Sudan He asked this Sunday at an extraordinary meeting of the Arab League that there be no “international interference” after the intense confrontations between the Army and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (FAR).
“We recommend that the matter be left to the Sudanese to complete the arrangement among themselves, away from international interference,” said Sudan’s permanent representative to the Arab League, Al Sadiq Omar Abdallah, during the extraordinary meeting of the pan-Arab body convened in urgency for Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
The ambassador, according to a report by efepointed out that “what is happening in Sudan is an internal matter”, and for this reason he asked the rest of the Arab countries to call for de-escalation to “help calm the situation in the country”, ravaged by fighting that has left some 56 dead and more than 600 injured so far.
Abdalá insisted that the conflict was initiated yesterday by the FAR by launching an attack “against the residence of the president of the Sovereign Council”, the military leader Abdelfatah al Burhan, at the army general command, where a meeting was to be held. to ease the tension before the parties took up arms.
It also indicated that the Sovereign Council “dissolved the FAR and declared it a rebel force that should be treated as such.”
The fighting between the Army and the paramilitaries continued this Sunday for the second consecutive day in Khartoum and has spread to various areas in the north and west of the country.
sharpened tensions
Tensions between the uniformed groups reached maximum levels on Thursday, when the Army denounced that FAR units had been deployed in Khartoum without its consent or coordination and, the following day, accused the paramilitaries of attacking several of its installations.
The trigger for these clashes are disagreements over the integration of the FAR into the regular forces, one of the key points of an agreement postponed on several occasions to put an end to the 2021 coup, in which both groups joined to overthrow to the civilian government that emerged from the so-called Sudanese revolution of 2019.
Three UN employees among the victims
The United Nations mission in Sudan said today that three employees of the World Food Program (WFP) were killed on Saturday during clashes that broke out in North Darfur.
follow the #fights between the army and a paramilitary group in Sudan
The UN warns that an “escalation in the conflict will have a devastating impact on the civilian population and will further aggravate the already precarious humanitarian situation in the African country.”#DWNews /cmw pic.twitter.com/0Y8hQQDJNa
— DW Spanish (@dw_espanol) April 16, 2023
The representative of the mission in Sudan, Volker Perthes, “strongly condemned the attacks against United Nations personnel”, conveyed his condolences to the families of the victims and expressed his “extreme concern” over the “reports of projectiles hitting the UN” during the fighting.
Pope’s message
From the Vatican, Pope Francis assured this Sunday that he prays that “arms be laid down” in Sudan and that “dialogue” can be reached.
“I follow the events in Sudan with concern and I am close to the Sudanese people, who have already suffered so much,” the pontiff told thousands of faithful in Saint Peter’s Square, after the Sunday prayer of the Regina Coeli, which comes on Easter Sunday and that of Pentecost replaces the traditional Angelus.
With information from Efe and Ap.
