On Saturday, Khartoum called on the United Nations Security Council to assume responsibility for “the countries that are fueling the ongoing war in Sudan (which it did not name) by supplying the Rapid Support Forces with weapons, political, and media support,” as the governor of the Darfur region, Minni Minnawi, affirmed the unity of Sudan, denouncing those who “resorted to foreign hands” to attain power.
According to a statement by the Sudanese Foreign Ministry, it has followed the content of a report by the United Nations monitors on Darfur regarding the war waged by the Rapid Support Forces and their supporters against the Sudanese people.
The statement added that the report “highlighted a number of facts, including that the victims of ethnic cleansing and genocide committed by the rebel militia (Rapid Support Forces) and its allies in West Darfur state alone reached between 10,000 and 15,000 civilians, including women, children, and the elderly.”
It stated that “the continuation of advanced weapons supplies provided and facilitated by certain countries to the rebels in violation of relevant Security Council resolutions is what enables the rebel militia to expand their military operations (…), prolonging and expanding the war geographically.”
The statement demands the Security Council to classify the Rapid Support Forces as a “terrorist group and criminalize dealing with it,” and to “take responsibility towards the countries that fuel the ongoing war in Sudan by supplying the militia with weapons and political and media support” as well as to “consider them perpetrators of the crime of aggression punishable by justice.”
Additionally, the Foreign Ministry called for “pursuing and liquidating the financing networks and commercial companies” of the Rapid Support Forces and “holding accountable the public relations and propaganda companies that the militia employs in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and other countries.”
Earlier on Saturday, global media agencies including Reuters reported that a United Nations report presented to the UN Security Council indicated that “between 10,000 and 15,000 people were killed in one city in the Sudanese West Darfur state last year in ethnic violence carried out by the Rapid Support Forces and the allied Arab militias (not specified).”
Sudan’s Unity
In related context, the governor of Darfur, Minni Minnawi, affirmed there is no bargaining over the unity and sovereignty of Sudan and confronting foreign intervention. He pointed out that the forces of the Sudan Liberation Army present in the North operate in full coordination with the armed forces and are part of them.
During his meeting with the government and security committee of the Northern state, presided over by the state governor Abdeen Awad Allah, he referred to “foreign hands in igniting the April 15th war last year, with political and economic objectives, the result of which was the destruction of the Sudanese state’s infrastructure, and the eradication of Sudan’s heritage, culture, and identity.”
The Sudan News Agency (SUNA) quoted him during the meeting saying, “Those who ignited the war did so to reach power, employing in that all inhumane means.”
