April 14, 2025

17 minutes

Available for over a year

The Sudanese capital, Khartoum, April 15th 2023.

Families who’d gathered to celebrate Eid together woke up to gunfire and explosions as a power struggle erupted between two factions of the military led government. There were clashes at the presidential palace, at the airport and at the TV station.

Both sides hoped for a quick win, but it quickly became a war of attrition, and in the two years since, the Sudanese people have suffered sexual violence, hunger, displacement and the loss of everything they hold dear. The UNHCR says nearly 13 million people have been displaced by the conflict.

In the first of a series of two podcasts to mark the anniversary, Mpho Lakaje talks to Sudan’s former deputy intelligence chief, analyst Dr Majak D’Agoot, and asks if we are now in a stalemate, and what the aims of the two sides are.