On the twenty-third day of war in Sudan there are no glimmers of peace or resolution of the conflict with one side managing to prevail over the other. In the area of Khartoum clashes with the troops of the Rapid Support Force (RSF) of Dagalo who have occupied strategic positions and who maintain them. RSF often hide in civilian structures, for example it seems that occupy 12 hospitals in the Khartoum metropolitan area, which they have closed to the public. Regular Army Soldiers Sudan Armed Force (SAF) of al-Burhan, enjoy a clear superiority in heavy weaponry and make extensive use of it with air raids also in the capital, but struggle to regain their positions since the RSF tactic of masking in civilian structures and their speed of movement given by the use of civilian pick-ups protect them from rapid identification.
Worrying news also comes from within the country: the city of Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, inhabited by over half a million people is divided in two by the fighting. The western part, controlled by the military, includes the government secretariat, ministries, army headquarters and barracks, while the eastern part, which includes Nyala airport, intelligence buildings and the headquarters of the police have been under the control of the RSF since the first days of fighting since 15 April. Amidst the warring parties beyond 60 civilians have already lost their lives here. In the nearby Geneine capital of West Darfur the dead are already over 200.
Diplomacy
While delegations of the parties are in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia for talks on a possible truce, Al Arabya reported a meeting that took place in Benghazi in recent days between Egyptian emissaries and the Libyan general Haftar, which was asked not to lend aid to the RSF. According to rumors in the Arab press, the strong man from Cyrenaica would have offered reassurances to the Egyptians of its neutrality. If this were not the case, after almost a decade, the alliance between Haftar and Egypt could vanish or at least be called into question. However, this fact highlights that Egypt, as per tradition, is supporting the regular Sudanese army, although at the moment it does not seem with great means.
Humanitarian crisis and domino effect
The fighting is causing a deep humanitarian crisis throughout Sudan. With an economy already in shambles, the war is delivering an irreparable coup de grace. In Khartoum many hospitals are closed or damaged, international aid is scarce, water and food are not within the reach of thousands of people. And so the only lifeline is given by fleeing to neighboring countries. L'Egypt has recorded at least 40 accesses from its border since the beginning of the conflict, but many others are reaching the border and just as many are the people who have fled to Chad, at least according to official data from the United Nations. Many may have crossed the border without being registered. The border Libyan-Sudanese of 382 kilometers it is poorly manned and therefore also from here the Sudanese flee. Tens of thousands of people have also flocked in South Sudan, Central African Republic, Ethiopia and even in eritrea, often also refugees in Sudan from these same countries. Sudan hosts more than that a million and if they return to the countries from which they fled, it means that the situation is truly desperate, since in addition to the fighting they are fleeing hunger caused by the cessation of aid in refugee camps. These masses of people, who move on local means of transport such as minibuses, buses and trucks, which exist and are already used to move around, without the need for who knows what organizations, could quickly find themselves on the shores of the "Mar Nostrum".
These refugees would affect realities already in crisis. Cairo is grappling internally with a serious economic crisis. Bearing the brunt of migratory pressure from Sudan risks aggravating the situation. But the eyes in this sense are focused above all on Chad. The country has been hosting for years 400 Sudanese refugees, arrived in the years of the Darfur conflict. The massive influx of migrants could now bring about the collapse of the country's economic and social situation. In Libya there are already hundreds of thousands of refugees from sub-Saharan Africa ready to embark for Europe and therefore this domino effect will also have a heavy impact on our country. The intertwining of the Libyan and Sudanese dossiers, combined with the migratory pressure capable of collapsing the Sahel, for Rome means living with a double spectrum: that of a destabilization of Libya and that of a greater migratory flow. A flow generated directly by Sudan or driven by the difficulties of the countries of the Sahel and Libya itself to deal with the emergency. Woe therefore to underestimate the conflict in Sudan and to consider it as a mere war between gangs, it is a matter of a real civil war, capable of having a very negative impact on a strategic and vital area also for our national interests.
