RSF to form parallel government in Sudan

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia in Sudan will sign an agreement to establish a ’government of peace and unity’ with allied political and armed groups according to Reuters on February 22nd.

The agreement will create a parallel government in Sudan, operating over regions controlled by the RSF and its allies according to signatories al-Hadi Idris and Ibrahim al-Mirghani.

Idris said that the government’s formation will be announced from inside the country in the next few days.

It is claimed that the announcement will aim to ‘unify the country rather than divide it’, with the signatories agreeing that Sudan would become a ‘secular, democratic, non-centralised state’.

Despite the claims, the reputation of the RSF has led to concerns about their intentions.

General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo who leads the RSF was sanctioned by the U.S earlier this year after accusations of ‘widespread abuses including genocide’.

The RSF has been in conflict with the army since the two sides ousted civilian politicians from power in 2021.

Politicians had shared power with the RSF and the army since the ousting of former head of state Omar al-Bashir in 2019.

The RSF has controlled most of the western Darfur region and large parts of the Kordofan for the duration of the two and a half year civil war.

The civil war has plunged Sudan into a state of perpetual violence, leading to an ‘unprecedented humanitarian crisis’.

Half the population has been forced into food poverty and famine has spread in several regions.

The RSF and its allies have been pushed back from central Sudan by the army and the formation of a parallel government has been condemned by the government.

The formation of a parallel government will not gain widespread support from the international community, and the United Nations has already voiced its concerns.

In Sudan, the central government amended the country’s constitution in order to give the army expanded powers.