Coup by pro-Russian rebels in Sudan, ongoing fighting in Khartoum

Khartoum/ Sudan: 15 April 2023 – A “rebel force” is attempting to take control of key strategic sites in Khartoum, including the Presidential Palace and the general command of the armed forces. This can be read in an army statement, which defines the previous statements by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary formation led by the deputy president of the Supreme Transitional Council Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and linked to the Russian group Wagner, as “lies” coup attempt in Khartoum. The RSF say they acted in response to an army assault on their headquarters south of the capital.

In recent hours, the regular forces have denied that the RSF paramilitaries have already taken control of the presidential palace in Khartoum and the Merowe airport in the north, and have announced that they will continue to “fight to protect the country”. Instead, the presence of the “rebel group” in Khartoum International Airport was admitted. “We are taking care of them”, the army says, underlining how the situation around its headquarters is “calm” and how fighting is underway around some “strategic points”.

Previously the RSF had instead claimed control of the Presidential Palace. “The Rapid Support Forces defended itself in response to hostile forces by inflicting heavy casualties” on the regular army, the statement said, confirming that fighters loyal to Dagalo “managed to take control of Merowe airport,” north of Khartoum, and expelled the attackers at bases in Soba, as well as taking control of Khartoum airport.

The tension between the army, under the control of the head of the transitional government Abdel Fattah al Burhan, and the RSF paramilitaries had already been very high for several days and erupted this morning when, according to the RSF, a massive offensive by the regular forces in the base of Soba, south of Khartoum, which Dagalo’s men had taken control of in recent days. An attack described as “brutal”, carried out “with all types of heavy and light weapons”, in a post on Twitter which invites the Sudanese people to “unite at a crucial moment” and the international community to “condemn this behavior coward”.

However, the clashes quickly spread to other military bases in the country and also to the center of Khartoum, particularly in the area of ​​the presidential palace. Circumstance, the latter, which is fueling the suspicion and fear that there is a real coup attempt by the forces of Dagalo, considered a man very close to Russia and supported by the Wagner group. Some videos circulating on the net in these hours show groups of paramilitaries, presumably belonging to the RSF, inside Khartoum airport.

Four years after the deposition of President Omar al Bashir, in April 2019, in Sudan the political process agreed by most of the forces in the field to establish a civilian-led government still appears tiring.

The new round of talks has stalled on some elements relating to the management of security in the country, currently in the hands of the army but in which the rapid support forces of commander Dagalo, vice president of the Sudanese Sovereign Council and number two should also be integrated in the government of General Abdel Fattah al Burhan.

Also made up of former members of the “janjaweed” militias, the notorious “demon on horseback” accused of heinous crimes in Darfur and the bloody repression of Sudanese protesters, the RSF are in disagreement with al Burhan on who should direct the future architecture of the army .