Al Burhan appears in Omdurman after 5 days of heavy fighting at Armored Corps
Al Burhan appears in Omdurman after 5 days of heavy fighting at Armored Corps
President makes first appearance outside Khartoum since war began
Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, president of the sovereignty council, visited Sudan army troops in northern Omdurman on Thursday morning, making his first public appearance outside of the General Command area since the war began.
The visit came after five days of heavy fighting in southwest Khartoum, during which the Rapid Support Forces captured part of the Armored Corps base, one of only two areas where the army still have forces present in Khartoum.
Videos of the president circulating on different social media platforms show him walking through crowds of jubilant troops, sitting with “tea ladies” drinking coffee, and making brief remarks to his soldiers.
Al Burhan’s appearance in Omdurman means there is no longer an immediate risk to his life in the event of fighting at the Armed Forces headquarters, which is surrounded. It is unclear how he left that location. One possibility is that he slipped out in an armed convoy, or by helicopter, and another possibility is that the RSF allowed him to leave as a result of ongoing secret negotiations.
In a video this morning, a member of the Rapid Support Forces claimed that a helicopter picked up Al Burhan from General Command at 02:00 but they didn’t target the helicopter because they thought it was evacuating someone sick.
Members of our team geolocated videos of Al Burhan’s visit to the Karari military area, specifically the camp known as Jebel Surkab or Khalid Ibn Walid. That camp belonged to the RSF before the war but was captured by the army during the first two days of the war on April 15-16. Here is proof of the geolocation of one of the videos:
Additional videos
Video of an RSF commander talking about Al Burhan’s exit from General Command:
Attack on Al Shajara
Fierce fighting has continued over the past few days in and around the Armored Corps base in southwest Khartoum, with the army still controlling western portions of the base and some residential areas to the south and west.
After fighting in the neighborhoods near the base August 19, RSF overran outer defenses on the eastern and southern sides on August 20, then pushed inside the base on August 21-22, capturing several complexes of small buildings, including a military jail, and at least several large warehouses in the center and southeast of the base.
The RSF captured dozens of tanks, armored personnel carriers, and mobile artillery, though it is unclear how many of these are operational.
Fierce street fighting continues in Al Shajara and Jabra neighborhoods with independent sources reporting some civilian casualties due to shelling and gunfire. The area features numerous mid-rise residential buildings where pockets of SAF resistance persist in spite of the desperate situation at the base itself.
