In mid-April, Sudan’s military and the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group, started fighting for control of the country. They unleashed a barrage of attacks on Khartoum, the country’s capital, plunged several other areas into fighting, and trapped hundreds of thousands of civilians in the cross fire. The opposing forces were formerly allied; their leaders jointly took power in Sudan in October 2021, when General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the leader of the Sudanese army, led a coup with the collaboration of General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the leader of the Rapid Support Forces, who is also known as Hemedti. Both men served on a body known as the Transitional Military Council: Burhan as the leader, Hemedti as his deputy.
Burhan had already overseen a body that was supposed to facilitate a transition to democracy after protests led to the ouster, in 2019, of Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s long-standing dictator—but in 2021, military leaders arrested Abdalla Hamdok, the civilian prime minister who had been involved in that process, and arrogated power to themselves. Civilian protests led to the reinstatement of Hamdok, but he soon resigned. Since then, the two generals have been locked in a power struggle, clashing over the decision to integrate the RSF into the army as part of a mooted transition from military rule to a civilian government. The RSF was created by Bashir in 2013 and grew out of the Janjaweed militias, the feared group involved in mass atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region that Human Rights Watch and others have said constituted war crimes. During the recent fighting, US and Saudi mediators have brokered several cease-fire agreements, but both sides have consistently violated them.
So far, more than eight hundred civilians have died in the fighting, while more than a million have been displaced. Media workers have been among those who have suffered. The Sudanese Journalists Syndicate, a national union, has reported accounts of journalists being shot, beaten, harassed, and detained, including the case of Faiz Abubaker, a photojournalist who was shot in the back and detained by RSF soldiers. While most of the attacks on the press recorded by the Syndicate have been perpetrated by the RSF, the army has also attacked journalists, including Mohamed Othman, a BBC correspondent who was beaten by soldiers. At the beginning of the fighting, the RSF seized control of the state television headquarters, a platform primarily used by the military. Elsewhere, local news stations have shut down due to signal interruptions.
Last week, I spoke with Hiba Morgan, Al Jazeera’s Sudan correspondent, who is based in Khartoum, about the events that led to this moment, international coverage of the fighting, and what might happen next. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
FM: Sudan has gone through so much since the revolution in 2019: the ousting of Bashir, the promise of civilian rule, the coup, and now this current moment. It’s a very complex situation. What has it been like to cover these developments from Khartoum, and to also see it being covered internationally?
HM: I’m half Sudanese, half South Sudanese, so Sudan is home. Sometimes it’s hard to cover because you’re talking about your people. I hear people’s statements, especially when they’re being broadcast before I go live, and it does get to me sometimes. When we began to cover the revolution, we covered the protests, the brutality of the police in responding to the unarmed protesters, and we always had the sense that It’s not going to get anywhere because there’s been just so much brutality. Then the sit-ins happened and it was this beautiful moment in Sudan’s history. When we covered the protests, Bashir’s ousting, and then eventually the power-sharing agreements, we felt like we were covering this great transition. But we could also tell that the main obstacles were still there.
I noticed, during this time, that there was an interest in Sudan. International media romanticized the sit-ins and protesters, and failed to show that the protest leaders, or the political parties that claimed to represent the protest movement, were not the actual representatives. The biggest evidence of that was that civilians were still protesting when the transitional government was formed, and when the military took over in October 2021. When it comes to covering the specific conflicts, I would say there has been a lot of whitewashing of the Rapid Support Forces since the revolution started. Not enough has been said about what they did in Darfur from 2003 onwards, to the point where people in Khartoum are ready to overlook what happened there.
This is largely being reported as a fight between Burhan and Hemedti, but that’s not all there is to it. What else is important for the media to include when reporting this story?
It’s very important to report this as an issue of accountability. This is what happens when you have state institutions, or semi-institutions, not being held accountable. When you wage a war in Darfur and your parliament is so controlled by a single party, nobody’s asking why that entire civilian village was burned down, why this number of children were killed or that number of women were raped.
