RSF spokesman defects to army amid deadly fighting

KHARTOUM, APRIL 17, 2023 (AGENCIES) –  A spokesman for a Sudanese paramilitary battling the country’s military has announced his defection, in a possible sign the army was gaining the upper hand after three days of fighting.

Since Saturday the Sudanese military has been fighting the country’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) around the capital Khartoum and in other parts of Sudan after weeks of escalating tensions between the leaders of the two sides, who hold the top two positions on Sudan’s ruling council.

At least 97 civilians have been killed and 365 injured, according to a group of Sudanese doctors, as the fighting between the rival factions threatens to derail the nation’s stumbling shift from autocracy to civilian rule.

But the military’s air superiority may prove decisive, with the air force bombing RSF bases.

Airstrikes and shelling intensified around the capital on Monday, citizens said, with heavy fighting heard near the military headquarters.

“Gunfire and shelling are everywhere,” Awadeya Mahmoud Koko, head of a union for thousands of tea vendors and other food workers, said from her home in Khartoum.

She told the Associated Press that a shell struck a neighbour’s house on Sunday, killing at least three people. “We couldn’t take them to a hospital or bury them.”

Najm Eldin Abdallah, a spokesman for the RSF, announced his defection to the armed forces, in a video shared online on Monday.

“Now I am responding to the orders of the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, which he issued last night to terminate the mandate of the officers of the armed forces serving with the Rapid Support Forces,” he said.

The RSF emerged from so-called janjaweed militias that sowed terror in Darfur during the 2000s on behalf of the government. Led by warlord Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, known as Hemedti, the RSF was later incorporated into the Sudanese armed forces.

Since a popular protest movement led to the overthrow of longstanding dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019, Hemedti has been engaged in a power struggle with General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, the head of the Sudanese military.

On Monday, Hemedti called on the international community to support him in his fight against Gen Burhan, who he called a “radical Islamist” and accused of bombing civilians.

“We are fighting against radical Islamists who hope to keep Sudan isolated and in the dark, and far removed from democracy. We will continue to pursue Al-Burhan and bring him to justice,” he tweeted, writing in English in his first message on the platform since the fighting erupted.

The UN and the US urged an immediate cessation of hostilities, repeating calls made on Saturday.

“The immediate future lies in the hands of the generals who are engaged in this fight,” James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary said. “We call upon them to put peace first, to bring an end to the fighting, to get back to negotiations. That’s what the people of Sudan want, that’s what the people of Sudan deserve.”

Volker Perthes, the United Nations Special Representative, said he was “extremely disappointed” that a ceasefire agreed to on Sunday to allow the evacuation of civilians was “only partially honoured”.