KHARTOUM-Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has accused UN special envoy Volker Perthes of stoking a brutal conflict with paramilitaries, the latest in a series of apparent moves to bolster his war effort.
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said he was “shocked” by Burhan’s letter, which requested “the nomination of a replacement” to Perthes and accused him of committing “fraud and disinformation” in facilitating a political process which broke down into six weeks of devastating urban warfare.
Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, were meant to meet for negotiations facilitated by the UN on April 15, the day they turned Khartoum into a war zone.
The meeting aimed to restore a transition to civilian rule disrupted since 2021 when Burhan and Daglo together seized power in a coup before falling out. As their feud worsened, the international community tried to get them to reach a deal on integration of Daglo’s RSF into the regular army.