Eid without ceasefire in Sudan, as RSF withdraws from footholds in Khartoum

The Rapid Support Forces withdrew from two key footholds in Khartoum in the early hours of Friday morning, the seventh consecutive day of fighting in Sudan, after the Sudanese Armed Forces announced it had deployed joint forces comprising infantry, intelligence and artillery to those areas. 

Eyewitnesses and videos on social media reviewed by Mada Masr showed the paramilitary group withdrawing from Khartoum 2 and Khartoum 3, which sits just south of the Armed Forces General Command, a symbolic stronghold of military power that has seen heavy fighting since the onset of the violent clashes a week ago. 

Some of the retreating RSF forces regrouped in nearby areas that have also seen fierce skirmishes, including the neighborhood of Amarat and the vicinity of Airport Road. 

Since Saturday, the RSF and Sudanese military have been locked in a deadly battle that ripped through the tri-city capital turning its streets into a warzone. The Sudanese Air Force has conducted low flying raids on camps belonging to the paramilitary group built in densely populated residential areas, and the RSF in turn has fought street-to-street in a ground battle that has engulfed neighborhoods across the city. 

So far 431 people have died with 3,351 injured on account of the clashes, as per the latest estimates released by the World Health Organization. 

The first day of the Eid holiday provided no reprieve, as the military continued to gain ground on the RSF.

To the south and east of the capital, the Sudanese Air Force and artillery units shelled RSF sites, including Al-Sitteen Street, to the east of Khartoum, where a four-story building was subjected to heavy artillery shelling. Neighboring residents told Mada Masr that they suspected the building was an RSF administrative control centre. 

During a field visit conducted by the Mada Masr team this morning, smoke could be seen billowing from the building's upper floors. 

Framing the airstrikes as a breach of the holiday, a Friday morning RSF release stated that, “as citizens get ready to welcome the first day of the blessed Eid al-Fitr, Khartoum has awakened to air raids and artillery shelling in a vicious attack directly targeting civilian neighbourhoods.”

RSF chief Mohamed Hemdan Dagalo “Hemedti” announced on Thursday his willingness to commit to a ceasefire for the duration of Eid in response to calls from local, regional and international actors and pushed forward by United Nations General Secretary Antonio Gutierres, in order to open areas of safe passage for citizens.

For the military, however, said the Armed Forces spokesperson speaking to the Saudi-based Al Arabiya channel, a ceasefire was only feasible on the condition that the "rebel forces," meaning the RSF, withdraw from civilian areas and halt random sniper fire. The military agreed to the three separate calls for a ceasefire, the spokesperson said, on the condition that the other party halted its military activity. But, he continued, "In the first minute of any cease-fire, the other party has not committed." 

During a televised appearance broadcast on state television Friday morning, Armed Forces General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan made no reference to a ceasefire while greeting citizens on the occasion of Eid. 

This morning, residents of Khartoum took to the city's streets to perform Eid prayers in various neighborhoods across the capital, despite a backdrop of ongoing air raids and clashes. 

A resident of Arkaweet in east Khartoum told Mada Masr that a military infantry unit opened fire on several RSF targets stationed within the neighborhood. The RSF troops pulled back further toward the highway connecting Khartoum and Madani, facing continued raids and ground skirmishes even as they retreated, said Mohamed Ezzeldine, one of the residents of the Geyad neighborhood told Mada Masr. 

The RSF second-in-command, Abdel Rahim Dagalo, confirmed that the paramilitary group is coming under attack from all directions but are holding their ground, without revealing the locations of strikes.

During Mada Masr's tour of Khartoum, from the city's north to its south, tension on the streets was palpable. Moving through the city was extremely difficult. Various storefronts were closed, some looted, with local residents in the neighborhoods of Souq al-Mahalli and tea sellers describing lootings taking place Thursday night with law enforcement authorities completely absent. 

Mohamed Essam, a resident of the Emirates, where the RSF was previously stationed, said that residents found several shops, particularly shops selling food supplies, completely looted. One resident, Abdullah Hassan, described RSF soldiers robbing him of his phone and all of his money on the Khartoum-Madani highway, leaving him unable to return to his house or travel to his family in the southern Sennar State.

On the highway linking Khartoum North to Aylafon village, another site formerly controlled by RSF troops, Mada Masr surveyed further destruction. Three trucks carrying food supplies were set on fire, in addition to dozens of SUVs. RSF outposts previously stationed on the Khartoum North-Aylafoon road had been withdrawn.

By contrast, some of the markets in Khartoum North, at a relative distance from the General Command, were bustling with residents and life seemed to be going on as usual in the area. Residents told Mada Masr that a fuel crisis hampering evacuations elsewhere in the city has not affected them, since they didn't feel they needed to leave urgently. 

Yet at bus stops taking people from Khartoum to other states in Sudan, Mada Masr observed ticket prices for exiting Khartoum have increased exponentially, in some instances by as much as 500 percent. 

Food supply chains, said the Sudanese social development minister, have collapsed due to the clashes. The minister urged the two sides to agree to a ceasefire for urgent food supplies to enter the capital. Working to facilitate the passage of Egyptian nationals out of Sudan, Egypt's Foreign Ministry released a statement on Friday, stating that its offices in Wadi Halfa have been in constant communication with the Sudanese authorities.

During an African Union ministerial meeting, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry stressed that “upholding Sudanese state institutions should be a priority right now in order to avoid the collapse of the state.” “Entities that were not subordinate to the state should not be afforded the same legitimacy afforded to the institutions of the state.”

The clashes erupting in the Sudanese capital and across the country are the outcome of escalating tensions, which have brewed as the military has tussled with the paramilitary group over particulars of the country's governance after the two sides acted together to overthrow the transitional government in a 2021 coup .

As residents continue to flee Khartoum, where the provision of power, water and medical supplies is unreliable, an uptick in violence has ripped through other Sudanese cities including Obeid and Darfur.