Al Hilal Coach Florent Ibenge Speaks About the Sudan Fighting : Since April 15, Sudan has been the scene of deadly clashes between the regular army and a group of paramilitaries.
Like the Sudanese, foreigners are held up at home. Florent Ibenge, the coach of Al-Hilal, and his French assistant Hamid Brimil are among those that cannot freely move around.
Former Asante Kotoko defender Ibrahim Imoro and former Real Tamale United playmaker David Abagna are the notable Ghanaian footballers plying their trade in Sudan on the roster of Al – Hilal.
During the night of Friday April 14th and Saturday April 15, Florent Ibenge went back to bed, with a light spirit.
Al-Hilal Omdurman, the team he has coached since July 2022 , had just largely beaten Al-Shorta (5-0) and further strengthened his lead in the Sudanese Premier League over Al-Merreikh, his great rival of the suburbs of Khartoum.
In Sudan, since the beginning of Ramadan, the matches were played late in the evening and no one complained.
The capital of the country is a real oven, since the thermometer climbs up to 43° during the day and does not drop below 30° C, even around 10 or 11 p.m.
Last Saturday, therefore, when the former coach of the DR Congo went to sleep , he imagined sleeping well before waking up to meet his players for a night training sessio in order to prepare for the next match, against Wad Nubawi, scheduled for Sunday evening.
But around 4 a.m., Ibenge and his partner were awakened by the kind of noise that is not likely to be confused with a marital dispute in the apartment of the neighbour.
“We clearly heard gunshots. I can tell you that it was surprising.”
The 61-year-old former DRC coach, whose home is a ten-minute drive from the presidential palace and half as far from Khartoum International Airport, has learned to soak up the intricacies of politics local, and quickly understands what is happening, helped by the first information circulating on the media and social networks.
“I understood that it was not just a few shots and that it could last several days”, continues the Congolese technician, also holder of a French passport.
Sudan, in particular Khartoum and its agglomeration, has just swung once again into violence, symbolized by the fighting between, on the one hand, the regular army – still infiltrated by Islamists close to the former regime of the sinister Omar El Bechir – led by Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, the head of the military junta in power since 2021, and on the other the Rapid Support Forces (FSR), a paramilitary group led by Mohamed Hamdan Daglo known as “Hemetti”, number 2 of the junta.
The FSR are notably made up of former members of the Janjawide militias, largely involved in the ethnic cleansing operations in Darfur in 2003, and whose boss is notoriously wet in dark traffic, in particular of gold, but also of sending mercenaries in Yemen.
In short, nothing but fine linen, the crème de la crème, except that these two generals, who openly hate each other, have decided to settle accounts in the streets of Khartoum and the surrounding area, via their troops, which are often uncontrollable.
Since the start of the fighting, the official toll has reported more than 300 deaths and thousands of wounded, mainly civilians.
“It is undoubtedly much more” , said by the Frenchman Hamid Brimil, who accompanied Florent Ibenge to Al-Hilal as his deputy head coach.
“Many civilians are hit by stray bullets, by heavy weapon fire, including children. Officially, the gun carriers of the two butchers who are fighting to take control of the country do not intentionally target civilian populations.”
” I’d be surprised. Just look at the number of bodies in certain neighborhoods of Khartoum and its outskirts. I have seen several myself.
The toll is undoubtedly much higher because they only announce the number of dead and injured recorded in hospitals, “says Ali, a Sudanese working for a European embassy. There are reports of civilians being violently attacked in their homes by regular army soldiers or paramilitaries.
Ghana duo David Abagna and Ibrahim Imoro are the two Ghanaian internationals at Al – Hilal and we do hope they are safe in Khartoum.
Some neighborhoods are more or less spared from fighting, water and electricity cuts.
“The members of the FSR prohibit that the repairs be carried out”, continues the official. “With Aziz El Kahlaoui, the physical trainer, we share an apartment in Khartoum.
Well, even though the fighting is not taking place in our neighborhood, there are bullet holes on the facades of the building, because the fighters use long-range weapons.
Since Saturday, we only had time to go and get something to eat in a convenience store. Once or twice, we went down to the bottom of the building to get some fresh air, but the guard showed us the casings and the impacts, to make us understand that it was better to go back, continues Hamid Brimil.
The players and the rest of the staff are at the club hotel, which is located in one of the stands of the stadium. They risk nothing, because Al-Hilal is an institution here, no one will dare to touch the players. We have been contacted by the club, which will take care of having food and drink delivered to us.
No evacuation planned at the moment
The madmen who happily shoot each other by land or air, in defiance of the lives of civilian populations, also attacked the representative of the European Union, the Irishman Adrian O’Hara, at his home, while an American convoy been machine-gunned.
“We had the French Embassy. They know where we are, advised us not to go out, to move away from the windows” , adds Florent Ibenge.
“It is a distressing situation, because for the moment, there is no question of evacuating French nationals (who are around 200 in Sudan, editor’s note), since the airport is closed. “
After very brief lulls and ceasefires on which the two parties happily sat, fighting quickly resumed in several districts of the capital and its agglomeration, the Sudanese air force having even targeted hospitals. Thursday evening, when we contacted him again, Ali cut the conversation short.
“I can’t talk to you, there’s aerial bombardment, I’m hiding under my bed. I think this conflict is not going to stop right away, ”he had time to say before hanging up. The profile of the two psychopaths on the move, thirsty for power does indeed bode well…
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