By Khalid Abdelaziz, DUBAI
Sudan's military ruler, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, arrived in the Egyptian coastal town of El Alamein on Tuesday to meet with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, according to a military statement.
The statement said the two
leaders would discuss the latest developments in Sudan and the ties between the
neighboring countries.
Sudan plunged into chaos in mid-April when simmering
tensions between the military, led by Burhan, and the powerful paramilitary
Rapid Support Forces, commanded by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, exploded into open
fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere.
The conflict has reduced the capital
to an urban battlefield, with the RSF controlling vast swaths
of the city. The military command, where Burhan has purportedly been stationed
since April, has been one of the epicenters of the conflict.
In his
trip to Egypt, Burhan was accompanied by Acting Foreign Minister Ali al-Sadiq
and General Ahmed Ibrahim Mufadel, head of the General Intelligence Authority,
and other military officers.
Burhan managed last week to
leave the military headquarters. He visited military facilities in Khartoum’s
sister city of Omdurman and elsewhere in the country. Burhan traveled to Egypt
from the coastal city of Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
Despite months of fighting,
neither side has managed to gain control of Khartoum or other key areas in the
country. Last week, large explosions and plumes of black smoke could be seen
above key areas of the capital, including near its airport.
Egypt has longstanding ties
with the Sudanese army and its top generals. In July, el-Sissi hosted a meeting
of Sudan’s neighbors and announced a plan for a cease-fire. A series of fragile
truces, brokered by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, have failed to hold.
The conflict has turned
Khartoum and other urban areas into battlefields. Many residents live without
water and electricity, and the country’s health care system has nearly
collapsed.
The sprawling region of Darfur
saw some of the worst bouts of violence in the conflict, and the fighting there
has morphed into ethnic clashes with RSF and allied Arab militia targeting
ethnic African communities.
Clashes also intensified
earlier this month in the provinces of South Kordofan and West Kordofan.
The fighting is estimated to
have killed at least 4,000 people, according to the U.N. human rights office,
though activists and doctors on the ground say the death toll is likely far
higher.
More than 4.6 million people
have been displaced, according to the U.N. migration agency. Those include over
3.6 million who fled to safer areas inside Sudan and more than 1 million others
who crossed into neighboring countries.
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