias targeting ethnic African groups, according to human rights groups and the United Nations.
Egypt has a longstanding relationship with the Sudanese army and its top generals. In July, el-Sissi organized a meeting with Sudan’s neighbors and announced a plan for a ceasefire. But a series of fragile truces, brokered by the United States and Saudi Arabia, have failed.
Last week, Burhan managed to leave the beleaguered army headquarters in Khartoum, where he had reportedly been since April. He later traveled to Port Sudan, which is controlled by the army.
The fighting is estimated to have claimed the lives of at least 4,000 people, according to the UN human rights office, though activists and doctors on the ground say the death toll is probably higher.
More than 4.6 million people have been displaced, according to the UN migration agency, including more than 3.6 million who fled to safer areas within their own country and more than a million who crossed into neighboring countries. .
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