After Three Years: The First Wave—Not the First Bullet

Dr Hassan Mohammed Salih
As the third anniversary passes since the outbreak of war in Sudan on the morning of Saturday, 15 April 2023—during the final days of Ramadan 1445 AH—commentators have largely focused on identifying the “first shot” or “first bullet” of the conflict. Yet, in my view, far less attention has been given to what truly marked the beginning of the war: the first wave.
That first wave was not a single gunshot, but the moment when forces of the Rapid Support Forces entered residential neighbourhoods and homes. It was this incursion—when heavily armed vehicles advanced into civilian areas, and fighters fired anti-aircraft weapons indiscriminately while targeting surveillance drones—that constituted the real beginning of the war for ordinary people. What followed were widespread searches for the homes of army and police officers, as well as political opponents and affluent individuals, accompanied by killings, arrests, and intimidation.
Soon after, looting of markets began, banks were burned or opened to plunder, and state authority effectively collapsed. Fear spread rapidly—fear for lives, property, and livelihoods—forcing people to leave their homes, whether as internally displaced persons or refugees to neighbouring countries such as Egypt, Chad, Ethiopia, and South Sudan.
This, in essence, was the reality of war: the first wave of armed entry into civilian life following initial clashes at military sites, including attacks on the General Command of the Sudanese Armed Forces and the airbase in Merowe.
The focus on the “first bullet”, the author argues, often serves those seeking to divert attention from what is described as an attempted seizure of power by the RSF. According to this account, after the failure of a rapid takeover plan, the conflict shifted to a second phase aimed at besieging the army and neutralising its command, including targeting Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of the armed forces.
The article further argues that the concept of the “first shot” has lost much of its relevance due to conflicting accounts regarding both timing and location. Questions arise as to whether the war effectively began days earlier in scattered incidents across Darfur, Kordofan, and Khartoum; or on 13 April with attacks on military airbases; or on 14 April with the capture of senior officers; or at dawn on 15 April when coordinated clashes erupted in multiple locations, including Omdurman, the Presidential Palace, and broadcasting facilities.
Similarly, the location of the first shot remains disputed: was it at Khartoum Airport, the Sports City area, or at military camps in Soba? Given the scale and simultaneity of events, establishing a single point of origin is highly contested.
The author concludes that the emphasis on a single initiating moment oversimplifies a complex and coordinated escalation. Instead, he asserts that the war began through simultaneous actions across multiple sites, aimed at seizing control through concentrated force. In this framing, the “first wave”—the entry into civilian spaces and the breakdown of order—is more meaningful than the debate over who fired first.
Conclusion
The article ultimately presents the war as a fully formed external and internal conspiracy aimed at controlling Sudan, arguing that the Sudanese army and broader society have resisted it. The focus on the “first bullet”, in this view, is a distraction from broader dynamics of planning, escalation, and the humanitarian consequences that followed.
Rather than a single triggering moment, the war is portrayed as a layered event—military, political, and social—whose defining feature was not the first shot fired, but the first wave that engulfed civilian life.

Shortlink: https://sudanhorizon.com/?p=13036