Latest news with #AbdelFattahalBurhan
Asharq Al-Awsat
2 days ago
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Sudanese Coalition Led by Paramilitary RSF Announces Parallel Government
A Sudanese coalition led by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) announced on Saturday a parallel government, a move fiercely opposed by the army that could drive the country further towards partition as a two-year-old civil war rages. The government led by RSF General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, was announced west of the country. The RSF and its allies signed in March a transitional constitution outlining a federal, secular state divided into eight regions, Reuters said. The RSF controls much of the west of the country such as the vast Darfur region and some other areas but is being pushed back from central Sudan by the army, which has recently regained control over the capital Khartoum. The military led by career army officer General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan had condemned the idea of the RSF creating a parallel government and promised to keep fighting until it controls all of Sudan, which has been plagued by conflicts, coups, poverty and hunger. In February, the RSF and other allied rebel leaders agreed in Kenya to form a government for a "New Sudan," aiming to challenge the army-led administration's legitimacy and secure advanced arms imports. Dagalo, a former militia leader and one of Sudan's wealthiest people, known as Hemedti, was hit with sanctions by the US, which accused him of genocide earlier this year. He had previously shared power with Burhan after veteran autocrat Omar al-Bashir's ouster in 2019. However, a 2021 coup by the two forces ousted civilian politicians, sparking a war over troop integration during a planned transition to democracy. Burhan was sanctioned in January by the US which accused him of choosing war over negotiations to bring an end to the conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people. The ongoing conflict has devastated Sudan, creating an "unprecedented" humanitarian crisis in the country, with half the population facing spreading hunger and famine, according to the United Nations.
Al Arabiya
2 days ago
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
Sudanese coalition led by paramilitary RSF announces parallel government
A Sudanese coalition led by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces announced on Saturday the members of a parallel government, a move opposed by the army, its rival in a 27-month war that could drive the country further towards partition. RSF leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo was announced head of the presidential council, while Abdel Aziz al-Hilu, head of the SPLM-N, one of the country's largest rebel groups, was made his deputy on a 15-member council. Mohamed Hassan al-Taishi, a civilian politician, was named prime minister, and regional governors were announced in a press conference from Nyala, the largest city in the Darfur region which the RSF controls most of. The Sudanese army has pushed the paramilitaries out of the center of the country, while deadly fighting rages over the center-west Kordofan region and Darfur's traditional capital of al-Fashir. In February, the RSF and its allied politicians and rebel groups agreed to form a government for a secular 'New Sudan,' aiming to challenge the army-led administration's legitimacy and secure advanced arms imports. The government announced on Saturday includes governors for regions of the country firmly controlled by the army. The military led by career army officer General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan had condemned the idea of the RSF creating a parallel government and promised to keep fighting until it controls all of Sudan, which has for years been plagued by conflicts, coups, poverty and hunger. Dagalo, a former militia leader and one of Sudan's wealthiest people, known as Hemedti, was hit with sanctions by the US, which accused him of genocide earlier this year. Burhan was sanctioned in January by the US, which accused him of choosing war over negotiations to bring an end to the conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people. The two men had previously shared power after veteran autocrat Omar al-Bashir's ouster in 2019. However, a 2021 coup by the two forces ousted civilian politicians, sparking a war over troop integration during a planned transition to democracy. The army has in recent weeks appointed a prime minister and permanent cabinet members for the first time since 2021. The ongoing conflict has devastated Sudan, creating an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in the country, with half the population facing spreading hunger and famine, according to the United Nations.
