Army officials said Sudan's former dictator was transferred to a military hospital just before fighting broke out. He remains in police custody alongside other former officials.

Sudan's jailed former strongman Omar al-Bashir is being held in a high-security military hospital, the country's army said on Wednesday after speculation on his whereabouts.

Questions arose over al-Bashir's whereabouts after a former minister in his government, Ali Haroun, announced on Tuesday that he had left the prison with other former officials amid fighting between the army and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary (RSF).

The Interior Ministry had also accused the RSF of breaking into multiple prisons to free detainees, allegedly including Bashir.

But the military has announced that Bashir and around 30 others at Kober Prison in Khartoum had already been moved to the nearby Aliaa Military Hospital on April 15, just before the fighting broke out. He remains in police custody, officials said.

Bashir and the other inmates were relocated on the advice of the prison's medical staff, the army said in a statement.

War raging between Bashir's proteges

Bashir was ousted by mass protests in 2019 after almost 30 years of authoritarian rule in Sudan.

The former president was subsequently convicted of corruption and money laundering and was sentenced to two years in prison. He remains on trial for the coup that brought him to power in 1989.

During his rule, Bashir was accused of genocide and crimes against humanity in Darfur, for which he is wanted by the International Criminal Court.

Analysts say the power structures that underpinned Bashir's authoritarian rule are largely intact.

The leaders of the two warring factions -- army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, more commonly known as Hemeti -- served under him in the past.

zc/wd (AP, Reuters)