Sudanese refugees fleeing the war find their homes occupied by fighters

KHARTOUM (AFP): Like many Sudanese forced to flee their homes amid raging street battles, Mohammed said that when he finally returned to his flat, he found heavily armed paramilitaries had moved in.

After cautiously approaching his Khartoum apartment block, he discovered that “the entire building had become like a military barracks filled with weapons and ammunition.”

Almost a month of heavy fighting has turned Khartoum into a war zone, with the city’s 5 million residents enduring artillery barrages, gunfights, airstrikes and anti-aircraft fire.

Many have hunkered down at home amid power outages and a lack of clean water, food and medicines — but many have also been forcefully evicted.

The northern suburb where Mohammed lived has become a major battleground in the war between army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces or RSF.

After Mohammed’s family had spent terrifying days at home, waking and sleeping to deafening explosions and gunfire outside, RSF fighters came to evict them.

“They knocked on the door and asked us to leave,” said the 54-year-old, who like others interviewed by AFP for this article asked not to be identified by his full name citing security fears.

Before leaving home, Mohammed’s family took what they could carry and locked their doors, he added. When he returned days later to collect some belongings, Mohammed was interrogated by the RSF paramilitaries whom he had found sitting inside his apartment.

Witnesses in Khartoum say RSF fighters have often taken up positions in leafy residential streets, with soldiers hiding camouflaged trucks under trees.

Men in military fatigues patrol in pickup trucks mounted with heavy machine guns.

Another man, Babiker, 44, said he fled his home in central Khartoum amid incessant gunfire, only to return two weeks later to find it occupied by the RSF.

“I found more than 20 paramilitaries living there,” he said, adding he was interrogated for half an hour before being allowed entry.

“They were using all appliances and cooking in our kitchen,” he said.

“All the bedrooms that we had locked before leaving were open.”

Sudan’s bitter fighting has so far killed at least 750 people, wounded thousands and uprooted hundreds of thousands, with many refugees fleeing the country.

The UN’s human rights commissioner, Volker Turk, said the RSF had allegedly taking “possession of many buildings in Khartoum to use as operational bases, evicting residents and launching attacks from densely populated urban areas.”

He also criticized Sudan’s military for launching “attacks in densely occupied civilian areas, including airstrikes” that have killed residents.

The paramilitaries have also turned many hospitals and medical facilities into “barracks” — a practice the UN World Health Organization has condemned as a “gross violation.”