The Sudanese military on Sunday confirmed that 56 civilians have been killed while hundreds of others, including combatants on both sides, have been injured as a fierce fighting between its regular army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary, led by powerful deputy head of Sudan’s ruling Sovereign Council, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as “Hemedti”, or “Little Mohamed” continues.
The Central Committee of Sudan Doctors (CDSD), a group of volunteer medical personnel in the country, also said in a statement on Sunday that around 595 people have so far been wounded, some critically, since the outbreak of the clashes on Friday.
The doctors’ union also reported that scores of military personnel were killed in the fighting without giving a specific number, due to a lack of firsthand information from many of the hospitals where those casualties were taken.
The group earlier said it had recorded deaths at Khartoum’s airport and Omdurman, as well as west of Khartoum in the cities of Nyala, El Obeid and El Fasher.
The military statement said government forces launched air strikes on a base belonging to the paramilitary forces in the city of Omdurman, which adjoins the capital Khartoum, in a bid to reassert control over the country after the paramilitary forces attacked some of its camps in the capital.
Local media in the country also reports that in the early hours of Sunday morning, sounds of heavy artillery firing were heard across Khartoum, Omdurman and nearby Bahri, and there was also gunfire heard in the Red Sea city of Port Sudan, where there had been no earlier reports of fighting.
The RSF, in its own statement, claimed to have seized the presidential palace, the army chief’s residence, state television station and airports in Khartoum, the northern city of Merowe, El Fasher and West Darfur state, a claim the army rejected.
The RSF evolved from so-called Janjaweed militias, which fought in a conflict in the 2000s in the Darfur region, where they were used by the government of President Omar al-Bashir to help the army put down a rebellion.
al-Bashir was ousted after months of pro-democracy protests in 2019 while a transition government dominated by civilians was overthrown by the military in 2021 with the cooperation of the RSF.
Tensions between the military and RSF escalated as the two groups have continued to compete for legitimacy and control of the country and in recent months, the conflicts were increased by a frosty relationship between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, commander of Sudan’s military, and Dagalo.