Showing posts with label Addis Ababa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Addis Ababa. Show all posts

Sunday, January 07, 2024

SAF chief says "We will fight until the enemy is gone"

In a speech delivered to forces in Jebit in eastern Sudan, Burhan stressed that there is no room for reconciliation or agreement with the RSF, indicating that the army is continuing its battle to recover all of Sudan. "We have no reconciliation with them. We have no agreement with them," he said. "Our battle continues until every site in Sudan is restored." Read more.


From Asharq Al-Awsat English
The English edition of Asharq Al-Awsat, the leading Arab international newspaper @aawsat_news
Dated Saturday, 06 January 2024; 1445 AH - here is a copy in full:

Sudan's Army Chief: We Will Fight Until the Militia is Gone

Army Commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan (Sudanese Sovereignty Council)


(PORT SUDAN) - Sudanese army commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan unequivocally dismissed an agreement signed between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and associated political groups, vowing to continue the war that has been going on for nine months.


In a speech delivered to forces in Jebit in eastern Sudan, Burhan stressed that there is no room for reconciliation or agreement with the RSF, indicating that the army is continuing its battle to recover all of Sudan.


"We have no reconciliation with them. We have no agreement with them," he said. "Our battle continues until every site in Sudan is restored."


Burhan stated that the RSF committed "war crimes," vowing that the army would deal with them "in the field."


"We will fight until the enemy is gone."


The army chief called for arming citizens to defend themselves, advocating for them to acquire weapons or enlist in the armed forces.


He regretted that some politicians are praising RSF Commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as "Hemedti," despite all the murders he has committed, criticizing neighboring countries that welcomed him.


Dagalo is on a tour across Africa with stops in South Africa, Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Djibouti.


The Sudanese Foreign Ministry summoned its ambassadors in Kampala and Nairobi to protest the formal receptions offered to the RSF commander.


According to a statement by the Foreign Minister-designate, Ali al-Sadiq, the Ministry summoned its ambassadors for "consultations" in response to the official welcome extended to the "militia" leader.


Hemedti's tour will extend to other African and Arab countries, and some unconfirmed reports suggest he will visit Egypt, among other Arab and regional states.


View original: 

https://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/4772191-sudans-army-chief-we-will-fight-until-militia-gone


ENDS

Sudan's genocidaire bids for legitimacy in Africa tour

NOTE, this article doesn't mention or explain what Sudanese people want.


From AFP (Agence France-Presse)

By Bahira Amin

Dated Saturday, 6 January 2024; 10:54 am GMT - here is a copy in full:


Sudan paramilitary chief bids for legitimacy in Africa tour: analysts

Sudan's paramilitary chief Mohamed Hamdan Daglo (L), with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa (R) in Pretoria, has been greeted as if he were a head of state, analysts say (-)


Sudan's paramilitary chief spent the first months of the country's war in the shadows. Now he has emerged to embrace civilian politicians and tour African capitals in a bid for international legitimacy, analysts say.


Mohamed Hamdan Daglo -- commonly known as Hemeti -- commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) which the United States accused of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity in Sudan's Darfur region during its war with the army.


The RSF has been fighting the Sudanese Armed Forces, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, since April last year in the northeast African country where the US has also accused the army of war crimes.


Daglo had remained largely out of sight while Burhan emerged from a siege of military headquarters to make overseas trips and address the UN General Assembly as Sudan's de facto leader.


But since late December Daglo has been on his first wartime trip abroad, meeting government leaders in Uganda, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa and Rwanda.


It is part of a strategy analysts see as likely linked to the United Arab Emirates.


Daglo is "in the ascendancy," said veteran Sudan expert Alex de Waal.


So is the war's death toll, estimated conservatively at more than 12,190.


Clement Deshayes, a Sudan specialist at Sorbonne University in Paris, said Daglo had been "welcomed with the attributes of a head of state" on his visits.


