The transition in Sudan enters a tailspin with the outbreak of clashes between the Army and paramilitaries in Khartoum

The Sudanese Army and the paramilitaries of the Rapid Action Forces (RSF) began armed clashes this Saturday in the center and south of the country's capital, Khartoum, and in the city of Meroe, 200 kilometers to the north, in the collapse of the paralyzed negotiations for the achievement of a political transition agreement towards a civilian government in the country, plunged into a spiral of chaos since the overthrow in 2019 of Omar al Bashir.

At around 10:30 in the morning, the RSF denounced, in a statement collected by Sudan Ajbar, that the Army launched a surprise attack against their positions in the capital with a "large attack force" that first besieged the forces present there "and then attack them with all kinds of heavy and light weapons".

"May God protect Sudan", have riveted the forces led by the number two in the country, the paramilitary leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, alias 'Hemedti'.

The Al Jazeera correspondent has also verified shots fired very close to the residence of the country's military leader, Abdelfatá al Burhan, amid scenes of panic among the population and for the moment without information on the exact situation of the general.

Likewise, the pan-Arab channel reports similar clashes in Meroe, where the RSF had been stationed around a military base since Thursday and ignored the Army's warnings to evacuate the place.

The clashes have broken out just hours after Al Burhan and 'Hemedti' expressed their intention to start urgent negotiations to resolve their differences over the process of integrating both forces into a unified army, tensions that have paralyzed a key political transition agreement. in the country.

The clashes mark the culmination of weeks of discord just as the country seemed to be about to successfully close the so-called Transition Framework Agreement that would mean the handing over of power to a civilian government.

However, successive postponements due to the differences between Al Burhan and 'Hemedti' ended up postponing the political declaration on April 1, the pact of a new transitional Constitution on April 6 and the formation of the government on April 11.

This government had a fundamental objective: to get the country out of the crisis in which it was plunged by the October 2021 coup, in which Al Burhan overthrew the then unity prime minister, Abdalá Hamdok.

Hamdok was appointed to the position after a process of dialogue between the military, parties and civil organizations initiated as a result of the overthrow in April 2019 of the Al Bashir regime with the aim of applying a series of reforms aimed at paving the way for the celebration of elections in the African country.