America News Desk!!! The ongoing violent conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Force (RSF) has so far killed 185 people and injured 1,800 others. A UN envoy has confirmed this. Volker Perthes, head of the UN Integrated Transitional Assistance Mission in Sudan, briefed the Security Council on the latest situation in the conflict behind closed doors, Xinhua news agency reported. Perthes told reporters after the meeting that neither side showed any signs of being ready for talks. Violent clashes between the SAF and the RSF first broke out on 15 April in Khartoum and other cities. Both sides accused each other of starting the conflict. Tensions between the two military forces have risen since 12 April in northern Sudan’s Merowe region, when the RSF moved military vehicles to a location near the military airport.
Deep differences have emerged between the Sudanese military and the RSF, particularly regarding the latter’s integration into the army, as stipulated in an agreement signed between military and civilian leaders on December 5, 2022. The RSF was formed in 2013 and has its origins in the infamous Janjaweed militia, which fought rebels in Darfur. Since then, RSF leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo has built a powerful force that has intervened in conflicts in Yemen and Libya and controls some of Sudan’s gold mines. There have also been allegations of human rights abuses, including the massacre of over 120 protesters in June 2019. The fighting is the latest episode in bouts of tension that followed the ouster of long-serving President Omar al-Bashir in 2019.
There were huge street protests to end his nearly three-decade rule and the military launched a coup d’état to get rid of him. But citizens continued to demand a role in the plan to move toward democratic rule. A joint military-civilian government was then installed, but was overthrown in another coup in October 2021. And since then the rivalry between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who is the head of the armed forces and de facto president of the country, and General Dagalo has intensified.
–IANS
World News Desk!!
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