The Rapid Support Forces announced their control of the headquarters of the central police reserve forces in the capital, at a time when it is seeking to achieve gains in its war with the army amid fierce fighting in Khartoum.
The Rapid Support Forces had previously accused the army of attempting to expand the circle of war, through what it described as involving the police forces in the battles.
The Rapid Support Forces said in a statement that it had taken full control of a camp for the central police reserve forces in southern Khartoum, and published footage of its fighters inside the facility, some of whom were taking ammunition boxes out of a warehouse.
It later stated that it had confiscated 160 fully armed vehicles, 75 armored personnel carriers and 27 tanks.
Fierce fighting has been raging in Khartoum, Bahri and Omdurman, the three cities that make up the greater capital region, since Saturday evening, as the conflict between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces entered its eleventh week.
Witnesses also pointed to a sharp increase in violence over the past few days in Nyala, the largest city in the western Darfur region. On Saturday, the United Nations sounded the alarm regarding the ethnic targeting and killing of members of the Masalit community in El Geneina, West Darfur state.
The Sudanese capital and the city of El Geneina are the most affected by the conflict that erupted on April 15 between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces, but tensions and clashes escalated last week in other parts of Darfur and in Kordofan, in the south of the country.
Hostilities have increased since both sides in the conflict violated a series of ceasefire agreements reached in Jeddah after talks led by the United States and Saudi Arabia. The talks were postponed last week.
The army has been deploying the central police reserve forces for weeks to conduct field operations, and these forces have previously been used to carry out operations
In several regions, to confront protesters who demonstrated against the 2021 coup.
Last year, the United States imposed sanctions on the Central Reserve Forces of the Sudanese police for using excessive force in the face of protesters.
In Nyala, the city that witnessed the displacement of the population during a previous conflict that spread in the Darfur region after 2003, witnesses spoke of a noticeable deterioration in the security situation in the past few days, with the outbreak of violent clashes in residential neighborhoods. A human rights monitor said at least 25 civilians had been killed in the city since Tuesday.
Fighting also broke out between the army and the Rapid Support Forces last week around El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, which the United Nations says is inaccessible to aid workers.
In the city of El Geneina, which has witnessed an almost complete cut in communications networks and aid supplies in the past weeks, attacks by Arab militias and the Rapid Support Forces led tens of thousands to flee across the border into Chad.
Yesterday, Saturday, the spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ravina Shamdasani, called for the establishment of a safe corridor for those fleeing El Geneina and for aid workers to reach it, after reports of summary executions between the city and the border areas, and “the continued spread of hate speech,” including Including calls to kill or expel the Masalit.
The International Organization for Migration said that about two million people among those displaced by the conflict in Sudan have been internally displaced, and nearly 600 have fled.
A to neighboring countries.
