September 8 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The army-controlled Sudanese government has expressed its outright rejection of the possibility of deploying a peacekeeping force in accordance with the recommendations of the UN group of experts’ report. However, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which are fighting the army, have supported the sending of a “neutral force”.
“The Government of Sudan completely rejects the recommendations of the International Independent Fact-Finding Mission (…). It is like the wish of Sudan’s enemies. It will never come true,” the Sudanese government stressed in a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported by the newspaper ‘Sudan Ajbar’.
The government has also criticised the group of experts for their “lack of professionalism” and “independence” in presenting the report in public before it was discussed at the UN Human Rights Council. In fact, it considers that the commission has “exceeded” its functions.
“It is a political body and not a legal one, which reinforces the position of the Sudanese government on this matter since its creation, which has not received the support of any African or Arab country,” he argued.
The Sudanese government has also criticised the request for an arms embargo, even though the report itself recognises that the conflict has spread to 14 of the country’s 18 states and denounces in particular the crimes committed by the RSF in what is a “strange contradiction”.
He believes that since “there is a national judicial process”, “the natural function of the Human Rights Council is to support this national process in accordance with the principle of integration and not to impose an external alternative mechanism.”
However, the RSF has indicated that “the current situation makes international intervention necessary to guarantee the security of citizens,” said a spokesman for the paramilitary group, Pasha Tabiq, in a statement published on X.
The proposed deployment of an international force “is a natural response to the army’s intransigence and refusal to sit at the negotiating table and to the escalation of its attacks against civilians.” “The deployment of a neutral force could contribute to a radical change in the political scene in Sudan and could lead to the emergence of a new reality that would put an end to the existence of two governments in the country,” he argued.
Meanwhile, clashes between the army and the RSF continue across the country. On Sunday in Khartoum, the capital, loud explosions were heard in the centre and south of the city and plumes of smoke were seen in various places.
Eyewitnesses quoted by Sudan Akhbar reported that military aircraft flew overhead, and that anti-aircraft gunfire and missiles were fired by the RSF.
The conflict between the RSF and the army erupted in April 2023 amid heightened tensions over the integration of the RSF into the armed forces, a key part of an agreement to form a new civilian government and revive the open transition following the 2019 overthrow of Omar Hassan al-Bashir, damaged by the coup d’état of October 2021, in which the Prime Minister of Unity, Abdallah Hamdok, was overthrown.
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