Sudan paramilitary force reportedly makes gains in Khartoum as fighting surges
Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) says it has seized the main base of a heavily armed police unit and captured a large amount of military equipment, during heavy fighting against the army in the capital Khartoum.
In a statement on Sunday, the RSF said it had taken full control of the large base belonging to the Central Reserve Police southern Khartoum and posted footage of its fighters celebrating inside the facility, some removing boxes of ammunition from a warehouse.
It later said it had captured 160 pickup trucks, 75 armoured personnel carriers, and 27 tanks. The Reuters news agency was not immediately able to verify the footage or the RSF statements. There was no immediate comment from the army or the police.
The Central Reserve Police has been deployed by the army in ground fighting in recent weeks. It had previously been used as a combat force in several regions and to confront protesters demonstrating against a coup in 2021. It was sanctioned last year by the United States, accused of using excessive force against protesters.
Since late on Saturday, fighting has surged in the three cities that make up the wider capital – Khartoum, Bahri and Omdurman – as the conflict between the army and the RSF entered its 11th week.
Witnesses also reported a sharp increase in violence in recent days in Nyala, the largest city in the western Darfur region. The UN raised the alarm on Saturday over ethnic targeting and the killing of people from the Masalit community in El Geneina in West Darfur.
Fighting has intensified since a series of ceasefire deals agreed at talks led by the United States and Saudi Arabia failed to stick. The talks were adjourned last week.
The army, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has been using airstrikes and heavy artillery to try to dislodge the RSF led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, from neighbourhoods across the capital.
In Nyala, a city that grew rapidly as people were displaced during the earlier conflict that spread in Darfur after 2003, witnesses reported a marked deterioration in the security situation
over the past few days, with violent clashes in residential neighbourhoods. A human rights monitor said at least 25 civilians had been killed in Nyala since Tuesday.
There was also fighting between the army and the RSF last week around El Fashir, capital of North Darfur, which the UN says is inaccessible to humanitarian workers.
In El Geneina, which has been almost entirely cut off from communications networks and aid supplies in recent weeks, attacks by Arab militias and the RSF have sent tens of thousands fleeing over the border to Chad.
UN Human Rights spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani on Saturday called for safe passage for people fleeing El Geneina and access for aid workers after reports of summary executions between the city and the border and “persistent hate speech” including calls to kill the Masalit or expel them.
Of those uprooted by the conflict in Sudan, nearly 2 million have been displaced internally and almost 600,000 have fled to neighbouring countries, according to the International Organization for Migration.