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00:00Aid groups have accused the Sudanese military of killing at least 54 people in an airstrike
00:05on a market in the west of the country on Monday.
00:08The attack took place in the village of Tora, 80 kilometers north of Al-Fasher, the capital
00:13of North Darfur province.
00:15A spokesman for the military said civilians had not been targeted.
00:18But human rights groups say the death toll is even higher, with those who took part in
00:23burial operations saying they had counted 270 bodies.
00:27The strike came days after the army reclaimed the presidential palace in the capital Khartoum.
00:33And earlier we spoke to our regional correspondent Olivia Bizeau in Nairobi.
00:42This airstrike comes as the army has really ramped up its attacks in the Darfur region
00:47in recent days.
00:48The region is mostly in the hands of the paramilitary rapid support forces and the most intense
00:54fighting has been happening in and around the city of Al-Fasher, which is the last
00:58major city not in the hands of the RSF.
01:04Now the UN has said that dozens of people were killed in this attack, while local organizations
01:09have said that more than 100 people were killed and that dozens of people were injured.
01:16And the Emergency Lawyers Group is a local organization that's been documenting abuses
01:21committed by both sides in this conflict since the war broke out in April of 2023.
01:27They called this attack a horrific massacre.
01:30Meanwhile a local Darfur activist organization has said that this is the deadliest bombing
01:37since the war broke out in 2023.
01:41Now this is not the first time that civilians have been caught in the fighting.
01:46Both sides have been accused of targeting civilians.
01:49This is the world's worst humanitarian crisis in recent history.
01:54Tens of thousands of people have been killed.
01:57Millions of people have been displaced.
01:59Millions if not tens of millions of people are on the brink of famine.
02:07And for more on this developing situation, I can bring in Sharat Srinivasan, Professor
02:12of International Politics and a fellow of King's College Cambridge.
02:15He is the author of When Peace Kills, Politics, International Intervention and Unending Wars
02:21in the Sudans.
02:22Good morning Professor Srinivasan.
02:24Thank you very much for joining us.
02:26What is the latest situation on the ground in Sudan as you understand it?
02:32Well, as has been reported, clearly the key event that has occurred is that the Sudan
02:40armed forces have captured the presidential palace in Khartoum.
02:45That is a strategic, perhaps definitely a tactical victory.
02:49Since the beginning of this war, the RSF has been in control of large parts of the capital
02:54and it's been the army that's been besieged in small pockets.
02:57But that has really turned now.
02:59The RSF is still present in the city, especially in the southern areas of the city and still
03:04has some presence, is attempting to fix the army in place.
03:08And that's because indeed the fulcrum of the conflict has shifted to the last remaining
03:14major urban center in the west of the country, al-Fasha, that the RSF has been for a long
03:20time but has not gained control of.
03:23There are allied forces of the Sudan army that are in the region that are also attacking
03:29the RSF there.
03:30But the key thing that is going on is that increasingly the territorial bifurcation of
03:37the war is becoming more pronounced.
03:40The RSF having its strongholds in the west and southern parts of the country, the army
03:45in the center and the east.
03:47And that bodes quite ominously for what's to come.
03:52Yeah.
03:53And will that perhaps mean that this might be a long-term bifurcation between the two
03:59warring factions?
04:01Well, that is indeed the risk here.
04:04I mean, both sides are armed to the hilt and both sides have access to further arms
04:10and weaponry and resources from various actors in the region and beyond.
04:16So there's no sense that there is an end in sight to this war.
04:20There is a sense that the army has the upper hand at the moment.
04:24It is very important that they may possibly secure greater Khartoum altogether.
04:30That would have huge implications for the levels of displacement.
04:34Khartoum being a major center and a large proportion of the country's population.
04:38So it could lead to the return of large numbers of civilians to the capital.
04:43But then the army will have a huge burden on its plate to deal with humanitarian and
04:47service issues that have plagued the country.
04:50As has been reported, the scale of the humanitarian devastation in the country is just mind boggling.
04:57And so that will continue.
05:00What I think is on the political and military front a concern is that the RSF has also in
05:06recent months, perhaps with one eye on the fact that it was looking like it would lose
05:10control of Khartoum, sought to claim a de facto government in areas and territories
05:16under its control with some tactical alliances with other forces.
05:21And that does seem to suggest a hardening of territorial division between the two groups.
05:25Now we've heard a lot about ceasefires and other major conflicts going on elsewhere in
05:29the world, such as Gaza and Ukraine.
05:31But there's been very little talk about one in Sudan.
05:34Is anybody pushing for a halt in the fighting?
05:38I mean, clearly, lots of actors are pushing for a halt in the fighting.
05:42And at various times, the U.S. and the Saudi governments have sought to push for a ceasefire,
05:48cessation of hostilities.
05:49They've all failed in the past.
05:52Over time, the lack of attention, the lack of international attention to this conflict
05:57and the way in which continued violence is having an untold level of suffering on the
06:06population speaks to the fact that it just has not been top of the agenda because of
06:10other priorities.
06:12I think the major issue here is that any real ceasefire will only come about because a set
06:18of regional and international actors align heavily around it.
06:24It's not just about the two armed forces and their allies on the ground.
06:28It is about the regional geopolitics as well.
06:30Now, the United Nations has called Sudan the most devastating humanitarian situation the
06:35world is facing.
06:37You alluded to that earlier as well.
06:40And there's upwards of 11 million people displaced.
06:44We've just seen this week's of a deadly airstrike in North Darfur.
06:48This does appear to be a depressingly familiar rerun of the wars of the 2000s, which calls
06:52for so much suffering in the country and particularly Darfur as well.
06:58It probably seems from the outside to be a rerun.
07:02It's hard to go past the fact that of the 70 years of independence in Sudan, or near
07:0970 years, at least six of those seven decades have been blighted by civil war in one form
07:14or another.
07:15And the tragedy of this is that it does feel like a movie on repeat.
07:19But it isn't.
07:20This is the scale of the suffering and the humanitarian crisis, the scale of famine risk,
07:28the scale of displacement.
07:30This is mind boggling.
07:32It's much more than it was in the early 2000s.
07:34And the real difference really is that Sudan's wars have often been wars that really were
07:39fought in the peripheries.
07:40They might have been about national politics, but largely they were fought in the peripheries,
07:45which is to say the west of the country, southern Sudan, when it was a part of the
07:50country, the center of the Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile, et cetera.
07:54And rarely did violence come to the capital and the heart of the country.
07:59And this is why this war has been very different, because it has really affected the whole country,
08:04hit major population centers, brought in impacts on all civilians across the country.
08:11And so to think that over half of the country is in need of humanitarian need, to think
08:17of the fact that the food insecurity affects half of the country, that there are five out
08:23of 18 states that are at risk of declaring famine and already famine in a couple of areas
08:27of the country, just speaks to something that is beyond the pale in terms of past experience.
08:34Thank you very much for that, Shahrat Srinivasan, professor of international politics and a
08:38fellow of King's College, Cambridge.