## Conflict in Sudan Escalates: Military Moves, Civilian Casualties, and International Involvement

Sudan's ongoing conflict intensified this week, as both sides made strategic moves and international actors were pulled further into the fray. On one side, the Sudanese military, seeking to bolster their position and claim victories for the Sudanese people, announced a significant defection. However, retaliatory actions from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, resulted in catastrophic civilian losses.

Local activists reported that paramilitary forces launched attacks on villages across El Gezira. Elmubir Mahmoud, the secretary general of the volunteer group Al Jazeera Conference, detailed the horrific scenes in Tambul village, where at least 300 civilians were killed. Mahmoud revealed that gunmen looted homes, took hostages, and sexually assaulted women. Fifty more civilians were killed in another village on Friday, with about 200 more wounded. Multiple families fled their homes with nothing but their clothes, while others posted handwritten lists of the deceased. These figures and reports, although widely circulated, could not be independently verified by The New York Times.

Despite the RSF denying culpability for the civilian deaths, claiming those killed were combatants, video and photographic evidence on social media showed a grim reality of villagers attending to rows of bodies. Omran Abdullah, a senior adviser to General Hamdan, stated in an interview that once individuals carry arms, they forfeit their civilian status.

The conflict's violence extended to Khartoum, where the Sudanese army has recently recaptured critical bridges along the Nile. Shelling in the capital claimed at least 24 lives this past week, according to the Emergency Response Rooms, a youth-led volunteer group. Meanwhile, the western region of Darfur faced brutal attacks on displacement camps, hospitals, and markets. The Yale School of Public Health's Humanitarian Research Lab reported that the damage pointed to aerial bombardment, artillery, and arson.

A notable incident occurred on Monday when a Sudanese military plane crashed about 90 miles north of El Fasher, killing two Russian crew members and several Sudanese fighters. The paramilitaries claimed responsibility for shooting down the plane, and video footage of the wreckage, featuring jubilant fighters, was circulated online.

Documentation from the crash site identified the plane as one previously operated by New Way Cargo, a UAE-based airline. This plane had allegedly supplied support to the RSF up until January, through a base in eastern Chad. The Russian Embassy in Sudan announced it was examining whether its citizens were among the casualties. The documents pointed to the involvement of Russians Anton Selivanetz and Viktor Granov, with Granov linked to arms trafficking in Africa and known associations with notorious arms dealer Viktor A. Bout.

The plane crash underscored the significant role of foreign contractors in the conflict, prompting calls for a United Nations mission to protect civilians. As Ms. Khair stated, this conflict has become "a multiregional war of different actors" that cannot be resolved through local means alone.