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If the international community secretly hoped it could stay out of the crisis in Sudan, and that maybe one of the country’s two warring generals could settle their long-simmering rivalry with a quick blow, it’s now time to face reality. With no clear winner in sight, nearly three weeks in, Sudan’s capital Khartoum is being laid to ruin. Civilians who braved bullets for four years to demand an end to military rule can only hunker down or flee, if fleeing is even an option. Reports of militias in places like Darfur taking sides as civilians flee to neighbouring countries are particularly alarming.
Meanwhile, foreign players have tried to broker truces, but is it time to change tack? To sanction Sudan’s junta leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his nominal number two Hemedti, head of the RSF paramilitaries, the US, Egypt and Gulf States need to agree that neither is fit to rule.
But with Egypt backing Burhan, and with Russia and the Emirates in business with Hemedti and the gold mines he controls, how to prevent what the UN warns could be an exodus of 800,000 people fleeing the country?
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Josephine Joly and Imen Mellaz.