Reuters
2 days ago
- Politics
- Reuters
Sudanese coalition led by paramilitary RSF announces parallel government
July 26 (Reuters) - A Sudanese coalition led by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) announced on Saturday a parallel government, a move fiercely opposed by the army that could drive the country further towards partition as a two-year-old civil war rages. The government led by RSF General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, was announced west of the country. The RSF and its allies signed in March a transitional constitution outlining a federal, secular state divided into eight regions. The RSF controls much of the west of the country such as the vast Darfur region and some other areas but is being pushed back from central Sudan by the army, which has recently regained control over the capital Khartoum. The military led by career army officer General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan had condemned the idea of the RSF creating a parallel government and promised to keep fighting until it controls all of Sudan, which has been plagued by conflicts, coups, poverty and hunger. In February, the RSF and other allied rebel leaders agreed in Kenya to form a government for a "New Sudan," aiming to challenge the army-led administration's legitimacy and secure advanced arms imports. Dagalo, a former militia leader and one of Sudan's wealthiest people, known as Hemedti, was hit with sanctions by the U.S, which accused him of genocide earlier this year. He had previously shared power with Burhan after veteran autocrat Omar al-Bashir's ouster in 2019. However, a 2021 coup by the two forces ousted civilian politicians, sparking a war over troop integration during a planned transition to democracy. Burhan was sanctioned in January by the U.S. which accused him of choosing war over negotiations to bring an end to the conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people. The ongoing conflict has devastated Sudan, creating an "unprecedented" humanitarian crisis in the country, with half the population facing spreading hunger and famine, according to the United Nations.
Asharq Al-Awsat
4 days ago
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
UN: More than 1.3 Million Return to Homes in Sudan
More than 1.3 million people who fled the fighting in Sudan have headed home, the United Nations said Friday, pleading for greater international aid to help returnees rebuild shattered lives. Over a million internally displaced people (IDPs) have returned to their homes in recent months, UN agencies said. A further 320,000 refugees have crossed back into Sudan this year, mainly from neighboring Egypt and South Sudan. While fighting has subsided in the "pockets of relative safety" that people are beginning to return to, the situation remains highly precarious, the UN said. Since April 2023, Sudan has been torn apart by a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, commander of the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The fighting has killed tens of thousands. The RSF lost control of the capital, Khartoum, in March and the regular army now controls Sudan's center, north and east. In a joint statement, the UN's IOM migration agency, UNHCR refugee agency and UNDP development agency called for an urgent increase in financial support to pay for the recovery as people begin to return, with humanitarian operations "massively underfunded". Sudan has 10 million IDPs, including 7.7 million forced from their homes by the current conflict, they said. More than four million have sought refuge in neighboring countries. - 'Living nightmare' - Sudan is "the largest humanitarian catastrophe facing our world and also the least remembered", the IOM's regional director Othman Belbeisi, speaking from Port Sudan, told a media briefing in Geneva. He said 71 percent of returns had been to Al-Jazira state, with eight percent to Khartoum. Other returnees were mostly heading for Sennar state. Both Al-Jazira and Sennar are located southeast of the capital. "We expect 2.1 million to return to Khartoum by the end of this year but this will depend on many factors, especially the security situation and the ability to restore services," Belbeisi said. With the RSF holding nearly all of the western Darfur region, Kordofan in the south has become the war's main battleground in recent weeks. He said the "vicious, horrifying civil war continues to take lives with impunity", imploring the warring factions to put down their guns. "The war has unleashed hell for millions and millions of ordinary people," he said. "Sudan is a living nightmare. The violence needs to stop." - 'Massive' UXO contamination - After visiting Khartoum and the Egyptian border, Mamadou Dian Balde, the UNHCR's regional refugee coordinator for the Sudan crisis, said people were coming back to destroyed public infrastructure, making rebuilding their lives extremely challenging. Those returning from Egypt were typically coming back "empty handed", he said, speaking from Nairobi. Luca Renda, UNDP's resident representative in Sudan, warned of further cholera outbreaks in Khartoum if broken services were not restored. "What we need is for the international community to support us," he said. Renda said around 1,700 wells needed rehabilitating, while at least six Khartoum hospitals and at least 35 schools needed urgent repairs. He also sounded the alarm on the "massive" amount of unexploded ordnance littering the city and the need for decontamination. He said anti-personnel mines had also been found in at least five locations in Khartoum. "It will take years to fully decontaminate the city," he said, speaking from Port Sudan.
