Witnesses reported that thousands of people fled after paramilitary groups, who had been fighting the regular army of Sudan for over a year, announced on Saturday that they had captured a major state capital in the southeast.
Rapid Support Forces (RSF) declared on X that “we have liberated the 17th Infantry Division from Singa,” the capital of Sennar state.
Locals told AFP that “the RSF has deployed in the streets of Singa,” and witnesses said that the regular army’s aircraft were flying overhead and that anti-aircraft fire was occurring.
Other witnesses reported seeing violence and “rising panic among residents seeking to flee” earlier on Saturday.
Sudan has been gripped by war since April 2023, when fighting erupted between forces loyal to army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the RSF led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
The conflict in the country of 48 million has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
With the most recent advance by the RSF, the paramilitaries are closing the loop around Port Sudan on the Red Sea, the current home of the government, army, and UN organizations.
The enormous western area of Darfur, much of southern Kordofan, the center of the country’s Al-Jazira state, and the majority of the capital, Khartoum, are all under the authority of the RSF.
Already, over a million displaced Sudanese live in Sennar state. It links the southeast, under army authority, to the center of Sudan.
Posts on social media showed thousands of people fleeing in vehicles and on foot, and witnesses told AFP “thousands of people have taken refuge on the east bank of the Blue Nile” river east of Singa.
The capital of the state of North Darfur, El-Fasher, is likewise under siege by RSF forces.
According to a report released on Thursday and referenced by the UN, approximately 26 million people in the war-torn country of Sudan are suffering from severe “acute food insecurity.”
