PREVIEW
SAF highlights RSF atrocities in bid to regain advantage
General Abdel Fattah al Burhan’s Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) are under pressure to agree to the United States’ plans for a humanitarian ceasefire after the Rapid Support Forces of Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo ‘Hemeti’ welcomed the plan.
RSF said that they looked forward to ‘immediately commencing discussions on the arrangements for a cessation of hostilities and the fundamental principles guiding the political process in Sudan’.
The US, along with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, has called for a three-month humanitarian truce, to be followed by a permanent ceasefire (AC Vol 66 No 19, Khartoum rebuffs US-Arab peace roadmap).
The SAF are anxious not to be outmanoeuvred in the propaganda battle, and to maintain its control over a post-war government. As a result, Sudan’s ambassador to Kenya Kamal Gubara held a press conference in Nairobi last week to detail the scale of the atrocities, particularly mass killings, committed by the RSF in and around El Fasher, the city in Darfur captured by Hemeti’s forces last month (AC Vol 66 No 22, Burhan’s leadership in question after Darfur retreat).
The seizure of El Fasher in Darfur, following a two-year siege, adds to RSF’s control of West and Southern Sudan, and so has increased the prospects of Sudan breaking up. While there is no international recognition for the parallel regime announced by Hemeti in March, there is already de facto partition, with the SAF strengthening its control of Khartoum.
The SAF insists that it will not negotiate with the RSF, and that the international community must classify it as a terrorist organisation. Sudanese officials have also been angered by Kenyan President William Ruto’s close relations with Hemeti.
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