After more than a month of deadly fighting between forces loyal to the two generals, Sudan’s de facto leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan fired his deputy-turned-rival Mohamed Hamdan Daglo on Friday.
Following a power struggle over the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces’ integration into the regular military, the conflict between the Sudanese army, led by Burhan, and Daglo’s RSF has resulted in hundreds of deaths and more than one million displaced people since April 15.
Since launching a joint coup in October 2021 that halted Sudan’s flimsy transition to civilian rule, Burhan and Daglo had shared power within a governing council, with Burhan as president and Daglo as his deputy.
Malik Agar has been given the position of vice-president of the turbulent transitional Sovereignty Council, according to a constitutional decree issued by General Burhan, the council announced on its Facebook page on Friday.
Former rebel leader Agar, who served as governor of the Blue Nile state in southern Sudan, signed a peace agreement with Khartoum in 2020 and was elected to the Sovereignty Council in February 2021.
His rebel group, the SPLM-North, was established in 2011 by fighters who stayed in Sudan following the secession of the south in the same year.
Agar’s promotion is seen by observers as a symbolic action that won’t have an impact on the rivalry between Burhan and Daglo.
There have been about 1,000 fatalities, mostly in and around Khartoum and in the long-troubled western region of Darfur.
The Sudanese doctors syndicate reported that fighting in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, claimed the lives of 18 people on Thursday, and witnesses told AFP that fighting continued on Friday.
More than half of Sudan’s population, according to the UN, needs humanitarian aid as diplomatic efforts to end the fighting are still failing.
