The governor of West Darfur, Khamis Abdullah Abkar, was killed in the city of El Geneina (western Sudan) at midnight on Thursday, while the confrontations between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces expanded, two months after the start of the battles between the two parties.
And Sudanese military sources reported to Al-Jazeera that Abkar was killed after he was arrested by the Rapid Support Forces in the city of El Geneina and taken to an unknown destination.
The head of the Sudanese Sovereignty Council, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, condemned “the killing and liquidation of the governor of West Darfur at the hands of the rebel Rapid Support militia.”
On the other hand, sources from the Rapid Support Forces said that they condemn Abkar’s killing, adding that it came within the framework of the tribal conflict. They also accused the army of being responsible for arming one of the parties to the conflict, she said.
Activists circulated pictures of earlier arrest, and later other pictures of him being killed were published.
The news of the killing of the governor of West Darfur comes days after the armed clashes intensified in the city of El Geneina (the center of West Darfur state), after the city “turned into something like a ghost town due to the continuous fighting,” according to eyewitnesses and the Sudanese Doctors Syndicate.
Abkar heads the “Sudanese Alliance”; One of the armed movements that signed the Juba Peace Agreement with Khartoum in October 2020.
The battles completed their second month
As the battles in Sudan entered its third month, the confrontations expanded throughout the country, and a medical source reported that a number of dead and wounded were killed as a result of shelling targeting the Al-Nahda neighborhood in the Al-Inqath suburb (south of Khartoum).
The army bombed, for the first time, the positions of the Rapid Support Forces in the city of Al-Obeid (the capital of North Kordofan state in central Sudan), and it also announced the downing of two marches during the “Rapid Support” attempt to bomb the armored corps in Khartoum.
A military official – who asked not to be named – told the French Press Agency that the Rapid Support Forces’ use of marches raises doubts about their source. On the other hand, a source from the “Rapid Support” confirmed to the Agency that the marches were obtained from the army centers that it took control of.
In Omdurman, activists broadcast pictures showing destruction in the Courts Complex area on Al-Wadi Street, following an air strike launched by Sudanese army planes on a site of the Rapid Support Forces. The pictures showed damage to a bakery in the area, and a gas station adjacent to the bombing site.
Since last April 15, Khartoum and other cities have witnessed clashes between the army led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces led by Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo (Hamidti), which left hundreds dead and thousands injured among civilians, in addition to a wave of displacement and asylum from one of the poorest countries in the world.