The most important, said Deshayes, came in Addis Ababa where Daglo met with and embraced Sudan's former prime minister Abdalla Hamdok, who was placed under house arrest after an October 2021 coup orchestrated by Burhan and Daglo, then allies.


Their putsch derailed Sudan's fragile transition to democracy.


After a brief reinstatement, Hamdok resigned in January 2022 and fled for Abu Dhabi. He remains Sudan's foremost civilian politician and has reemerged as part of a new coalition known as Taqadum.


- 'Kiss the ring' -


In embracing Taqadum, Daglo was making "the single most important move that he could to gain legitimacy," said Andreas Krieg, a security studies expert at King's College London.


Although Burhan's administration continues to put out statements as the Sudanese government, the RSF controls the streets of the capital Khartoum, nearly all of the western Darfur region, and in December pressed deeper into Al-Jazira state, shattering one of the country's few remaining sanctuaries.


The United Nations says the violence is "imperiling regional stability", having unleashed the world's largest displacement crisis that has uprooted more than seven million people, including around 1.4 million who have crossed into neighbouring countries.


Daglo, a former camel and sheep trader, rose to prominence under Sudan's former strongman Omar al-Bashir who unleashed Janjaweed militias after an ethnic minority rebellion began in Darfur in 2003. The militia campaign led to war crimes charges against Bashir and others.


When security personnel attacked pro-democracy demonstrators in Khartoum in June 2019 after Bashir's overthrow, it was the RSF, descendants of the Janjaweed, that witnesses said were at the forefront of the bloodshed, killing at least 128 people.


However, Daglo's embrace of a civilian partner offers the chance to gain international legitimacy, particular from the West, analysts told AFP.


That, said Deshayes, was "despite the ethnic cleansing in Darfur (and) the systematic rape and looting in central Sudan and Darfur".


Kholood Khair, a Sudanese analyst, said rumours of a linkup between Hamdok and Daglo had been "rife even before the war" and were "kicked into overdrive" by the Addis meeting.


In videos of the Addis event, Hamdok and his fellow politicians line up to shake hands with Daglo, who wears a sharp suit instead of military fatigues.


"The optics of the meeting were that Hemeti is in charge," Khair told AFP, with Hemeti "holding court and them coming to him, taking turns to say hello and kiss the ring."


On social media, pro-democracy activists accused Hamdok of betraying civilians for political gain.


- The army isolated -


Hamdok has said he hopes for "an urgent meeting" with Burhan.


However, Cameron Hudson, an Africa expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the general was now "highly unlikely" to agree.


Burhan reacted with fury to Daglo's tour, accusing the host nations of "partnering in the murder of the Sudanese people".


That "is precisely the intent," Hudson told AFP.


"It will make the army look opposed to peace and paint Hemeti as the more reasonable and responsible party," he said.


Multiple analysts, including Krieg and Hudson, told AFP the strategy was probably not Daglo's alone and likely originated with the United Arab Emirates.


The UAE, analysts say, already supplies the RSF with munitions via neighbouring African countries -- a charge the UAE has denied.


Krieg said the UAE was "engineering a narrative whereby Hemeti comes out as a potential political leader", with "Taqadum as a legitimate civilian umbrella for the RSF as the security sector".


The army has grown "more and more isolated," said Deshayes, with its military defeats pushing even close ally Egypt away and Daglo now able to "start (peace) negotiations from a place of strength".


But at the same time, Burhan's alienation "will only confuse and complicate the situation and create more time and space for fighting to continue," said Hudson.

bur/bha/dcp/it


View original: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/sudan-paramilitary-chief-bids-legitimacy-105449551.html


ENDS

Sunday, July 09, 2023

IGAD seeks summit to deploy EASF troops in Sudan

IGAD said in a statement today it had agreed to request a summit of another regional body, the 10-member Eastern Africa Standby Force, "to consider the possible deployment of the EASF for the protection of civilians and guarantee humanitarian access". Sudan is a member of both bodies, as are Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda. 


