The battle for Khartoum is just the beginning of Sudan’s nightmare

Another dayRSF, another ceasefire. For the ever-shrinking number of civilians still left in Khartoum, Sudan’s war-wracked capital, it is becoming a wearily familiar pattern. The latest truce between Sudan’s warring factions, announced by America’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, shortly before midnight on April 24th, was supposed to last 72 hours. The following morning residents once again reported hearing heavy gunfire and explosions.Since April 15th, the city has been the centre of a battle between the two most powerful figures in Sudan’s military government. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto leader since a coup in 2019, leads the army. Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, a warlord, heads the Rapid Support Forces (), a paramilitary unit that grew out of the Janjaweed militias accused of genocidal acts in Darfur in the mid-2000s. Their fight for control of Khartoum and the country has already left hundreds of civilians dead and many more injured or homeless. Now the fear is that these two rival armies will level the city.