Sudan’s Burhan vows revenge for civilian bloodshed by paramilitary RSF

ISTANBUL

Chairman of Sudan’s Transitional Sovereignty Council Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has vowed revenge for civilian bloodshed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

“We will avenge those who were killed and brutalized in El-Fasher, Geneina, Al-Jazira, and other cities and areas that were violated by the RSF militia,” Burhan said during his meeting with army commanders late Wednesday.

“The campaign led by the forces of tyranny and arrogance against Sudan will be defeated, and the Sudanese people will prevail,” Burhan said in his comments cited by a statement released by the council.

Burhan, who is also the army chief, reaffirmed that the military is determined “to crush the rebel militia and secure the borders of the Sudanese state.”

“With strength, determination, and persistence, we will soon achieve victory over the rebel militia and eliminate it completely,” he added.

The RSF captured El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state and a strategic city in the region, on Oct. 26 and carried out massacres of civilians, according to local and international organizations, triggering warnings that the takeover could cement a geographic partition of the war-torn country.

According to a UN report in January 2024, between 10,000 and 15,000 people were killed in Geneina, including the state governor, in ethnic-based violence carried out by the RSF and allied militias.

Out of Sudan’s 18 states, the RSF currently controls all five states of the Darfur region in the west, except some northern areas in North Darfur that remain under army control. The Sudanese army rules over most of the remaining 13 states in the south, north, east, and central regions, including the capital, Khartoum.

Since April 15, 2023, the Sudanese army and the RSF have been locked in a war that regional and international mediations have failed to end. The conflict has killed thousands of people and displaced millions of others.