(United Nations) The war in Sudan “will spill over into other countries in the region,” the head of the Sudanese army, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, warned Thursday at the UN. war for five months against the paramilitaries.
“The danger of this war is now a threat to regional and international peace and security, because the rebels have sought support from outlaws and terrorist groups from different countries in the region and the world,” he said. declared the general, de facto leader of the country since its 2021 putsch, who represented Sudan at the UN General Assembly.
“It’s like the spark of a war that will spill over into other countries in the region.”
He accused the Rapid Support Forces (FSR) of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, former number two in military power, of having “brought in mercenaries from various corners of the world, committing the most horrible crimes against the Sudanese people”.
“These rebel groups have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes in several regions of Sudan, carried out ethnic cleansing and forced displacement,” he said.
For these reasons, he called for the RSF and “their allied militias to be designated as terrorist groups.”
For experts, foreign parties are involved in the conflict: on the one hand, Cairo and Ankara support the army, on the other, the United Arab Emirates and Wagner’s Russian mercenaries support the RSF.
“We are always ready to respect our commitments to transfer power to the people of Sudan,” General Burhane also assured, referring to an “electoral process”. “The armed forces would leave politics once and for all.”
In 2021, the two generals Burhane and Daglo had together ousted the civilians with whom they had shared power since the fall of dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019. But they then divided on the question of the integration of paramilitaries into the army.
Since the start of the war on April 15, at least 7,500 people have been killed, according to the NGO Acled, and the UN has recorded more than five million displaced people and refugees.
After four months of siege in Khartoum, General Burhane is now based in the eastern city of Port Sudan, which until very recently had been spared the fighting and where government and military officials The UN also took up residence.
From this city on the Red Sea, General Burhane is increasing his trips abroad to try to assert himself on the diplomatic scene in the event of peace negotiations, according to experts.