Sudan junta President Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has criticised African leaders who have hosted Rapid Support Forces Commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo in the past week.
Burhan, who is also the Sudan Armed Forces chief, castigated presidents William Ruto (Kenya) Cyril Ramaphosa (South Africa) and Ethiopia Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed for receiving Dagalo as a statesman in their capitals during his visits, as well Sudanese politicians such as former Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok who met him in Ethiopia.
Speaking to troops in Port Sudan in a video released by his office on Friday, Burhan also rejected an invitation for negotiations with Dagalo, who had in Ethiopia said he was open for talks to end the war, calling him a “clown, traitor and coward” responsible for killings and destruction in Sudan.
He also rejected the Addis Ababa Declaration, a ceasefire deal Dagalo signed with the Taqadum civilian coalition led by Hamdok in the Ethiopian capital during his visit on Tuesday.
“He is humiliating the Sudanese people, he is killing them, insulting them, and some people are clapping for him and laughing with him,” Burhan said in the video.
Sudan recalled its Ambassador to Kenya Kamal Gubara on Thursday over the reception Dagalo received in Nairobi.
Sudan’s acting foreign minister Ali al-Sadiq said Ambassador Gubara had been summoned “for consultations in protest of the official reception organised by the Kenyan government for the leader of the rebel militia”.
Dagalo has in the last couple of weeks made international visits to Uganda, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, South Africa and Rwanda, meeting different leaders including President Yoweri Museveni, President Ruto, President Omar Guelleh, President Cyril Ramaphosa and President Paul Kagame to the disgruntlement of Burhan.
Last January, Burhan warned that African governments hosting the visits by Dagalo were “making themselves a partner in the murder of the Sudanese people”.
On Friday, he said he would arm Sudanese people who wanted to fight the RSF and urged them to join the military, further fristrating regiona and international attempts to solve the conflict that broke out into war in April last year.
“The whole world witnessed these rebel forces committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in West Darfur and the rest of Sudan. For that reason, we have no reconciliation with them, we have no agreement with them,” he said.
He further accused UAE, who have reportedly been sponsoring Dagalo’s trips and media engagements, of pushing Sudan under “bondage and colonialism”.
Dagalo and his entourage has been travelling on a jet owned by an Emirati airline.
