A spokesman for the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF)-backed Tasis Alliance Government in Sudan has told APA that the group is never behind atrocities its fighters are accused of committing.
Taking a swipe at Egypt, Alaaeldin Awad Nogoud said in an exclusive interview with APA in Addis Ababa that Sudan’s North African neigbour was behind the escalating conflict which is showing no sign of abating.
Nogoud accused Cairo and the Muslim Brotherhood of fanning the flames of the civil war, blaming them for a string of past military coups using supposed stooges in Khartoum to carry them out.
Nogoud who is the main spokesperson of the Tasis Alliance and is in Ethiopia with the full knowledge of the Ethiopian government, claimed Egypt has a track record of blatant interference in Sudan which still obtains in the ongoing conflict between RSF and Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).
According to him, his trip to Ethiopia was to clarify the role of the RSF in Sudanese politics which had been far from that of a bloodthirsty group as errorneously projected by the international media.
“Egypt wants to form a rival government in Sudan with members of the Muslim Brotherhood assuming the central power,” Nogoud said, noting that Cairo has been arming the Sudanese military with drones and providing military training to the SAF.
Nogoud demanded breaking the bond between the Muslim Brotherhood and the regime in Khartoum as a prerequisite to ending the Sudanese conflict which began as a power struggle between junta leader and SAF-backed Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemati).
The former allies turned political foes have been at daggers drawn over the role of the military in Sudanese politics since the ouster of long term ruler Omar Al-Bashir in 2019.
The conflict has resulted in the death of tens of thousands of people and the displacement of millions across Sudan and beyond, causing one of the world’s most challenging humanitarian crises.
Regional and international mediation efforts, including a recent proposal by the US-led “quad’ mediating group, which includes Saudi Arabia, Egypt and United Arab Emirates, for a three-month humanitarian truce followed by a nine-month political process, have so far failed to secure a lasting ceasefire.
Burhan who criticised the US over an alleged lack of neutrality in the conflict has been accused by the RSF of blithely disregarding calls for a truce which would allow substantive humanitarian relief aid to reach destitute populations.
“Even though the quad nations had developed a road map to restore peace to the Sudan, the mediation will not be successful as Egypt is manoeuvring the crisis in Sudan,” the spokesperson warned.
Recalling the RSF’s acceptance of a “humanitarian ceasefire” proposed by the quad, Nogoud blamed the SAF of deliberately breaching of a series of agreements including a final truce by intensifying the conflict and compounding the misery of millions of displaced civilians.
According to Nogoud, the SAF’s main interest was to continue prosecuting the war at the behest of an elite group of politico-militarists and the Muslim Brotherhood and render political power and the economic resources their exclusive preserve.
“Members of the Muslim Brotherhood have infiltrated and controlled Sudan’s security forces including the army and police for the last 30 years,” he claimed.
According to him, RSF now controls 60 percent of Sudan while the remainder including the north east and central region is under the SAF.
He said in RSF-controlled areas, life has been returning to normalcy as markets resume despite daily SAF drone strikes including in al-Fasher which recently claimed the lives of 30 civilians as they were attending a wedding ceremony.
He denied reports that the RSF was behind the massacre of civilians when the paramiitary group took control of El-Fasher after a two-year siege.
Nogoud accused international media outlets of demonising the RSF by linking it to atrocities and rapes without evidence and apparently overlooked the SAF’s indiscriminate shelling and targeting of civilians in residential areas.
MG/as/APA