Having accumulated setbacks for a year and a half, Sudan’s army and allied groups are now on the offensive for the first time since the outbreak of the civil war and are redefining the balance of forces with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on several fronts. of the country. Their push, however, has intensified violence against civilians in the midst of a serious humanitarian crisis and increasingly manifest foreign interference.
The army offensive began in late September in the heart of the country’s tripartite capital, Khartoum, and in the twin city of Bahri. There, the military captured three key bridges in what was their first successful incursion into the area, while troops who were confined to bases besieged for months by the paramilitaries took the opportunity to break the enemy siege and try to join the rest of the government forces. Since then, the army’s progress in the capital has slowed amid fierce fighting.
Since the start of the war, in April 2023, the paramilitaries have controlled almost all of Khartoum and the army has only retained some strategic positions there as its headquarters. For months, the conflict in the capital, made up of three cities separated by the Nile River, remained static, with both sides entrenched and resorting to artillery attacks. In its previous offensive in January, the army recaptured most of Omdurman, the city west of Khartoum.
Beyond the capital, the army is on the offensive on other fronts. At the beginning of October, the military recovered the important Sennar mountain range, which connects the eastern states of the country with those in the center, which had been isolated since June. And this has allowed them to expel the paramilitaries from southeastern Sudan and put themselves in a better position to advance in Gezira State, south of Khartoum, whose loss a year ago represented a serious blow.
In western Sudan, eyes remain fixed on the city of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur and the only one of the five states in the region that is not controlled by paramilitaries, despite having maintained a broad offensive since April. The joint force of former rebel groups that defends it, allied with the army, has resisted the onslaught and has recently gained ground by attacking paramilitary supply lines and areas of the border with Chad.
“All the attacks of [los paramilitares] in El Fasher they were shot down. Most of their field leaders also died, which had a great moral impact among their ranks. Additionally, the joint force was able to close the main artery that [les] supplies with supplies from Libya, Chad and Niger,” the alliance spokesperson, Ahmed Hussein Mustafa, told Morning Express. “In the previous period [adoptamos] a defense plan and we were able to reduce their forces,” he slips. “Now we have developed a plan of attack and El Fasher is going to be the starting point.”
The intensification of fighting has been accompanied by new atrocities. In Darfur, paramilitaries burned at least 14 villages predominantly inhabited by the Zaghawa minority this October, bringing the total number of ethnic minority villages burned since the start of the war to at least 84, according to Yale University. They have also launched retaliatory attacks in Gezira after one of their commanders defected to the army.
The army, for its part, has expanded its bombing campaign in full offensive, some carried out indiscriminately in civilian areas controlled by the paramilitaries. The number of victims is unknown, but civilian deaths are at least in the dozens, according to citizen committees. One of the latest such bombings was launched Monday afternoon against a mosque in Gezira’s capital, Wad Madani, killing more than 30 people, according to another local civilian committee.
Foreign interference
The worsening of the fighting is also increasingly exposing the external support of each side. The United Arab Emirates, the main supporter of the Rapid Support Forces and the architect of its supply lines for military material and fuel from abroad, has continued to send weapons to the paramilitaries through Chad in recent months despite an embargo of the UN, according to recent research by the Conflict Observatory in the United States.
Government forces also claimed to have found Emirati weapons and ammunition after the battle in the Sennar Mountains in southeastern Sudan. And the Emirates Ministry of Defense announced at the end of September the death of four personnel in an accident that it did not detail, but that occurred the same day that the Sudanese army bombed the airport of the capital of South Darfur, Nyala, after a enigmatic cargo plane would have left heavy weapons there.
“[El ejército] has managed to make the countries that sponsor the uprising uncomfortable [de las Fuerzas de Apoyo Rápido] and move the United Arab Emirates from the category of observers to those involved in prolonging the conflict; and he has accredited it with press releases accompanied by evidence and proof,” a Sudanese army officer tells this medium.
The previous Conflict Observatory investigation also identified at least seven flights, probably with military cargo, between Iran and Port Sudan, where the army has been temporarily based, between December 2023 and July 2024. This coincides with increased observation of Iranian weapons, including some drones, in Sudan, as documented by Amnesty International and other NGOs. Recently, the Rapid Support Forces have accused Egypt of having intervened militarily on the side of the regular Sudanese army. But he has not provided evidence and Cairo has denied it.
The war and the blockade of aid by the warring parties has caused one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world. In July, famine was declared in a camp for displaced people in Darfur, Zamzam, where Doctors Without Borders has interrupted the treatment of 5,000 children with acute malnutrition this October due to lack of supplies. In the Nuba Mountains of southern Sudan, another famine has left more than 600 dead, according to local authorities. And in South Darfur, the state that hosts the largest number of internally displaced people, almost a third of children under two years of age suffer from acute malnutrition and the number of deaths of pregnant and birthing women has reached unprecedented levels, according to an MSF report. published this Thursday.
In addition, heavy rains and floods that the country experienced in summer have affected almost 600,000 people, according to UN data, and have opened the doors to outbreaks of diseases, such as cholera, which are exceeding the capacities of the collapsed national health system. . As of Monday, the number of cholera infections amounted to more than 26,000, according to figures from local health authorities, which have already recorded more than 700 deaths.
