KHARTOUM – A month after the outbreak of war in its parts, a large segment of the population of Khartoum state coexists with the roar of warplanes and the sound of cannons. However, grief overshadows the faces of many who lost their relatives and loved ones to stray shells and wandering explosives, while families are dispersed by displacement from one place to another under economic and security conditions. Complicated.
In mid-April, the residents of the Sudanese capital woke up to a new reality. As confrontations broke out between the army and the Rapid Support Forces, their premonitions were clear – according to observers – to mobilize huge military forces from the states around Khartoum, and the dispute escalated between the two parties regarding the integration of the "Rapid Support Forces" into the military establishment.
The fighting began in the sports city in southern Khartoum and extended to the airport, the army headquarters and the presidential palace, before moving to the rest of the regions, amid an exchange of accusations about who fired the first bullet in the war.
Khartoum State was affected by the war due to its population, economic and political weight. Clashes also spread to 3 of the five states of Darfur, while the rest of the states of the country are witnessing calm and citizens are practicing their normal lives.
The economic situation has recovered in the state of Al-Jazeera, close to the capital, to which tens of thousands have fled, as well as Port Sudan, the capital of the Red Sea state, from which foreigners and Sudanese departing by air and sea are evacuated, as it is the country's lung abroad, after Khartoum Airport went out of service.
After a month of war, Al-Jazeera Net monitors the reality of the situation in Khartoum from the angles of various developments:
military situation
Since the early days of the war, the army was able to destroy the headquarters of the Rapid Support Forces, the communications center in central Khartoum, and dozens of its bases, camps, and logistical and administrative headquarters around the capital. As well as the destruction of the homes and offices of the Rapid Support Commander, Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, "Hamedti", and his deputy, Abd al-Rahim Hamdan Dagalo.
The army also repelled all attacks on military sites and expelled the Rapid Support Forces from its headquarters, and did not allow it to control any military unit.
According to army statements, the Rapid Support Forces failed to achieve their goal of seizing power, liquidating its leadership, and replacing it with others loyal to it. He accused her of storming 22 hospitals and turning them into military barracks, using citizens as human shields and sheltering them in the middle of neighborhoods, and committing grave violations, looting and expelling hundreds of citizens from their homes.
On the other hand, the Rapid Support Forces still maintain their presence in the Republican Palace, Khartoum Airport, and the headquarters of the official radio and television, and control the electricity control center in the north of the capital and the oil refinery in the south, and are deployed on main roads and establish military bases in them, as well as among residential neighborhoods in different areas of the country. The three capital cities.
The Rapid Support Forces say they control 70% of the capital, and accuse the army of indiscriminately bombing residential neighborhoods, causing dozens of casualties.
Ghost towns and no access to the dead
As a result of the fighting, dozens of neighborhoods in the capital turned into ghost towns and were abandoned by their residents due to the proximity of some of them to the sites of clashes in the center and east of the capital, most notably the areas: Khartoum 1 and 2, Al-Amarat, Riyadh, Al-Safa, Taif and Barri, or due to the power and water outages in large parts of Khartoum North, in which the water station has stopped since Clashes broke out and it was not maintained due to the difficulty of access.
Activists spoke of difficult humanitarian cases; Where an elderly woman, whose house is adjacent to the headquarters of the Turkish and British embassies in central Khartoum, died of thirst and hunger after her family failed to reach her, and she launched an appeal for those who can reach her house to bury her in his garden 5 days after her death.
Doctors risked their lives to reach the home of their two colleagues, the anesthesiologist Majdoulene Boutros-Ghali, and her sister, the dentist, Magda, who were killed by a shell that penetrated their home in the Al-Amarat neighborhood.
victims and displaced persons
After a month of fighting, an official report said that the number of civilian casualties since the beginning of the clashes exceeded 600 dead and more than 700 wounded in Khartoum and the states of North Kordofan, North, West and South Darfur.
While the United Nations said that 575 were killed and 5,576 were injured, with more than 900,000 internally displaced and outside the country since mid-April.
An official in the Humanitarian Aid Commission affiliated with the Ministry of Social Welfare explains to Al-Jazeera Net that thousands of citizens of Khartoum state have left their homes for safer neighborhoods where services are available within the state, while more than 200,000 people have been monitored fleeing to neighboring states, especially the island, the White Nile and the River Nile, along with Other states were not affected by the war.
About 120,000 people also sought refuge in neighboring countries, half of whom entered through the border crossings to Egypt because a prior entry visa was not required except for men under 50 years of age. In addition to the presence of Sudanese families residing there who could host them, according to the government official.
The official adds that thousands more have sought refuge in Ethiopia, Chad, South Sudan and Central Africa, in addition to some thousands of Sudanese holding foreign passports who were evacuated by land and sea.
The government official reveals that international organizations and countries have contacted them to ask about the locations of the camps for the displaced in Khartoum to estimate the amount of humanitarian aid.
Crazy prices and no salaries
Despite the availability of commodities in several regions, citizens find it difficult to reach the markets and buy their needs, as prices are insanely doubled, the wages of workers in the public and private sectors are not paid, banks have stopped working since the beginning of the crisis, and electronic payment applications have faltered.
Markets for the sale of collectibles offered by their owners to obtain the necessities of life became active, and in a remarkable paradox, markets for the sale of looted equipment and devices arose after widespread looting and looting spread in some neighborhoods. The stolen goods are sold at less than their real price, especially electrical appliances, furniture and mobile phones.
After the army and the Rapid Support Forces signed the "Jeddah Declaration" to protect civilians and the start of the delivery of humanitarian aid last Friday, the citizens' hopes of an imminent end to the war were revived, but those hopes are still pending and nothing has changed on the ground.
