More than 180 people have been killed and 1,800 wounded in the past three days in fighting between two rival generals vying for power in Sudan, the head of the UN mission in Sudan, Volker Perthes, said on Monday.
The mission said it would continue to work to improve the security of the country.
“The situation is very fluid. It is difficult to assess in which direction the balance is shifting,” Perthes told reporters from Khartoum, after a closed-door address to the Security Council.
The clashes since Saturday have pitted the Sudanese armed forces, led by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, against Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary force that developed out of the Janjaweed Arab militia, which gained notoriety during the Darfur conflict in western Sudan.
Burhan has been Sudan’s de facto leader since October 2021, when he dissolved the transitional government installed following the 2019 ouster of President Omar Al Bashir and seized power with Dagalo's support.
In July 2022, he launched a bumpy political process towards the formation of a civilian government that culminated in a framework agreement in December 2022. However, the future of that process is now in jeopardy following the outbreak of fighting between the forces of Gen. Burhan and his erstwhile supporter and deputy, Gen. Dagalo.
