SAF deputy commander breaks out of seven-month siege to reach Port Sudan

The deputy commander-in-chief of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), Lt Gen Yasir El Atta, has managed to reach Port Sudan after seven months under siege. Radio Dabanga has learned from reliable sources that the second in command to SAF and junta leader Lt Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan, transferred to Port Sudan after he managed to reach the SAF-controlled Wadi Sedna air and military base in northern Omdurman.

Gen El Atta has been besieged at the base of the Corps of Engineers in Omdurman since the outbreak of the war on April 15. He was able to transfer to Port Sudan after reaching the military base and airfield at Wadi Sedna, which has remained under SAF control, and played a strategic role during the international evacuation of foreign nationals from Sudan following the outbreak of the war.

SAF and junta leader Lt Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan himself initially remained at the SAF headquarters in Khartoum following the outbreak of the war, but moved to Port Sudan, where ministries, ambassies, UN agencies, and organisations are working from temporary offices in what has become a de facto ‘alternative capital’.

Khartoum battles

Renewed clashes and artillery shelling has been reported between the SAF and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), in several military sites in the capital Khartoum. A source told Radio Dabanga, from Khartoum on Sunday that the shelling targeted Karari military base and armoured corps, and the vicinity of the General Command. Some ordnance fell on homes in Bahri area and west of Omdurman.

The RSF have targeted the Wadi Sedna base with artillery shelling from an area adjacent to the Halfaya Bridge in Bahri, with ‘limited confrontations’ between the two parties elsewhere.

Callers told Radio Dabanga that the fighting in Khartoum itself has been less intense, and that civilians are slowly returning to some neighbourhoods. However there is still a scarcity of basic commodities in the war-ravaged capital.

The Darfur Bar Association (DBA) and its partners condemned the Sudanese Air Force for bombing of the El Soug El Arabi in central Khartoum and Beit El Mal in Omdurman. The DBA also condemned shelling by the RSF on the market in the El Gamayer area in Omdurman, which led to deaths and injuries on Friday. The DBA says most of the at least 14 dead and many more injured are street vendors, women, and children.