SUDAN: RSF, allies sign charter for rival gov’t

    Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and its allies have agreed to form a parallel government, they said Sunday, despite warnings such a move could further fragment the war-ravaged country.   “The charter has been signed,” Najm al-Din Drisa, spokesman of the United Civil Forces, one of the signatories, said.   The parties to […]

 

 

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and its allies have agreed to form a parallel government, they said Sunday, despite warnings such a move could further fragment the war-ravaged country.

 

“The charter has been signed,” Najm al-Din Drisa, spokesman of the United Civil Forces, one of the signatories, said.

 

The parties to the agreement, inked behind closed doors in Nairobi, said the charter establishes a “government of peace and unity” in rebel-controlled areas of the northeast African country.

 

The move comes nearly two years into a devastating war with the regular army that has uprooted more than 12 million people and caused what the United Nations calls the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis.

 

Among those who agreed to it was a faction of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu, which controls parts of the South Kordofan and Blue Nile states in the country’s south.