KHARTOUM, Sudan
Sudan’s army chief, General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, appeared in a video circulated by the army on Thursday outside of the army command compound in Khartoum for the first time since the beginning of a war more than four months ago.
The army has been fighting the
paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for control of the capital and several
major cities since April 15. Attempts to mediate have proven fruitless as
diplomats say both sides still believe they can win.
While the RSF has dominated
Khartoum and its sister cities on the ground, the army has used air power to
try to dislodge the paramilitary forces from key areas.
The fighting, during which
neither side has gained a clear advantage, has inflicted high civilian
casualties and displaced more than 4.5 million according to the United Nations.
In the video, which the army
said was taken in the Wadi Sayidna air force base in Omdurman, across the Nile
from the capital, Burhan greeted cheering soldiers.
“The work you are doing should
reassure people that the army has men and that Sudan is being protected by the
army,” he said in the video.
The video appearance comes as
the RSF is pressing a multi-day attack on the Armored Corps base in southern
Khartoum, the army’s only other major base in the capital apart from army
command, which the RSF says it is blockading.
It was not clear how Burhan
was able to leave Khartoum.
The army also controls bases in the cities of Omdurman and Bahri, including the
Wadi Sayidna air force base, which the RSF has tried to attack but it remains
well protected.
General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo,
head of the RSF, has often mocked Burhan for what he termed hiding in a bunker,
although Dagalo has only been seen in video once since the beginning of the
war, speaking to soldiers outside a house in an unidentified location last
month.
While the fighting has already
created a humanitarian crisis, with hospitals shut, electricity and water
outages, and food shortages, the rainy season, which began last month,
threatens to make the situation worse.
The United Nations said on
Wednesday that a measles outbreak has been reported, as well as growing cases
of acute watery diarrhea, malaria, and dengue fever.
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