Unlike the talks in Jeddah, the IGAD meeting in Addis Ababa today was attended by members of a civilian coalition that shared power with the military in Sudan before a coup in 2021. IGAD said that along with the African Union, it would immediately start a "civilian engagement process" aimed at delivering peace. Read more.


Report by Reuters reprinted at yahoo.com

Reporting by Dawit Endeshaw and Hereward Holland

Writing by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Peter Graff

Published Monday 10 July 2023, 4:18 PM GMT+1 - here is a full copy:


Eastern African bloc seeks summit to deploy regional force in Sudan


ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - An eastern African bloc called on Monday for a regional summit to consider deploying troops into Sudan to protect civilians, after nearly three months of violence between the army and a paramilitary faction.


Fighting that erupted on April 15 in Khartoum, Sudan's capital, has spread to other parts of the country and driven more than 2.9 million people from their homes.


The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), made up of eight states in and around the Horn of Africa, met in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa to kick-start a peace process for the conflict in Sudan.


But the initiative faced a setback as a delegation from Sudan's army failed to attend the first day of meetings, having rejected Kenya's president as head of the committee facilitating the talks.


IGAD said in a statement it had agreed to request a summit of another regional body, the 10-member Eastern Africa Standby Force, "to consider the possible deployment of the EASF for the protection of civilians and guarantee humanitarian access".


Sudan is a member of both bodies, as are Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda.


Diplomatic efforts to halt fighting between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have so far proved ineffective, with competing initiatives creating confusion over how the warring parties might be brought to negotiate.


IGAD said it regretted the absence of a delegation from the Sudan army, which it said had earlier confirmed attendance.


Sudan's foreign affairs ministry, which is controlled by the army, said the delegation did not turn up because IGAD had ignored its request to replace Kenya's President William Ruto as head of the committee spearheading the talks.


Ruto "lacks impartiality in the ongoing crisis," the ministry said through the state news agency. Last month it accused Kenya of harbouring the RSF.


Neither Ruto's office nor the Kenyan ministry of foreign affairs responded immediately when Reuters sought comment. The Kenyan government said last month the president was a neutral arbiter who was duly appointed by the IGAD summit.


Following the meeting, Ruto called for an unconditional ceasefire and the establishment of a humanitarian zone — spanning a radius of 30 kilometres in Khartoum — to aid the delivery of humanitarian assistance.


Talks hosted in Jeddah and sponsored by the United States and Saudi Arabia were suspended last month. Egypt has said it would host a separate summit of Sudan's neighbours on July 13 to discuss ways to end the conflict.


Unlike the talks in Jeddah, the meeting in Addis Ababa was attended by members of a civilian coalition that shared power with the military in Sudan before a coup in 2021.


IGAD said that along with the African Union, it would immediately start a "civilian engagement process" aimed at delivering peace.


FILE PHOTO: Man walks while smoke rises above buildings after aerial bombardment in Khartoum North


(Reporting by Dawit Endeshaw and Hereward Holland; Writing by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Peter Graff)


View original: https://news.yahoo.com/eastern-african-bloc-seeks-summit-151822183.html 

______________


Related reports


Sudan Watch - 27 May 2023

Eastern Africa Standby Force (EASF) starts 2-week training rapid reaction forces at UN centre in Uganda

https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2023/05/eastern-africa-standby-force-easf.html


[Ends]

Saturday, May 27, 2023

NEW COLD WAR? Africa must not become ‘geostrategic battleground’ warns AU leaders

Report at TheAfricaReport.com

By AFP (Agence France-Presse)

Dated Friday 26 May 2023; 09:24 - full copy:


NEW COLD WAR?

Africa must not become ‘geostrategic battleground’ warns AU

Moussa Faki Mahamat (1st L), Chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC) looks at a photo exhibition during the 60th anniversary of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), now African Union (AU), at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa on May 25, 2023. (Photo by Amanuel Sileshi / AFP)


Africa must not become a “geostrategic battleground” for global powers, as it grapples with several threats to its own peace and security, African Union leaders warn.


