After weeks of anticipation, Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) leaders signed a charter in Nairobi establishing a parallel administration.
The charter agreed on Saturday, allows the RSF to manage rebel-held territories while advocating for a secular state and a unified national army.
Signatories Al-Hadi Idris and Ibrahim Al-Mirghani acknowledged the charter’s signature and informed Reuters of the event.
Abdelaziz al-Hilu, a powerful rebel leader who controls wide expanses of territory and forces in South Kordofan state, attended the signing ceremony and has long called for Sudan to adopt secularism.
According to the charter’s language, the signatories agreed that Sudan should be a “secular, democratic, non-centralised state” with a unified military.However, it recognized armed groups’ right to exist.
Furthermore, the charter emphasized that the government’s purpose was to unify the country and bring the conflict to an end, not to split it.It accused the army-aligned government based in Port Sudan of failing to do so.
The choice to hold the RSF in Nairobi drew criticism from diplomatic policy professionals and the Sudanese administration. Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs slammed President William Ruto’s administration for allegedly sheltering the RSF, a rebel organization fighting the Sudanese army.
This outcry followed an RSF event in Nairobi on Tuesday, February 18, which intended to forge an alliance with political figures and armed organizations to increase the RSF’s influence in Sudan.
Meanwhile, the US sanctioned General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, head of the paramilitary RSF, for numerous atrocities, including genocide, earlier this year.
Kenya, obviously unaware of the international repercussions, decided to host the paramilitary chiefs in Nairobi. In reaction to the criticism, the government, through the Office of the Prime Cabinet Secretary, denied claims of siding with RSF. In a statement issued Wednesday evening, the administration denied taking sides in the 22-month confrontation between Sudan’s government and the RSF.
“The crisis in Sudan demands regional and global attention,” the statement said. “With its credentials as an enabler of peace in the region and across the globe, Kenya remains at the forefront of seeking solutions to the humanitarian crisis in Sudan.”
