Coup Coming in Khartoum?

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

Khartoum has been relatively untouched by the civil wars and genocide around it.

The capital of the Sudan has now been breached by fighting for the first time. Now Darfur rebel leaders are claiming that they are going to try and take Khartoum and topple the government.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – A Darfur rebel commander said on Saturday his JEM group had entered Khartoum and was aiming to take power in Sudan.

Khartoum was placed under an overnight curfew after fighting in the west of the capital on Saturday. It would be the first time a rebel group has entered Khartoum …

The Darfur Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebels said they had taken control of Omdurman which lies on the opposite bank of the River Nile from Khartoum.

“We are now trying to control Khartoum. God willing we will take power, it’s just a matter of time,” senior JEM commander Abdel Aziz el-Nur Ashr told Reuters by telephone.

“We have support from inside Khartoum even from within the armed forces.”

Is the claim of support from within the Sudanese army true? Or bluster? Can the rebels really topple the government and seize power?

In any event there is heavy fighting and the Sudanese army is responding. Of course this means only more misery for the people of Darfur as Khartoum responds, as reported in The Telegraph.

Government forces closed bridges leading to Omdurman, Khartoum’s twin city.

As violence between the two sides has escalated in recent weeks, the rebels have pushed east from Darfur through North Kordofan province towards Khartoum.



Sudanese forces have responded by stepping up airstrikes in Darfur.

Today the streets of Khartoum were filled by people rushing to their houses.

I don’t know terribly much about the conflict, although I have been reading more and more, and am now finishing Gerard Prunier‘s Darfur: Ambiguous Genocide.  I hope others more knowledgeable here can provide more analysis of these recent developments. All I know for sure is that for the people of Darfur, and Sudan, the violence and suffering will only increase.

Whenever overwhelmed or confronted with violence horrifying, the metta sutta soothes self and world, imho.

As a mother would risk her life

to protect her child, her only child,

even so should one cultivate a limitless heart

with regard to all beings.

With good will for the entire cosmos,

cultivate a limitless heart:

Above, below, & all around,

unobstructed, without enmity or hate.

Whether standing, walking,

sitting, or lying down,

as long as one is alert,

one should be resolved on this mindfulness.

This is called a sublime abiding

here & now.