Since fighting erupted five weeks ago, the main battles have been between the military, headed by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, headed by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, universally known as Hemedti.
But both forces recruit from certain ethnic groups, and as the fighting drags on — and as more militias are drawn into it — the fear is that the nation of 45 million could sink again into the kind of ethnic war that bedeviled its peripheral regions for decades.
“Even between the army and the RSF, there are ethnic dimensions to the fighting,” said Jérôme Tubiana, an expert on the conflict in Sudan and Chad. The ethnic considerations vary from region to region, he said, but are vital to understanding the conflict.
“In South Kordofan, the army and the RSF already fought before — three years ago — and there was a clear ethnic dimension, since the army has many local Nuba recruits and the RSF has been recruiting among local Arabs,” he said. “Both groups have already been in conflict for several decades.”
The RSF’s leadership is drawn from the Arab tribes in Darfur, while the army’s officer corps comes from Arab or Arabized communities in northern Sudan, he said. Many in the army deride the RSF as an unsophisticated tribal militia, though it is both well-armed and wealthy.
While the fighting in the capital has killed hundreds of civilians, they are not the primary target of either force. But in Darfur, where civil war only ended with a peace deal in 2020, civilians are being attacked for their ethnicity.
The war in Darfur, which began in the early 2000s, killed about 300,000 people and pitted local Arab militias against African rebel forces. The military backed the militias — known as the Janjaweed — in a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the tribes of the rebels, characterized by mass rapes, the bombing and burning of villages, and massacres of civilians. Later, elements of the Janjaweed formed the RSF.
Darfur was hit hard by fighting in the first week of this latest conflict, but then a fragile locally backed cease-fire prevailed in most cities and towns, except El-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur. When the fighting erupted there, it immediately took on an ethnic dimension.
A local activist said last week that more than 550 people had been killed in El-Geneina since the fighting began in late April. Arab militias allied with the RSF assaulted the town, looting the market, killing intellectuals and attacking camps for the displaced. The street fighting died down early last week, but then the RSF hit the town with artillery, killing many civilians, the activist said, adding, “Snipers are shooting every day.” He spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear for his security.
In Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, violence erupted again Friday after weeks of calm. The Turkish hospital is the only one operating in Nyala alongside a few health centers, said its general supervisor, Ibrahim Ali Abdel Bari.
“From the 19th to the 22nd [of May], we received 648 injured people as a result of the clashes between the army and the Rapid Support Forces,” he said. “Today is the quietest day; we have had 18 surgeries.”
Bari said Monday that the hospital had registered 13 deaths and that another eight people had died outside it before they could receive treatment. Other clinics in the city had registered fatalities as well, but he did not have details. He said that the hospital had run out of trauma supplies, including sutures, surgical supplies and bandages for broken limbs, and that it would shut down in two days if it did not receive more.
In the town of Zalingei, the capital of Central Darfur, fighting broke out Wednesday for the first time since the conflict began and lasted several days. Most telephone communications are down, but the situation on Monday was calm, a police official there said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The RSF claimed to have taken the main military base, but an army officer disputed that. He spoke on the condition of anonymity for the same reason. He said militias affiliated with the RSF moved from the town of Garsila, south of Zalingei, and attacked the army command before the fighting spread through the city. The RSF was stationed in residential neighborhoods and the army had bombed its bases, he said, especially in two eastern neighborhoods. He estimated there had to be dozens of dead.
In El Fasher in North Darfur, a humanitarian worker said there appeared to be a buildup of forces in the town, which is divided between the two sides. The town of El Daein in East Darfur is the only major settlement in the region that has seen no fighting.
Around the capital of Khartoum and its sister cities of Omdurman and Bahri, residents said clashes continued late Sunday and early Monday, with stray bullets killing civilians. A doctor at Omdurman hospital said medical staff had abandoned the facility because of RSF harassment.
In a sign of new equipment appearing on the battlefield, the military posted several videos over the weekend of what appeared to be footage from surveillance drones on its Facebook page. The RSF posted a video with its fighters holding a damaged drone, saying they had shot it down.