The military head of Sudan blocks the financial accounts of a competing armed organization
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Hashim Sheikh
- . May 16, 2023
- . Update: May 16, 2023 5:33 pm
The latest move in a struggle for control of the resource-rich country came from Sudan’s military leader, who ordered the freezing of all bank accounts linked to a competing paramilitary outfit.
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Weeks of fighting between the two factions have brought Sudan, a fragile nation, dangerously close to civil war.
The Rapid Support Forces’ official accounts in Sudanese banks as well as the accounts of all the group’s firms would be the focus of the order, which was issued on Sunday by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, according to the official news agency SUNA.
How Burhan’s directions are to be carried out and what immediate impact the freeze would have on the RSF are yet unknown. The paramilitary group has gained substantial money over the last ten years by gradually acquiring banking institutions and gold reserves in Sudan.
On Sunday, Burhan took over as governor of the Central Bank of Sudan. He fired two ambassadors at the Foreign Ministry and ousted the nation’s police head on Monday. Burhan didn’t go into detail about his actions.
Tens of thousands have been forced to evacuate their homes in the Sudanese army under Burhan’s leadership and the RSF under Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo’s command since mid-April due to this conflict.
Since the fighting started, much of the nation has descended into chaos. The western Darfur area is being shaken by violent tribal warfare, and the capital city of Khartoum has been turned to an urban battleground. The World Health Organization estimates that over 600 people have died as a result of the violence, many of them civilians.
Numerous individuals were murdered last week during a two-day battle breakout in Geneina, the capital of the West Darfur state, according to the Sudan Doctors’ Syndicate, an organization that keeps track of civilian deaths. According to the report, violence started on Friday when RSF fighters and militiamen entered the city and engaged in combat with locals and members of other armed organizations.
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Meanwhile, footage shared online show a hospital being destroyed in the East Nile region, a district just east of Khartoum, while explosions resounded in a southern Khartoum neighborhood on Monday.
