Sudanese air force urges people to stay indoors as doctors union says at least 25 dead – live

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United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres called for an immediate end to violence in Sudan, his spokesperson said on Twitter.

Clashes between the military and the country’s paramilitary force killed at least 25 people.

Guterres spoke with leaders of Sudan’s army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, Egypt’s president and the chair of the African Union Commission, the spokesperson said.

General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, commander of Sudan’s military, told the Al Jazeera channel that RSF troops first “harassed” the military south of Khartoum, triggering the clashes.

Burhan accused the RSF of entering Khartoum airport and setting fire to some planes, the AP agency reports.

He also said all strategic facilities including the military’s headquarters and the Republican palace, the seat of Sudan’s presidency, are under his forces’ control. He threatened to deploy more troops to Khartoum from across the county.

The head of the RSF, Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, accused Burhan of starting the battle by surrounding RSF troops. “This criminal, he forced this battle upon us,” he said.

Dagalo told Al Jazeera that he believes that in “the next few days” it would be over.

As night fell, residents said they still heard the sounds of gunfire and explosions in different parts of Khartoum, including around the military’s headquarters and other bases.

Residents described chaotic scenes. “Fire and explosions are everywhere,” Amal Mohamed, a doctor in a public hospital in Omdurman told the AP agency.

“All are running and seeking shelter.”

“We haven’t seen such battles in Khartoum before,” said Khartoum resident Abdel-Hamid Mustafa.

At least 25 people were killed and 183 others injured in ongoing clashes across Sudan, the Sudanese Doctors’ Union told Reuters.

The group was unable to determine if all the casualities were civilians.

Two people were killed at Khartoum airport, four in neighborhing Omdurman, eight in the city of Nyala, six in the city of El Obeid and five in El Fasher, the source added.

Sudanese air force called on citizens to stay indoors as they conduct a full aerial survey of areas of paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) activity, a statement on the armed forces Facebook page said.

One eyewitness told Reuters late on Saturday they could hear sounds of explosions in the vicinity of the airport in central Khartoum as violence erupted between Sudan’s main paramilitary group and the armed forces in an apparent struggle for control against the backdrop of the country’s halting moves toward elections after a military coup, Reuters reports.

The head of Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) said his forces were ready to cooperate with Egypt to ease the return of Egyptian troops who had handed themselves over to the group in the northern Sudanese town of Merowe.

After clashes erupted across Sudan between the RSF and the army, the RSF shared a video they said showed Egyptian troops who had “surrendered” to them in Merowe, about halfway between the Sudanese capital Khartoum and its border with Egypt. Egypt’s military said Egyptian forces were in Sudan to conduct exercises with their Sudanese counterparts, and that it was coordinating with Sudanese authorities to guarantee their safety.

The video showed a number of men dressed in army fatigues crouched on the ground and speaking to members of the RSF, Sudan’s main paramilitary group, in an Egyptian Arabic dialect.

RSF leader Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, told Sky News Arabia TV that the Egyptian soldiers were safe, and that the RSF had provided them with food and water and was ready to facilitate their return.

Sudan was plunged into a long-feared violent crisis on Saturday as a bitter struggle for power appeared to break out between the two main factions of the ruling military regime.

At least five people were reported to have been killed in Khartoum, the capital of the vast and strategic east African country, on Saturday and more in northern Darfur state during heavy fighting between Sudan armed forces, the regular military, and the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Force (RSF), according to Sudan Doctor’s Committee, a local NGO. The death toll is expected to rise.

The fighting threatens to destabilise not just Sudan but much of the region, as well as exacerbating a battle for influence that involves major Gulf powers as well as the US, EU and Russia. Sudanese armed forces, are broadly loyal to Abdulfatah al-Burhan, the current de facto ruler of Sudan, while the RSF, a collection of militia follow the controversial former warlord Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti.

Sudan’s armed forces has dismissed any possibility of negotiations or dialogue with the country’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

There will be “no negotiations or dialogue until the dissolution of the paramilitary RSF”, the armed forces said on its Facebook page.

“Shooting is still ongoing and people are staying indoors – there is so much panic and fear,” an eyewitness told the BBC via her Kenya-based sister.