The continent of 1.3 billion people has found itself at the centre of a tussle for influence among the major powers, which has redoubled since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine 15 months ago.


And just as the AU marked the anniversary of the creation of its forerunner, the Organisation of African Unity, on this day in 1963, Ukraine itself announced it wanted to boost ties with Africa.


“In this international context of confrontation of divergent political interests, the will of each side threatens to transform Africa into a geostrategic battleground, thereby creating a new Cold War,” AU Commission chair Moussa Faki Mahamat said.


“In this zero-sum game, where the gains of others would translate into losses for Africa, we must resist all forms of instrumentalisation of our member states,” he added in an address at AU headquarters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.


Moscow is seeking deeper political, economic and military ties in Africa as well as Asia as Russia becomes increasingly isolated on the international stage over the conflict in Ukraine.


‘Capacity for resilience’


Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who is currently on a tour of Africa, on Wednesday urged certain African nations to end their “neutrality” over the war.


In February, 22 AU member states abstained or did not vote on a UN General Assembly resolution that called for Russia withdraw from Ukraine.


Two of them – Eritrea and Mali – voted against the resolution.


And in a statement to mark the pan-African body’s anniversary, Kuleba also announced a Ukrainian diplomatic push on the continent.


“We want to develop a new quality of partnership based on three mutual principles: mutual respect, mutual interests, and mutual benefits,” he said, announcing plans to establish new embassies in Africa and hold a Ukraine-Africa summit.


In this zero-sum game, where the gains of others would translate into losses for Africa, we must resist all forms of instrumentalisation of our member states.


Moscow itself has scheduled a Russia-Africa summit in July, following a trip to several African countries at the start of the year by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.


China and the US have also despatched their foreign ministers to the continent in rival diplomatic offensives this year.


Beijing has funded major infrastructure development in Africa but denies Western charges it is practising “debt-trap diplomacy”, while Russia is a key arms exporter and is making forays through mining projects, analysts say.


‘Conflicts and terrorism persist’


Faki meanwhile also hailed the successes of the 54-nation AU which succeeded the OAU in 2002: “Independence and victory against apartheid, that of significant economic and scientific progress, sports, arts, the growing international role of Africa and so on.”


However, he also acknowledged “negative factors such as democratic decline through unconstitutional changes of government, with their litany of oppression and gagging of freedoms, insecurity, the spread of terrorism, violent extremism, the uncontrolled circulation of arms, the harmful effects of climate change”.


Despite the difficulties, Faki said, Africa remains “characterised by its greater capacity for resilience”, pointing for example to its response to the Covid-19 pandemic.


The current head of the African Union, Comoros President Azali Assoumani also denounced “the unconstitutional changes of power” which have multiplied in Africa in recent years.


“Inter and intra-African conflicts but also terrorism persists and consequently the peace, security, democracy and development of our continent are threatened in several of our countries,” he said.


Assoumani spoke of the conflict between rival generals in Sudan which erupted in mid-April and has persisted despite several truce agreements.


“We must convince our brothers in Sudan to favour dialogue so that the fratricidal war raging in this country ends,” he added.


View original: https://www.theafricareport.com/310874/africa-must-not-become-geostrategic-battleground-warns-au/


[Ends]

Thursday, May 25, 2023

Sudan crisis: Actress Asia Abdelmajid one of Sudan's first theatre stars killed in Khartoum cross-fire

Report at BBC News
By Zeinab Mohammed Salih 
Dated 4 May 2023 - full copy:

Sudan crisis: Actress Asia Abdelmajid killed in Khartoum cross-fire

IMAGE SOURCE, ALFAITORY FAMILY

Image caption, Asia Abdelmajid was one of Sudan's first theatre stars


The death of a well-known actress, killed in cross-fire in the north of Khartoum, has shocked residents of Sudan's capital. But she is just one of many civilians still in the city who are paying with their lives as the fighting continues to rage despite the latest ceasefire.


