Sudan’s sovereign council, headed by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, on Saturday rejected an invitation to an East African summit aimed at mediating the country’s conflict, with Khartoum criticizing the United Nations for communicating with Rapid Support Forces commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
Nine months after the outbreak of fighting, the RSF has recently made progress on the ground at the expense of the army, while Dagalo made his first foreign tour since the fighting began, which analysts saw as an attempt to gain legitimacy and strengthen his negotiating position towards any solution.
The Intergovernmental Authority on Development in East Africa (IGAD) invited Burhan and Dagalo to a summit hosted by Uganda on January 18 to discuss the Sudanese conflict. The Commission has already made several attempts to bring the belligerents closer together.
The sovereign council, headed by Burhan, on Saturday refused to attend the summit, while Dagalo announced his acceptance of the African invitation.
“We reiterate that what is happening in Sudan is an internal matter and that our response to regional initiatives does not mean giving up our sovereign right to solve the problem of Sudan by the Sudanese,” the council said in a statement.
For his part, Dagalo said via platform X, “In line with our firm position in support of a comprehensive peaceful solution, which ends once and for all the wars in Sudan in general, and the war of the fifteenth of April in particular, I confirmed today my acceptance of the invitation to attend and participate” in the IGAD summit.
Dagalo, known as Hemedti, remained in the shadows during the nine months.
The army chief said in previous statements, addressing the countries that receive these killers to stop interfering in our affairs (..) Receiving any anti-state party that does not recognize the existing government is considered hostility to the state.”
Khartoum also recalled its ambassador to Nairobi for consultations to protest Kenyan President William Ruto’s reception of Dagalo.
The war between the two former allies has killed more than 13,000 people, according to estimates by the Armed Conflict Location and Events Data Project (ACLID), a toll believed to remain underestimated.
It has also displaced more than seven million people inside and outside the country, according to the United Nations.
In the eastern city of Port Sudan, which has been turned into a temporary seat of government, Sudan’s Foreign Ministry informed UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy Ramtane Lamamra that it had rejected UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ contact with Dagalo.
“We informed the envoy that the contact has caused great anger and rejection in the Sudanese street, and we reject this contact with the leader of a movement that has committed terrible violations condemned by some United Nations institutions and the majority of the international community,” Foreign Minister-designate Ali al-Sadiq said.
“Such contact gives the rebellion a legitimacy that it lacks and achieves its goals of obtaining media propaganda,” he said.
Later Saturday, Sudan’s Foreign Ministry called Dagalo’s invitation a “flagrant violation… It only destroys the credibility” of the organization.
“IGAD did not stop at silence the graves on the atrocities of the terrorist militia … Rather, it sought to give the militia legitimacy by inviting it to a meeting in which only the heads of state and government of member states would participate.”
“Sudan’s options remain open to” the regional organization.
Both sides are accused of war crimes including indiscriminate shelling of residential areas, torture and forcible detention of civilians.
AFP/Al-YURAE
