MaliSudanese military brings important city back under control
SDA
12.1.2025 - 14:56
ARCHIVE - De facto ruler Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan. Photo: Marwan Ali/AP/dpa/Archive image
Keystone
The Sudanese military says it has regained control of the important town of Wad Madani. The opposing militia RSF had advanced there at the end of 2023. Its leader Mohamed Hamdan Daglo acknowledged the loss of the city in an audio message on his Telegram channel. At the same time, he emphasized with regard to the bloody power struggle in Sudan that has been going on since April 2023: "Today we lost a round, but we are not losing the war."
Keystone-SDA
12.01.2025, 14:56
SDA
Wad Madani is the capital of the state of Al-Jazeera, which was considered the breadbasket of Sudan in peacetime. The conquest of the area by the RSF triggered a massive exodus.
According to UN figures, more than twelve million people have fled within Sudan or to neighboring countries because of the fighting. Parts of the country are also threatened by hunger: according to the latest UN reports, almost 25 million people - around half the population - do not have enough to eat.
Ruler Al-Burhan wants to cooperate with Mali
Meanwhile, Sudan's de facto ruler Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan announced during a visit to Mali that he wanted to cooperate with the Sahel state - both economically and in the area of security policy. "We are two brother countries living in a troubled region," he said in Bamako. "We have a duty to be at each other's side."
Al-Burhan and his former deputy Daglo had seized power as generals in Sudan and later fell out. Human rights organizations are making serious accusations against both parties to the conflict. The RSF and its allied militias in particular are accused of ethnic expulsions in the western region of Darfur and massive sexual violence.