Burhan says schism in ex-ruling party threatens unity of Sudan

DUBAI (Reuters) – Sudan’s armed forces chief on Monday criticised factional strife within its ex-ruling party, saying a move to reinstate an ally of deposed autocrat Omar al-Bashir endangered national unity as the army seeks to win a war against paramilitary forces. The National Congress Party has deep ties in the army and has seemed to sway its decision-making during the devastating 19-month-old war against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), in particular hindering attempts at a ceasefire. The NCP, which was in power for three decades before Bashir was ousted by a popular uprising in 2019, has in recent days shown signs of an internal schism after the party’s advisory council elected Ahmed Haroun as party president. Haroun is a close associate of Bashir and both men are wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity dating to the early 2000s war in Sudan’s Darfur region. In January, the United States offered a $5 million reward for Haroun’s capture. In a speech, army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said the advisory council meeting was divisive. “We do not accept any political activity that threatens the unity of Sudan or its fighters,” he told a economic conference in Port Sudan. “We do not need any (political) conflicts or divisions, we have one goal which is to defeat the rebels (RSF),” he added. After the current war erupted, Haroun and several former top Bashir deputies were sprung from prison and remain at large.

According to his lawyer, Bashir, 80, is now in custody in the town of Meroe, having been transported there from the embattled capital Khartoum for medical treatment.

At the time of the breakout, Haroun was head of the NCP, but was later replaced by Ibrahim Mahmoud. Mahmoud, who has operated mainly abroad but returned recently, rejected the advisory council’s decision and maintains his status as NCP chief. Members of the NCP’s competing factions and other Islamist groups are fighting the RSF within and alongside regular army units, including as part of the Baraa Ibn Malik brigade, a militia which has been accused of human rights abuses. Burhan denied that army forces were politically partisan. “The people fighting do not belong to anyone … They are Sudanese who care about their country,” he said.

The war has caused acute hunger and disease across the country. Both sides are accused of impeding aid deliveries, the RSF by looting and the army by bureaucratic delays.

(Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz; writing by Nafisa Eltahir; editing by Mark Heinrich)