It’s not just a fight between the two generals; it’s an existential war for both sides. When we talk about the RSF, we’re talking about a specific family, the Dagalo family, because they control everything from the economics of the RSF to the fighters. Their top commanders all come from the same family. But when you’re talking about the army, we’re talking about an institution. RSF supporters on social media say, Don’t call us the RSF, don’t call us the Janjaweed, call us Sudan’s new army. They’re basically trying to replace an institution that has been there, so it’s an issue of existence. That’s why you don’t see either side actually wanting a political solution or a cease-fire, because, for them, you’re just delaying a war that is inevitable. You can’t have two armies in one country—wherever you are in the world, not just Sudan.
We also have to understand that the RSF is a creation of the army for a different purpose. Yes, Bashir created the RSF to fight his wars in Darfur. But he knew how to control them. He made sure that they recruited a limited number of soldiers, that they were given specific amounts of guns and weapons and bullets; everything was accounted for. Then you have Burhan take over the army and basically get rid of the clause that says the RSF is part of the army. Since 2019, he started seeing everything in the country going down: services were degrading, the economy was worsening. The only thing that was getting bigger and bigger was the RSF, until it became, in terms of size and military might, on an equal footing with the army.
Was there ever a chance that the RSF would integrate into the army, as stated in the framework for the proposed transition to civilian rule?
In words, yes. There was the belief that it should be integrated, that Sudan should have one unified army. That’s what the framework documents said. However, in reality, no. From the very first day we saw the documents, we thought, “This is not happening.” We wasted days and hours going to their meetings and discussions because we knew that the moment it came to the security sector discussion, that’s when we actually really needed to pay attention, because we knew that was the make-or-break part. When you have the two main components of the security sector—the RSF and the army—and one of them [the RSF] is basically saying, We’re not attending this discussion, because it’s bullshit, we knew it wasn’t going to work.
Last October, Sudanese journalists formed a union, the Sudanese Journalists Syndicate. Has it helped journalists with any specific challenges?
They’ve been publicly condemning attacks on journalists and also trying to provide a little financial support for journalists who have been affected by the conflict. There’s not much they can do, because they’re all here as well, trapped in the same situation. I think the union could have been a bit stronger in terms of pushing for journalists to have more access. The one time we tried to go out and report, we were beaten by the RSF and it didn’t go well. I have colleagues who have been detained for a couple of days, who’ve been targeted, abducted from their homes. We need to ensure access for journalists because we need to shed light on all the violations happening, on both sides, to civilians. It hasn’t really worked on the issue of access, or the issue of protection for journalists.
The RSF also seized control of the state television headquarters on the first day of fighting, stopping the broadcast. Why was that a particular target for them?
The state television was one of the institutions that were guarded by the RSF. Basically, the RSF fighters that were guarding that area just decided that they were going to take it over. They understand that one of the main institutions of the government is their state television. The state broadcast mainly showcases messages of support for the army, nationalistic coverage. You’ll see army commanders from various parts of the country giving statements, not necessarily talking about what’s happening in Khartoum: messages of patriotism, military songs. The RSF are occupying the headquarters, but I don’t think they’ve been able to get it up and running. The one thing they were able to take control of was the state radio, which is now broadcasting RSF messages. They talk about their victories, areas that are under their control, and also sound bites of people talking about how great life is in the RSF areas.
Where are people getting their information and updates from?
People turn to international channels such as Al Arabiya, Al Jazeera, and Al Hadath, especially the Arabic-speaking channels. For more detailed information—for example, if I want to know what’s happening in my neighborhood (which I’m now not in; I’ve gone to a bit of a safer place inside Khartoum)—I have to go to the WhatsApp group for our block. People will ask security guards, cousins, whoever they are seeing. That’s how people are getting the tiniest details of areas of concern to them.
Some news outlets have mapped out possible endings to the fighting. The New York Times predicted several outcomes—including a return to authoritarian military rule or the “political earthquake” of an RSF victory—writing that the country is at its “most wrenching moment since independence in 1956.” What’s your take on that?
The Times had a good one. These are the scenarios that we’re possibly facing. It’s not going to be a swift victory for either side. And, regardless of which side wins, it’s not going to be completely over, especially with the RSF being in Khartoum; elements of what they did in Darfur are already showing up. So if the Sudan Armed Forces manage to win, they’re still going to have to continue fighting this battle. This has the potential to be even worse than what happened in Darfur between 2003 and 2007.
Feven Merid is CJR’s staff writer and Senior Delacorte Fellow.