Sudan warns RSF could declare new government during London conference

Sudan’s foreign minister has warned that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) aims to announce a parallel government to coincide with the UK’s conference on Sudan this week.

Ali Yousssef al-Sharif slammed the British government for excluding the internationally recognised Khartoum government from the conference, which begins on Tuesday, and extending invitations to allies of the RSF.

The summit in London will bring together foreign ministers from around the world in an attempt to end the war and address the humanitarian crisis in Sudan.

Speaking to journalists at the Sudanese embassy in London, Sharif warned that the RSF plans to “announce a parallel government and declare Darfur and pockets of Sudan that they have as a new region” while the event in London is happening.

He added: “I don’t know if they’ll declare independence.”

In late February, RSF officials signed a political charter in Kenya with political parties and armed groups saying that a parallel “Government of Peace and Unity” would be formed within weeks.

Establishing a new government in RSF-controlled areas would challenge the government and threaten intensified conflict.

Sudan’s government, which is allied to the Sudanese army, has been at war with the RSF since April 2023.

The RSF (Rapid Support Forces) is a militia that split off from the Sudanese military, turning against the country’s government.

Khartoum accuses the paramilitary group and allied militias of perpetrating genocide, murder, theft, rape and forcible displacement.

It says that these crimes were enabled by direct support from the UAE. 

The army retains control over large swathes of territory in the east and north, while paramilitaries hold most of Darfur in the western half of the country and parts of the south.

Khartoum exclusion

Middle East Eye first reported on Khartoum’s exclusion from the London conference last month. The RSF is also excluded. 

Foreign ministers from the UAE, Chad and Kenya, three countries that are alleged to support the RSF, were handed invitations. 

“Inviting the UAE doesn’t correspond to the message that this conference is about peace,” Sharif said on Monday.

“We were briefed by the UK government that they have this conference which is humanitarian. We expected to be invited, it’s about Sudan and the Sudanese people,” he added.

“Then we were told we were not going to be invited.”

The foreign minister said the government had made it clear to the UK Foreign Office “that in their attempts to play a role, they ignore dealing with the government of Sudan. This does not reflect the national will [in Sudan].”

Khartoum’s foreign ministry said last week that the move by the UK equated Sudan’s government with the RSF, which it described as “a terrorist militia committing genocide, crimes against humanity, and unprecedented atrocities against civilians”.

It added that the summit was the latest in several developments in the UK which showed “leniency” towards the RSF, including alleged secret talks between the UK and the RSF last year. 

Al-Sharif noted on Monday that the previous Conservative government blocked a discussion at the UN Security Council on the UAE’s role in the Sudan war in April last year. 

Labour’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy, he added, has not been to Sudan and has not met the Sundanese ambassador in London.

Al-Sharif met Lammy at the Munich security conference in February.

“We started a common dialogue with [the UK]. But I haven’t seen that they’ve taken a strong position,” he said.

Al-Sharif told Lammy in a letter last week that the UAE’s participation in the conference “allows it to whitewash its image and conceal its complicity in acts of genocide in Sudan”. 

The timing of the conference comes as the RSF killed 56 civilians in a series of attacks on a town in Darfur along the road to the city of el-Fasher.

Al-Sharif described Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia – also invited to the conference – as “very friendly” countries who will “support us and will reflect our positions”.

Sudan last Thursday accused the United Arab Emirates of complicity in genocide at a hearing before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands. 

Last year an independent inquiry carried out by the Raoul Wallenberg Centre found that there is “clear and convincing evidence” that the RSF and its allied militias “have committed and are committing genocide against the Masalit”, a Black African group in the country.