Zeinab Mohammed Salih is a journalist living in Omdurman, next to the Sudanese capital - she describes daily life for people caught up in the conflict.

__________________________


Asia Abdelmajid, who was born in 1943, was famous for her theatre performances - first coming to prominence in a production of the play Pamseeka 58 years ago.


It was put on at the national theatre in Omdurman to mark the anniversary of Sudan's first revolution against a coup leader. She was considered a pioneer of the stage - and the country's first professional stage actress, later retiring to become a teacher.


Her family say she was buried within hours of her shooting on Wednesday morning in the grounds of a kindergarten where she had been most recently working. It was too dangerous to take her to a cemetery.


It is not clear who fired the shot that killed her in the clashes in the northern suburb of Bahri. But paramilitary fighters of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who are ensconced in their bases in residential areas across the city, continue to battle the army, which tends to attack from the air.


The RSF says the military tried to deploy members of the police's special force unit on Wednesday - but the group alleges it rebuffed their ground offensive.


The UN's top aid official has warned that the "will to end the fight still was not there" after speaking to Sudan's rival military leaders.


With a military jet flying overhead as I write and WhatsApp messages arriving with more bad news of my friends caught up in the fighting, it feels like neither side is serious about ending their deadly confrontation.


"I was sitting with my brother in the sitting room when we heard the loud noise of the shell and the dust coming from the kitchen - we thought the whole wall had just collapsed," my friend Mohamed el-Fatih, a fellow journalist, told me.


His apartment in Burri, east of the army's headquarters in central Khartoum, was bombed on Monday night.


"My neighbours upstairs and downstairs were terrified and screaming, we had to evacuate immediately to another area."


His suburb is completely occupied by the RSF and rockets are often fired from the military headquarters where it is believed Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the army chief, and his aides are staying.


My friend Hiba el-Rayeh has also just been in contact in great distress after her mother Sohair Abdallah el-Basher, a respected lawyer, and two uncles were killed last Thursday by a shell that came from a bridge over the River Nile directed towards the Presidential Palace. They were living close by.


Her uncles had actually come to help them escape during one of last week's so-called humanitarian ceasefires.


In another suburb called Khartoum 2, to the west of the military headquarters, estate agent Omer Belal has decided to stay and guard his home.


The 46-year-old has sent his family to a safer district while he and a few other men in the neighbourhood seek to protect their properties from the looting and armed robbery that is occurring across the city.


People's houses, banks, factories, supermarkets and clothing shops are all being ransacked.


Another friend, who asked not to be named, spent five days in a restaurant in Khartoum 2 when the battles first broke out on 15 April.


He managed to escape during the first shaky ceasefire. First he went to the north of the city then decided to go overland to Ethiopia, a trip that took five days.


Now in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, he messaged to say he had seen piles of bodies as he left Khartoum 2.


Basil Omer, a medic and volunteer, described fleeing his flat when it was shelled in al-Manshiya, east of the army headquarters.


"We spent three days only sleeping on the ground. In the end it was impossible to stay there, I sent my children and their mother to el-Gezira state with my in-laws and I went to stay with my parents in Khartoum North," he said.


I live in Omdurman, regarded as one of the safest places in town - though bullets are constantly flying through people's windows.


A couple of days ago my neighbour was hit by a bullet in her leg while she slept following an airstrike, which have been happening about two times every hour. Although there were fewer strikes on Wednesday.


The Sudanese factions have agreed to a new seven-day truce starting on Thursday, but given that they are currently meant to be observing a humanitarian ceasefire and previous ones have broken down - none of us are holding our breath.


Each day we grow more despondent. Most residents of Khartoum feel abandoned and at a loss that the international community seems unable to exert their influence to bring the generals to heel, given they managed to get them to agree to share power with civilians in 2019 after long-time leader Omar al-Bashir was ousted.


IMAGE SOURCE, REUTERS

Image caption, Central Khartoum has been devastated by almost three weeks of fighting


View original: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-65467934


Condolences. God bless. Rest in Peace. + + +