When Omar al-Bashir was forced from Sudan’s presidency in 2019 after 30 years of repression it felt to many like a time for celebration and a fresh start for the country. Toppled by the military, a tyrant accused of genocide and war crimes was finally out of power.
But the vacuum he left behind was quickly filled, not by one man but two. Many feared that Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto leader and army chief, and Lt Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the vice-president who controls the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and is known as Hemedti, would soon clash. That fear became reality last weekend.
As Nesrine Malik tells Nosheen Iqbal, the Sudanese people, for so long in the grip of military rule, are once again suffering conflict. Despite an internationally brokered ceasefire, fighting has continued in the streets of the capital, Khartoum. The latest outbreak leaves pro-democracy activists further than ever from their goals, and for many the coming weeks will simply be about meeting their basic needs and hoping for an end to the violence.
Photograph: Sudanese Armed Forces/UPI/Shutterstock
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