Sudan slams Kenya for hosting RSF government declaration

By : AFP

Date: 19 February 2025 12:03pm WAT

(FILES) This image grab taken from AFPTV video footage on April 20, 2023, shows an aerial view of black smoke rising above the Khartoum International Airport amid ongoing battles between the forces of two rival generals. Famine was declared in Zamzam -- a massive decades-old displacement camp home to between 500,000 and a million people near North Darfur's besieged capital El-Fasher-- last July, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. The Sudanese government, aligned with the army, has denied reports of famine, even as millions across the country suffer on the brink of starvation amid the continuing 21-month war between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). (Photo by AFP)

Sudan’s army-aligned government has accused Kenya of violating its sovereignty by hosting rival paramilitaries planning to declare a parallel government this week.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, at war with the army for nearly two years, are preparing to declare a government in territories under their control during an event in Nairobi on Friday, RSF sources told AFP.

Sudan’s foreign ministry, loyal to army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, condemned Kenya for allowing the event to be held on its soil.

In a statement issued late Tuesday, it said the move “promotes the dismembering of African states, violates their sovereignty, and interferes in their internal affairs”.

Since April 2023, the war between the army and the RSF has killed tens of thousands of people, uprooted more than 12 million and created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.

It has also torn the country apart, with the army in control of eastern and northern Sudan, while the RSF commands nearly all of the western Darfur region and swathes of the south.

In recent weeks, the army has led a charge through central Sudan, reclaiming key cities and nearly all of the capital, Khartoum.

The RSF’s decision to now sign a charter with loyal political factions, declaring a government in the territories it controls, comes as it seeks to consolidate its hold on Darfur—effectively splitting the nation.

Both the army and the RSF have been accused of war crimes.

The paramilitaries are notorious for ethnic-based mass executions, systematic sexual violence and gross human rights violations in their territories.

In January, the United States determined they had committed genocide in Darfur, sanctioning RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, and later Burhan for war crimes.

Sudan’s foreign ministry accused Kenya of “endorsing (the RSF’s) atrocities and being complicit in them” by giving the RSF a platform.

The event, initially scheduled for Tuesday at Nairobi’s state-owned Kenyatta International Convention Centre, was postponed to Friday, AFP journalists reported.

Daglo, who has remained out of sight for most of the war, has arrived in Kenya and is expected to attend on Friday, sources involved in organising the event told AFP.