The increase in heavy weapons in the war in Sudan has had an impact, as expected, on the civilian population. The paramilitary group Rapid Support Force (FAR) has increased its weapons power in the last month and has achieved some strategic victories in urban areas.
To counteract this situation, the Sudanese government has carried out air strikes on these residential areas with heavily armed fighter planes. The paramilitaries have used this fact to hold the government responsible for the deaths of more than 22 people in the city of Omdurman, very close to the country’s capital.
This air raid on the city of Omdurman has been one of the deadliest attacks yet in the weeks-long fighting between Sudan’s army and a renegade paramilitary force.
However, residents themselves have denounced the bombings. Witnesses said that the anti-aircraft defense, like the defensive drones with which the paramilitary group confronts the fighters, causes as many deaths as the government air force.
Crossfire in urban areas without protection infrastructure for civilian causes many deaths and injuries, especially in civil buildings and institutions that gather large numbers of people. In addition, from the moment that a city is taken over by the paramilitaries, civil protection, which, although precarious, is assumed by the Sudanese authorities, is forgotten, and the population is left totally unprotected.
Residents also denounce that their houses and apartments are used as human shields. Omdurman’s residents were caught in the crossfire, with many having to leave their residences to escape counter-attacks by government aircraft.
Fighting has focused on Omdurman in recent days, as the western part of the city is a key supply route for the RSF to bring reinforcements in from Darfur, its power base.
The city’s infrastructure has been badly damaged, losing vital services such as electricity, water pumping, and food storage.
According to Mohamed Osman, a Sudan researcher at Human Rights Watch, “Sudan’s warring armies are showing reckless disregard for civilian lives by using inaccurate weapons in populated urban areas.” He explained, “Rockets, bombs, and other types of explosive weapons are killing and wounding civilians and damaging infrastructure critical for access to water and medical care.”
The fighting threatens to drag the country into a wider civil war, drawing in other internal and external actors in the East African nation that lies between the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, and the Red Sea.
The UN, relying on the experience that the war in Ukraine has shown, warns the world governments involved in wars currently to focus on military criteria, ignoring the right of the civilian population to life and physical integrity.
The intense fighting that has been going on for more than 500 days in Ukraine has conditioned the way in which war is waged in other countries. The attack of cities with missiles, massive drone attacks in urban spaces, and the intensive use of technology have been cloning many combat zones, as seems to be happening in Sudan.
The war in Sudan has been going on for three months. This is an internal war between the military and an armed group made up of paramilitaries. The Sudanese government acknowledges almost 3,000 deaths and nearly 7,000 wounded. The country is suffering from a deep humanitarian crisis, causing many people to decide to emigrate or move towards border areas.
If the paramilitaries manage to sustain their logistical infrastructure, which includes drones and modern firearms, it is to be expected that an arms war between the two sides will be activated on a small scale but with a high level of civilian casualties.
