Sudan has announced the suspension of its membership in the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an east African regional bloc that has been attempting to mediate talks between warring parties in the war-torn nation.
The announcement, made by Sudan’s foreign ministry, which aligns with army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto leader of Sudan, comes amid a nine-month conflict involving the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group, resulting in thousands of casualties and displacing over seven million people.
The decision to suspend membership was conveyed through a letter from Burhan to President Ismail Omar Guelleho of Djibouti, the current IGAD chair.
This move follows Sudan’s earlier decision to freeze relations with the bloc ahead of a meeting in Uganda, where the RSF head, Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, was invited. Sudan accused IGAD of “violating Sudan’s sovereignty” and establishing a “dangerous precedent.”
During IGAD’s summit in Uganda, the bloc reiterated its call for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Sudan’s “unjust war,” expressing readiness to facilitate an all-inclusive peace process and calling for face-to-face meetings between the warring parties. A final communique from the assembly gave the generals a two-week deadline to meet these conditions.
Sudan’s foreign ministry cited the inclusion of an agenda item without its approval and accused the summit communique of violating Sudan’s sovereignty as reasons for the suspension of membership.
The conflict, triggered by a plan to merge the RSF into the army and transition towards elections, has persisted for months, with both sides facing accusations of war crimes, including shelling of residential areas, torture, and arbitrary detention.
The RSF has been implicated in ethnically motivated mass killings, looting, and the use of rape as a weapon of war. The conflict has claimed over 13,000 lives, and more than 7.5 million civilians have been displaced, according to estimates.