She added that residents in Khartoum had not been expecting the clashes and many had been caught in transit with bridges and roads closed and many schools in lockdown.

The foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the United States held a phone call on Saturday to discuss the ongoing situation in Sudan, Saudi’s state news agency said.

The ministers called for a halt to military escalation and a return to a framework agreement between civilian political forces and the military in Sudan, Reuters reports.

Egypt’s military is closely following the situation in Sudan and is coordinating with the relevant Sudanese authorities to guarantee the safety of Egyptian forces, army spokesman Colonel Gharib Abdel Hafez said.

His statement came as Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces shared a video that they said showed Egyptian troops who had “surrendered” to them in Merowe, northern Sudan, in the wake of clashes between the group and the Sudanese army.

It’s approaching 7pm in Khartoum, here’s where things stand:

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and Sudan armed forces (SAF) have been exchanging fire since 9am on Saturday. At least three civilians have been killed, according to the Sudan Doctors’ Committee.

The clashes came over a dispute on the timing to integrate the RSF into the SAF as part of a power-sharing deal with the civilians who led protests against the former president Omar al-Bashir in 2019.

They had a two-year power-sharing deal with the army before being interrupted by a military coup in October 2021. The Sudanese people resisted and protests took place across the country. More than 100 people have been killed since then.

Saturday’s clashes spread across the country in north, west and south Darfur, where the RSF has a strong presence.

The Sudan Doctors’ Committee said two civilians were killed at the country’s airport and another man was shot dead in the state of North Kordofan. The group did not specify how the two people had died at the airport but said dozens more were injured around the country, with some in unstable condition.

The Sudanese army chief, Gen Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, told Al Jazeera in an interview that the army is in control of the presidential palace, the military headquarters and the airport.

Sudan’s former civilian prime minister Abdalla Hamdok posted a video on Twitter calling for de-escalation from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and Sudan armed forces (SAF). Hamdok called on the Sudanese people to stand together and reject the war and asked the international and regional community to intervene, warning that war in Sudan means war in the whole region.

The army has rejected assertions by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that they have seized the presidential palace, the army chief’s residence and airports in Khartoum and the northern city of Merowe. The situation on the ground was unclear. The RSF said the army had attacked it first, while the army said it was fighting the RSF at sites the paramilitaries said they had taken.

A Saudia plane at Sudan’s Khartoum airport came under fire during clashes on Saturday, the state-owned Saudi Arabian carrier said. It said passengers, crew and staff have moved from the airport to the Saudi embassy in Khartoum.

The chair of the African Union Commission called for an urgent ceasefire in Sudan, appealing to the armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to “immediately stop the destruction of the country, the terrorization of its population, and the bloodshed during the last ten days of Ramadan”.

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) shared a video on Twitter they said shows Egyptian troops who have “surrendered” in Merowe, a town in northern Sudan. There was no clear explanation for the presence of Egyptian troops in Merowe on Saturday, but Egyptian and Sudanese troops have periodically staged joint military exercises in the north of the country in the wake of diplomatic tensions with Ethiopia.

An Egypt military spokesman said they are following the situation in Sudan closely and are coordinating with relevant authorities to guarantee the safety of Egyptian forces, Reuters reported.

Foreign secretary James Cleverly called for an immediate stop to the ongoing violence across Sudan. “The UK calls on the Sudanese leadership to do all they can to restrain their troops and de-escalate to prevent further bloodshed,” he wrote on Twitter. “Military action will not resolve this situation.”

Chad’s government has closed its border with Sudan and called for calm. “Chad appeals to the regional and international community as well as to all friendly countries to prioritise a return to peace,” it said in a statement.

Egypt has expressed grave concern over the clashes in Sudan and called on all parties to exercise restraint, the foreign ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the situation in Sudan was delicate but insisted there was still an opportunity to complete the transition to a civilian-led government. Speaking from Hanoi, Blinken said the situation was “fragile” as some actors “may be pushing against that progress”.

The United Arab Emirates has called on all parties in Sudan to exercise restraint, de-escalate the fighting and work towards ending the crisis through dialogue, the state news agency reported.

