Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) said it had seized the headquarters of a heavily armed police unit Sunday as it sought an edge in its war with the army during heavy fighting in the capital Khartoum.
The RSF said in a statement that it had taken full control of the camp belonging to the Central Reserve Police (CRP) in southern Khartoum, and posted footage of its fighters inside the facility, some were removing boxes of ammunition from a warehouse.
“We fully control this headquarters,” explained the RSF on Monday night after two days of heavy fighting. Among other things, 160 SUVs with weapons, 75 armored troop transporters and 25 tanks were captured. The ammunition stocks are still being recorded. In addition, “hundreds” of government soldiers were killed or captured. An army source told journalists that the RSF had lost 400 fighters.
The local MSF team reported on Monday afternoon that 150 war casualties had been treated in two operating rooms in the hospital within 48 hours, the electricity had failed and the emergency generator was running out of fuel.
The CRP has been at the forefront of violent crackdowns on protests against military rule in recent years – which is why it is under US sanctions
According to observers, the RSF already controls around 80 percent of the city of Khartoum and now wants to drive out the government completely. With the CRP headquarters, the militia now has complete control of Khartoum’s southern arterial roads, according to analysts, and can thus seal off the remaining military installations that can otherwise only be reached via Nile bridges.
The Sudanese National army however denied in a statement that the RSF had won a “military victory”, and denounced “a flagrant attack against state institutions that protect civilians.”
Troops were also battling hundreds of kilometres (miles) south in Kurmuk, near the border with Ethiopia, where residents said a rebel group attacked army positions.
The same rebel group, a faction of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu, was one of two holdout groups that refused to sign a 2020 peace deal. The group had opened a new front against the army last week in South Kordofan state by attacking soldiers.
The United Nations mission in Sudan (UNITAMS) expressed “grave concern” about the development. It cited reports of fighting Sunday and Monday in three Kurmuk-area villages that forced hundreds of civilians to cross into Ethiopia.
Nearly 2,800 people have been killed across Sudan since a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Daglo erupted into war more than two months ago, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.
Many bodies have been left rotting in the streets of Khartoum and in the western region of Darfur, where most of the violence has occurred.
In the South Darfur state capital, Nyala, at least a dozen civilians were killed on Sunday, according to a local doctor who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
