The government of war-ravaged Sudan says it has suspended its membership in the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the east African regional bloc that has tried to broker talks between the country’s warring parties.
The January 20 announcement was made by the foreign ministry, which is loyal to Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the army chief and Sudan’s de facto leader. The Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group have been fighting for nine months in a war that has killed thousands of people and displaced more than seven million.
The government had announced this week that it was freezing its relations with the bloc in advance of a meeting in Uganda on Thursday, after it invited RSF head Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo. It accused the bloc of “violating Sudan’s sovereignty” and setting a “dangerous precedent.”
IGAD, in parallel with the United States and Saudi Arabia, had repeatedly attempted to mediate between the two sides, to no avail.
Read more here.
