Just over a week of fighting between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan's second largest city led to the displacement of around 300,000 people, bringing the number of displaced people to around seven million after eight months of conflict, according to the United Nations. In addition, another 1.5 million have sought refuge in neighboring countries.
Since Tuesday, Wad Madani has been under the control of paramilitaries under the command of General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. On Friday, the Sudanese Doctors' Union said in a statement that “all health centers in the city are out of service and the health system has collapsed.”
Despite the openness to a ceasefire and political negotiations agreed on December 9 at the extraordinary summit of leaders of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (AIPD/IGAD) in Djibouti with the approval of General Dagalo and his rival, General Abdel Fattah alBurhan , neither the two leaders have met nor have their men stopped fighting.
Wad Madani, the capital of Gezira state in the country's middle east, is located 136 km southeast of Khartoum and had an estimated population of just over 400,000 people, making the mass exodus from the city about threequarters of its residents. Thousands have fled to Gadarife and Sennar, but many thousands more are in transit, probably heading to Kassala and Blue Nile states.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), fighting began on the outskirts of the city on the 15th, with airstrikes occurring in several parts of the city and also in the surrounding village of Alsharfa Barakat. Paramilitaries entered the city on Monday and took control of it on Tuesday after army soldiers withdrew.
The soldiers' behavior angered their commander: “Every soldier does his duty honestly. Whoever forced the withdrawal will be held accountable without punishment or harm,” General AlBurhan said in a speech reproduced by the Sudan Tribune.
Gezira was one of the country's last safe havens until this new pole of conflict erupted, and the UN fears that the catastrophic humanitarian situation may become even worse. Especially because, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the more than 500,000 people who had sought refuge in the state before the war have started moving again.
“This is a human tragedy of immense proportions, exacerbating the already dire humanitarian crisis in the country,” said Amy Pope, IOM Director General. “The intensification of the conflict and increasing displacements highlight the urgency of a peaceful solution, the need for a ceasefire and a decisive response to prevent a major catastrophe,” he added, quoted by Europa Press.
The 8.5 million displaced people and refugees due to the conflict make Sudan today the site of the largest population displacement in the world. According to the United Nations, this is a “staggering number in a country suffering from conflict, food insecurity and economic collapse.”
Meet
After talks in Djibouti, the army commander and president of the Sovereign Council of Sudan, formed in 2019 after the overthrow of Omar alBashir, and the commander of the RSF, General Dagalo, known as “Hemedti”, are now seeking a facetoface meeting to arrange meetings. The news was announced by Antony Blinken, United States Secretary of State, whose diplomacy has been working to resolve the conflict.
Washington fears that the longer the conflict lasts, the more opportunities there are for Russia to gain dominance in the country through the Wagner Group, which arrived in Sudan with alBashir but has joined paramilitaries since the former president's overthrow .
“The United States helped reach a tentative agreement in which the two leaders of Sudan agreed to meet to commit to a ceasefire,” Blinken said, adding: “It is a meeting that hasn't happened yet, but we're being pressured to make that happen.”