26 June 2023; MEMO: Armed clashes between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) escalated yesterday in the southern area of the country's capital city of Khartoum, Anadolu Agency reported.
Eyewitnesses told the news wire that neighbourhoods in southern Khartoum witnessed violent clashes with light and heavy weapons yesterday morning.
War planes flew over the Kalakla neighborhoods where residents heard the sound of heavy shelling and anti-aircraft guns, the eyewitnesses added, noting that the fighter jets flew intensively over the Khartoum, Bahri and Omdurman areas.
On 6 May, Saudi Arabia and the United States began sponsoring talks between the SAF and the RSF, which resulted in multiple ceasefires that were repeatedly breached by both rivals.
Since 15 April, the Sudanese Armed Forces, led by chief of staff Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the RSF, led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (known as Hemedti) have engaged in military clashes over power. The fighting is reported to have left more than 3,000 civilians dead, tensof thousands injured and displaced more than 2.2 million people, according to United Nations official data.
The rivals are in a dispute over the timeframe for implementing a recent proposal to integrate the RSF into the national army, a major clause in a hoped-for agreement to return power during the transitional period to civilians. In 2021 Al-Burhan imposed measures that he said were aimed at correcting the transitional period that had begun in the wake of the removal of deposed President Omar Al-Bashir in April 2019.
His measures were seen as a coup by the civilian component of the transitional government.
