Sudan's RSF declares rival government

TWO years into a war that has left tens of thousands dead, Sudan's RSF paramilitary force on Tuesday announced its own government to rival the army-backed administration it is battling.

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The UN says the conflict that erupted on April 15, 2023, is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with 13 million people displaced — including more than 3.5 million to other countries — and no sign of peace on the horizon.

The Rapid Support Forces, headed by Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, the former deputy to the regular army leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, announced the rival government amid growing international fears that Sudan could become split between the two sides, who have both been accused of abuses.

“On this anniversary, we proudly declare the establishment of the Government of Peace and Unity, a broad coalition that reflects the true face of Sudan,” Daglo said in a Telegram statement.

The RSF and its allies signed a charter in Kenya in February declaring a “government of peace and unity” in areas they controlled.

Daglo’s latest statement said the paramilitaries, with “civil and political forces’, had signed a transitional constitution, that was a “roadmap for a new Sudan’.

That constitution provides for a 15-member presidential council “representing all regions, symbolising our voluntary unity”.

Analysts have warned that Africa's third-biggest nation could permanently splinter.

With the RSF emboldened in Darfur, “the territorial division that’s occurring could mean a de facto separation’, said Sharath Srinivasan, a professor at Cambridge University who studies Sudan.