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Government accused east African bloc of ‘violating’ Sudan’s sovereignty by inviting RSF chief to a summit.
The government of war-ravaged Sudan says it has suspended its membership in the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the east African regional bloc that has tried to broker talks between the country’s warring parties.
Saturday’s announcement was made by the foreign ministry, which is loyal to Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the army chief and Sudan’s de facto leader.
The Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group have been fighting for nine months in a war that has killed thousands of people and displaced more than seven million.
The government had announced this week that it was freezing its relations with IGAD ahead of a meeting of the bloc in Uganda on Thursday, after it invited RSF head Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo. It accused the bloc of “violating Sudan’s sovereignty” and setting a “dangerous precedent”.
IGAD, in parallel with the United States and Saudi Arabia, had repeatedly attempted to mediate between the two sides, to no avail.
Months of war
The war erupted in mid-April over an internationally backed plan to merge the RSF into the army and launch a transition towards elections.
The army and the RSF had shared power after longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir was toppled during a popular uprising in 2019. Before they came to blows, they jointly staged a coup in 2021 that upended efforts to steer Sudan towards democracy.
Throughout the conflict, both sides have been accused of war crimes, including the indiscriminate shelling of residential areas, torture and arbitrary detention of civilians.
The RSF has also been accused of ethnically motivated mass killings – especially in Darfur – as well as rampant looting and the use of rape as a weapon of war.
More than 13,000 people have been killed in the conflict, according to a conservative estimate by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.
An estimated 7.5 million civilians have fled the fighting, either abroad or to other parts of the country, according to United Nations figures.
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