Sudan’s warring generals - podcast

Fighting in Sudan is continuing despite an internationally brokered truce. At the heart of the conflict is a power struggle between two powerful generals in a country permanently in the grip of its military. Nesrine Malik reports

When Omar al-Bashir was forced from Sudan’s presidency in 2019 after 30 years of repression it felt to many like a time for celebration and a fresh start for the country. Toppled by the military, a tyrant accused of genocide and war crimes was finally out of power.

But the vacuum he left behind was quickly filled, not by one man but two. Many feared that Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto leader and army chief, and Lt Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the vice-president who controls the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and is known as Hemedti, would soon clash. That fear became reality last weekend.