In his first speech since the conflict engulfed Sudan nearly a week ago, army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan pledged the military would prevail and secure the vast African nation's "safe transition to civilian rule.”
But for many Sudanese, Burhan's claim rang hollow 18 months after he joined forces with his current rival to seize power and cast aside Sudan's pro-democracy forces.
Burhan's announcement came on the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of Ramadan and its month of fasting. The holiday, typically filled with prayer, celebration and feasting, was a somber one in Sudan, as gunshots rang out across the capital of Khartoum and heavy smoke billowed over the skyline.
“We are confident that we will overcome this ordeal with our training, wisdom and strength," Burhan said in his speech, vowing to preserve “the security and unity of the state."
“Ruin and destruction and the sound of bullets have left no place for the happiness everyone in our beloved country deserves,” he added.
Rather than out in the open, mosques held mass morning prayers inside to protect worshippers from the intensified fighting.
The violence so far has killed 413 people and wounded 3,551, according to the latest toll from the World Health Organization. That includes at least nine children killed and 50 wounded in the fighting, said the UN children’s fund.
“There is no safe place anymore in Khartoum,” said Dallia Abdelmoniem, a 37-year-old baker who fled the Sudanese capital with her family on Thursday, after a rocket sliced through her roof. The road to the city's outskirts was littered with dead bodies. Abdelmoniem covered the eyes of her nieces and nephews.
“Our number one priority is just to stay alive,” she said from her new shelter outside the city, where she could still hear the howl of artillery and gunfire Friday.
“Instead of waking up to the call to prayer, people in Khartoum again woke up to heavy fighting,” Norway’s ambassador to Sudan, Endre Stiansen wrote in an Eid al-Fitr message on Twitter. “Can any hell be more horrible than this?”
The explosions rocking Khartoum followed frenzied international calls for a holiday cease-fire. After the United Nations and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged a respite from the spiraling violence, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, promised to stop fighting for the three days of Eid al-Fitr to allow for evacuations and safe corridors. But there was no response from Burhan's military.
Such proposed pauses in the fighting have repeatedly collapsed over the past week.
The Sudanese military a day earlier ruled out negotiations with the RSF, saying it would only accept its surrender.
The military claimed Friday it had moved past the phase of defending its positions and was now clearing RSF positions from around Khartoum.
The military has appeared to have the upper hand, with its monopoly on air power, but it was impossible to confirm its claims of advances.
The two generals vying for control over the vast African nation are also vying for acceptance by foreign powers, which have expressed support for Sudanese seeking a transition to civilian rule.
Both Burhan and his rival, RSF chief Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, have sought to portray themselves as supporters of democracy. In 2019, they pushed the long-time autocrat Omar al-Bashir out of power amid a popular uprising against his rule.
But since then, they have failed to implement agreements under which they would hand over power. Their forces crushed pro-democracy protests, and in 2021 they jointly removed a transitional government and entrenched them as Sudan's most powerful leaders.
The current explosion of violence between them came after Burhan and Dagalo fell out over a recent internationally brokered deal with democracy activists that was meant to incorporate the RSF into the military and eventually lead to civilian rule.
The fighting continued to frustrate efforts by nations to evacuate their nationals from Sudan. Multiple countries, including the United States, are moving assets to nearby countries in preparation, but none has said when of how they will be able to carry out an evacuation, with most airports out of commission and movement dangerous.
“The situation is simply put terrible,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said. “An evacuation task is risky and complicated.”
The bombardment and sniper fire has hit civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, over the past week. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus decried what he called the “reprehensible” attacks on health facilities on Friday, saying they “not only jeopardize the lives of healthcare workers but also deprive vulnerable populations of essential medical care."
The spokesperson for WHO, Margaret Harris, told reporters in Geneva that the violence has forced 20 health facilities nationwide to halt operations. A dozen other hospitals are at risk of shutting down, threatening some 50,000 severely malnourished children in Sudan who are administered regular feeding by tubes to survive, according to UNICEF.
Both the military and RSF have a long history of human rights abuses in Sudan. The RSF was born out of the Janjaweed militias, which were accused of widespread atrocities when the government deployed them to put down a rebellion in Sudan’s western Darfur region in the early 2000s.
“It's really hard to remain calm,” said Abdelmoniem, describing shortages of fuel, medicine, cash and food causing desperation in much of Khartoum.
“People are telling me, ‘Happy Eid," she added. "But then I turn on the news.”
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