BBC News
6 days ago
- Politics
- BBC News
Sudan conflict: Kordofan becomes the latest front line in the civil war
Sudan's oil-rich Kordofan region has turned into a major front line in the war between the army and rival paramilitary forces, as both sides try to gain the upper-hand in a conflict that has devastated the vast African state for more than two that killed hundreds of civilians earlier this month have shifted attention to the battle for this part of the country."Whoever controls Kordofan effectively controls the country's oil supply, as well as a huge chunk of Sudan," Amir Amin, an analyst with risk consultancy Oasis Policy Advisory, told the region is also vital for landlocked South Sudan, as its oil flows through pipelines in Kordofan, before being exported. So, it has a vested interest in Kordofan's the battle for the region - which is made up three states, with a population of close to eight million - has intensified since June, when the army focused on regaining the territory from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) after it made significant gains in the preceding three months, recapturing the capital, Khartoum, and neighbouring Gezira state, the agricultural hub of Sudan. Sudan's military leader Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan flew into Khartoum's main airport on 20 June, his second visit to the city since his troops drove out RSF fighters in Burhan remains stationed Port Sudan, suggesting that he is still not confident to return permanently to Khartoum, now a burnt-out wreck. The conflict has claimed the lives of about 150,000 people and forced about 12 million others from their homes - roughly the equivalent of the population of Tunisia or RSF had seized Khartoum soon after the war started in April 2023, following a massive fall-out between Gen Burhan and his then-ally, the paramilitary group's commander, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as "Hemedti".The RSF helped Burhan stage a coup in 2021 and crush dissent until they turned on each other after Gen Dagalo resisted his plan to integrate the paramilitary force into the army. International Crisis Group think-tank analyst Alan Boswell told the BBC that the army now wanted to defeat the RSF in Kordofan so that it could push westwards into Darfur - the paramilitary group's the other hand, the RSF wanted to seize Kordofan as it would give it "new momentum" and put it "within striking distance of central Sudan, including the capital, again", Mr Boswell Suliman Baldo, the director of Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker think-tank, told the BBC that he doubted the army could break through RSF defence lines in said the majority of RSF fighters were from the large Misseriya ethnic group living in West Kordofan state, which borders Darfur, "and therefore they will be fighting to protect their own communities".Airstrikes earlier this month by the army in West Kordofan - including its capital, el-Fula, and the town of Abu Zabad - have also antagonised locals, he said, adding that it was a "counterproductive policy of collective punishment of the so-called social incubators" of the army still controls oil fields in the region, but the RSF had threatened to expand the war to oil-producing Heglig in South Kordofan, near the border with South Sudan, if the air bombardment did not stop. "If the army's aviation returns again and bombs citizens in West Kordofan state, we will strike and shut down Heglig's oil and kill the engineers," Youssef Awadallah Aliyan, the head of the RSF's civilian administration in the state, was quoted as saying by the Sudan Tribune news site after visiting the market hit by airstrikes in United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) said the strikes on el-Fula and Abu Zabad, including on a school sheltering families, reportedly killed more than 20 condemned the attacks, saying that civilians and civilian buildings - including schools, homes, and shelters - should "never be targeted", and warring groups should uphold international humanitarian RSF has also been accused of targeting UN children's agency (Unicef) said more than 450 civilians - including 24 boys, 11 girls and two pregnant women - were reportedly killed in recent attacks in North Kordofan's Bara area and the villages of Shag Alnom and Hilat Hamid."These attacks are an outrage," the agency said, adding that "they represent a terrifying escalation of violence" and a "complete disregard for human life". The US-based Yale Humanitarian Research Lab, which has been monitoring the conflict, said that an analysis of satellite images of Shag Alnom was "indicative of intentional arson attacks".The Emergency Lawyers rights group said that many of the more than 200 victims "were burned to death in their homes or shot".Fears are growing that the civilian death toll could worsen following reports that the RSF is mobilising for an offensive to capture el-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan town of Umm Sumaima has changed hands several times in recent weeks. "It is the last defence post for the Sudan Armed Forces before el-Obeid," Dr Baldo Amin said that taking control of Umm Sumaima would allow the RSF to besiege the military, which has a base in el-Obeid, while the army wanted to break through to create a new supply route to rearm its soldiers in other parts of the stakes high, the battle for Kordofan - which covers some 390,000 sq km - is expected to be long and protracted."Whether or not it will decide the victor of the war is up for debate, but it definitely will be a seismic shift," Mr Amin said. You may also be interested in: 'I lost a baby and then rescued a child dodging air strikes in Sudan's civil war'Last surgeons standing in el-FasherA photographer's 11-day trek to flee war-torn Sudan Go to for more news from the African us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica
