Sudan’s military chief has ordered the freezing of all bank accounts belonging to a rival paramilitary force – the latest step in a fight for control of the resource-rich nation.
The two sides have battled for weeks across Sudan, pushing the troubled country to the brink of all-out war.
More than 600 people, including civilians, have been killed and more 5,000 people have been wounded since April 15th, when fighting broke out between the Sudanese army, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the RSF, headed by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. The two men had been sharing power since the military coup in October 2021, which ejected the civilian members of a transitional government – itself created after dictator Omar al-Bashir was ousted.
The decree, issued on Sunday by General Burhan, will target the official accounts of the Rapid Support Forces in Sudanese banks, as well as the accounts of all companies belonging to the group, the state news agency Suna reported.
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It remains unclear what immediate effect the freezing would have on the RSF and how the general’s orders are to be enforced. Over the past decade, the paramilitary force has amassed great wealth through the gradual acquisition of Sudanese financial institutions and gold reserves.
Mr Burhan on Sunday replaced Sudan’s Central Bank governor. On Monday, he removed the country’s police chief and sacked two ambassadors at the foreign ministry. Mr Burhan did not elaborate on his moves.
Chaos has taken over much of the country since the conflict broke out last month. The capital, Khartoum, has been reduced to an urban battlefield and the western Darfur region is rocked by deadly tribal clashes.
The violence has forced about 200,000 people to flee into neighbouring countries and displaced more than 700,000 inside Sudan, triggering a humanitarian crisis that threatens to destabilise the region.
Air strikes and artillery fire intensified sharply across Sudan’s capital early on Tuesday, residents said
The air strikes and sounds of clashes and blasts could be heard in the south of Khartoum, and there was heavy shelling overnight in parts of the adjoining cities of Bahri and Omdurman, witnesses said.
There have been multiple reports of civilians being raped by armed men in Khartoum, say government officials.
Four women and a girl, three of them refugees, are being supported by a specialist unit whose director said she thought most of the sexual violence in the city was going unreported.
“I believe that the cases are way more than that, but because of what has been going on, not all the victims can reach us and get the support needed,” said Suliema Ishaq, the director of the combating violence against women unit at the Ministry of Social Affairs in Sudan.
Two of the women said they were raped by members of the RSF. The three refugees living in the city after fleeing violence in their own countries, reported being raped by unknown armed men.
Just 16 per cent of the hospitals in Khartoum are functioning at full capacity, with health officials reporting some centres are occupied by RSF forces, which control almost 90 per cent of the capital. The UN has also said resources have been “severely curtailed” in Khartoum and in most of Darfur. “There are critical shortages of supplies for the clinical management of rape and dignity kits, as the stocks are inaccessible,” the UN population fund, UNFPA, reported last week. - AP/Guardian/Reuters