The World Backed Two Generals, and Put Sudan on the Path to War

A fortnight into the conflict tearing Sudan apart — and in the middle of a 72-hour ceasefire — heavily-armed militiamen in Khartoum vowed to defeat the army as they inspected vehicles entering a densely-populated central area of the capital city. Moments later, a missile detonated nearby, narrowly missing them. Just north of the checkpoint in the affluent Riyadh district, residents waited for hours in bread lines. The few shops still open had hiked prices more than most people can afford. “We can’t bear living like this,” Ahmed Abdul Aziz, a supermarket owner said late Wednesday. “I’m afraid that soon we might run out of everything.”

Sudan has known just 17 years of peace in its nearly 70 years of independence, but Khartoum hasn’t seen fighting like this for decades. Across the sprawling desert conurbation of 5 million people, residents are hunkering down in their homes in soaring temperatures and have not slept properly for days amid incessant gunfire and looting. Hostilities have flared across about half of the country’s 18 states and hundreds of people have died. The risk is a protracted civil war that spills across borders into Chad, the Central African Republic, Egypt and South Sudan.