NAIROBI, Kenya — Gunshots and explosions rang out on Saturday morning in several parts of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, as residents and foreign diplomats reported clashes between rival factions of the armed forces.
Videos circulating on social media showed armed fighters advancing through residential areas against a background sound of intense gunfire, driving across the runway of the city’s international airport and operating checkpoints at major traffic junctions.
The clashes were an ominous development after weeks of mounting tensions between the Sudanese Army, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces, a powerful paramilitary group led by Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan. United Nations officials and foreign diplomats have struggled in recent days to prevent the tensions from turning violent. But as worried residents hunkered in their homes early Saturday, those efforts appeared to be collapsing.
Both sides accused the other of starting the fight. In a statement, the Rapid Support Forces said it first came under attack at a camp in Soba, in the south of Khartoum, by the regular army in “a sweeping attack with all kinds of heavy and light weapons.”
A military official, speaking to the Al Jazeera news network, accused the paramilitaries of shooting first, and said they were trying to seize control of the military headquarters in the city center.
The military, which seized power in a coup 18 months ago, had agreed to hand over authority this month to a civilian-led government. But the process has been dominated by an increasingly open rivalry between General al-Burhan and General Hamdan, who is widely known as Hemeti.
In recent months, the two generals have issued lightly veiled criticism of each other in speeches, and moved reinforcements and armored vehicles to rival military camps across the city.
Residents’ worst fears appeared to be realized on Saturday as the fighting, which started in the south of Khartoum, quickly spread across the Nile to its twin city of Omdurman, where residents said that armed men had surrounded the offices of the state broadcaster.
Flights out of the international airport, which is in central Khartoum, were canceled.
A United Nations official who reported gunfire near their home in the city center said they had received reports of fighting in the Riyadh, Khartoum 2, Manshiya and Soba neighborhoods. “It’s literally everywhere,” the official said.
