Sudan voices objection to upcoming IGAD summit in Uganda

Summary:

• Sudan has objected to an upcoming summit by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in Kampala, Uganda, on Jan. 18, stating that there is no need for a new summit before implementing the outcomes of the previous one. The government criticizes IGAD’s failure to implement decisions from a recent summit in Djibouti regarding a meeting between warring parties in Sudan.

KHARTOUM, SUDAN | Xinhua | Sudan on Saturday voiced its objection to an upcoming summit of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), scheduled on Jan. 18 in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, to discuss the situation in Sudan.

“The government of Sudan believes that there is no need to hold a new summit to discuss Sudan’s issue before the implementation of the outcomes of the previous summit,” Sudan’s Transitional Sovereign Council said in a statement.

What is happening in Sudan is an internal affair, and the Sudanese government’s response to regional initiatives does not mean abandoning the sovereign right to solve the Sudanese issue by the Sudanese people, the statement read.

It criticized the IGAD’s failure to implement the outcomes of the recent summit in Djibouti regarding a scheduled meeting between the leaders of the two warring parties in Sudan: General Commander of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and Commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.

On Dec. 9, 2023, the IGAD had approved during an emergency summit in Djibouti, the current chair country of the IGAD, that a meeting would be held between the leaders of the SAF and the RSF within two weeks, but later said the meeting was postponed for “technical reasons.”

Sudan has been witnessing deadly clashes between the SAF and the RSF since April 15, 2023. More than 12,000 people have been killed in the fighting, according to a statement by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in early December last year.

The IGAD has been intensifying pressure on the Sudanese warring parties to sign an agreement on cessation of hostilities to ensure delivery of humanitarian aid to the war-affected population, as part of regional and international efforts to stop the war in Sudan. ■