Russia’s embassy in Sudan said it is concerned by an “escalation of violence” in the country and called for a ceasefire and negotiations.

Britain’s embassy in Sudan urged its nationals there to remain indoors and said it is closely monitoring the situation after paramilitaries said they had taken control of the presidential palace and other sites.

WHO HAS BEEN IN CHARGE IN SUDAN?

Sudan began its halting transition towards democracy after military generals ousted long-ruling autocrat Omar al-Bashir amid a popular uprising in April 2019. Bashir, an Islamist long shunned by the West, had presided over the country for nearly three decades.

Under an August 2019 agreement, the military agreed to share power with civilians ahead of elections. That arrangement was abruptly halted by a 2021 coup, which triggered a new campaign of mass pro-democracy rallies across Sudan.

WHERE DOES THE BALANCE OF POWER LIE?

The military has been a dominant force in Sudan since independence in 1956, staging coups, fighting internal wars, and amassing economic holdings.

During the 2019-21 power-sharing arrangement, distrust between the military and civilian parties ran deep.

The civilian side drew legitimacy from a resilient protest movement and support from parts of the international community.

The military had internal backing from rebel factions that benefited from a 2020 peace deal and from veterans of Bashir’s government who returned to the civil service following the coup.

The coup put the army back in charge, but it faced weekly demonstrations, renewed isolation and deepening economic woes.

General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and deputy leader of Sudan’s ruling council since 2019, swung behind the plan for a new transition, bringing tensions with ruling council head and army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan to the surface. Dagalo is better known as Hemedti.

WHAT ARE THE FAULTLINES?

A central cause of tension since the uprising is a civilian demand to gain oversight of the military and to see the integration of the powerful RSF into the regular army.Civilians have also called for the handover of lucrative military holdings in agriculture, trade, and other industries, a crucial source of power for an army that has often outsourced military action to regional militias.

Another point of contention is the pursuit of justice over allegations of war crimes by the military and its allies in the conflict in Darfur from 2003. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is seeking trials for Bashir and other Sudanese suspects.

Justice is also being sought over the killings of pro-democracy protesters on June 3, 2019, in which military forces are implicated. Activists and civilian groups have been angered by delays to an official investigation. In addition, they want justice for at least 125 people killed by security forces in protests since the 2021 coup.

WHAT ABOUT THE ECONOMY?

A worsening economic crisis that sent the currency plunging and created frequent shortages of bread and fuel was a key trigger for Bashir’s downfall.The 2019-21 transitional government implemented tough, rapid reforms monitored by the International Monetary Fund in a successful bid for debt relief and to attract foreign financing.

But billions of dollars in international support and debt relief were frozen after the 2021 coup, halting development projects, straining the national budget, and worsening an already dire humanitarian situation.

WHAT’S THE REGIONAL PICTURE?

Sudan is in a volatile region, bordering the Red Sea, the Sahel, and the Horn of Africa. Its strategic location and agricultural wealth have attracted regional power plays, complicating the chances of a successful transition.

Several of Sudan’s neighbours, including Ethiopia, Chad and South Sudan, have been affected by political upheavals and conflict. Sudan’s relationship with Ethiopia in particular has been strained over disputed farmland along their border, over conflict in the Tigray region that drove tens of thousands of refugees into Sudan, and the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

Regional heavyweights Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have seen Sudan’s transition as a way of pushing back against Islamist influence in the region. They, along with the United States and Britain, form the “Quad”, which has sponsored mediation in Sudan along with the United Nations and African Union. Western powers fear the potential for a Russian base on the Red Sea, which Sudanese military leaders have expressed openness to.

Egypt, which has deep historical ties with Sudan and a close relationship with its military, has pursued an alternative track with groups that supported the 2021 coup.

The chair of the African Union Commission has called for an urgent ceasefire in Sudan, appealing to the armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to “immediately stop the destruction of the country, the terrorization of its population, and the bloodshed during the last ten days of Ramadan”.

In a translated statement published online Musa Faki Mahamat called the moment “delicate and extremely dangerous”. Mahamat called on the international community to redouble efforts and “force the two parties to immediately cease fire and sit around the negotiating table”.