Cairo: The 5.2 million-person city of Khartoum was bombarded by airstrikes and artillery fire on Saturday, sparking fires and wreaking havoc as simmering tensions between Sudan's ruling factions reached a breaking point. Tanks and trucks with mounted machine guns started rolling through the streets.
From Merowe in the north to El-Obeid in the south, fighting quickly spread throughout the entire country.
The situation in the neighbouring country of Sudan is more than just a security crisis for Egypt. A Twitter post that appeared on Saturday afternoon showed several Egyptian soldiers being held captive close to Merowe.
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Merowe airport served as a base for joint military drills between the two armies, and there had been numerous reports about the Egyptian military's presence there.
The detained soldiers were engaged in joint training exercises with the Sudanese military, not in hostilities, according to Ibrahim Al-Shwaimi, a former assistant minister of foreign affairs in Egypt.
It is not surprising that Egypt is worried about the stability of Sudan given the long history of tense relations between Cairo and Khartoum. The use of the water from the Nile and territorial disputes over the eastern portion of the Egypt-Sudan border remain contentious despite Egypt's millions of dollars invested in development projects in Sudan.
Egypt aims to maintain the stability of Sudan, the unity of Sudanese lands, the survival of state institutions in Sudan, and the power of its armed forces. Protecting Egyptian national security, safeguarding our roughly 1,200 km of shared borders with our brothers in Sudan, and preventing terrorist infiltration into our lands are what make Sudan stable and strong.
"In all circumstances, the great Egyptian armed forces are capable of maintaining security in the southern direction, as they previously protected it in the western direction, and we wish the Sudanese people goodness and stability."
Numerous Sudanese have died and more than 600 have been injured in the past two days of unrest. Children trapped in schools, civilians caught in the crossfire, and hospitals completely overrun by the rising death toll.
There have been numerous civilian fatalities, including three World Food Programme employees. On Sunday, the nation's main telecommunications company, TV networks, and airports all shut down operations.
The culmination of weeks of military mobilisation and months of political tension is this most recent outbreak of violence. The clashes are a result of things that happened after Omar Bashir, the former president of Sudan, was ousted in a revolution in 2019 and replaced by an interim government.
Two years later, a military junta was established by Gens. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan of the Sudanese Armed Forces and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Let's fast-forward to the present. During the coup of 2021, the election of a civilian-led government in Sudan was scheduled for April 2023. However, a disagreement over the timeline and organisational structure for the RSF's complete integration into the Sudanese military caused a rift to widen between former allies Al-Burhan and Dagalo.
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RSF forces started to mobilise all over the nation a few days prior to the current violence. Both sides are now blaming one another for lighting the powder keg in Sudan. Accurate reporting is challenging due to the information blackout: Both the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces assert that they are in charge of sizable portions of cities and other areas of Sudan.
Salva Kiir, the president of South Sudan, called Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on Sunday. The recent events in Sudan and the political and security responsibilities of Egypt and South Sudan in Sudan were topics of discussion between the two.
The two leaders emphasised the gravity of the circumstance and the ongoing hostilities, urging an immediate halt to hostilities and reiterating their "full support for the brotherly Sudanese people in their aspirations towards achieving security, stability and peace."
They also stated that Egypt and South Sudan would be willing to mediate between the parties in Sudan while expressing concern that more violence could worsen the country's security situation.
Separately, on Sunday, the foreign ministers of Egypt and Sudan, Sameh Shoukry and Ali Al-Sadiq, spoke on the phone to go over the latest developments in Sudan and efforts to put an end to the crises.
To his Sudanese counterpart, Shoukry expressed Egypt's "deep concern over the continuation of the current armed confrontations, as they pose a threat to the security and safety of the brotherly Sudanese people and the stability of their country."
The call also covered the state of the Egyptian community there as well as the necessity of maintaining the safety and security of all Egyptians living there.
They also emphasised that the achievement of construction and development depends on the consolidation of security and stability as a guarantee of the successful conclusion of the political transitional path.
The RSF, on the other hand, released a statement assuring that Egyptian nationals living in Sudan were secure, ostensibly in reference to the soldiers it was holding. It also said that as soon as security conditions improved, the force would be prepared to turn over Egyptian citizens to their government.
According to Khaled Mahmoud, an Egyptian author and journalist who specialises in Sudanese affairs, although the conflict may be small in scale right now, it has the potential to develop into a protracted crisis.
The conflict might drag on for a while and not be resolved in a matter of hours or days, much like the Libyan or Syrian situations. It might spread geographically and enter other Sudanese regions. Cairo wants to prepare for all of this and handle the crisis from the start because the situation could develop into a proxy regional war in which Egypt may become involved.
Badr stated that the most recent crisis had put Sudan in a precarious position and he expressed hope that a ceasefire would put an end to the fighting and stop it from escalating.
Ammar Ali Hassan, an Egyptian political analyst, commented on the crisis in a separate Facebook post. He declared: "Egypt has nothing to do with the conflict between Hamidati (Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo) and Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and any Egyptian presence there took place in agreement with the official authorities, i.e., Al-Burhan and Hamidati jointly.
It is not surprising that Egypt continues to work for a stable Sudan because it has an interest in doing so.
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By Sunday evening, witnesses and locals claimed that the Sudanese army had attacked RSF barracks and bases with airstrikes, including in Omdurman, which is located across the Nile from Khartoum, and had successfully destroyed the majority of their facilities.
They claimed that the army had also taken back control of much of Khartoum's presidential palace from the RSF after both sides had fought for control of it and other important facilities throughout the day.