Sudan has accused Kenya of actively siding with the country’s destabilisers – after Nairobi platformed, the UAE-backed Rapid Support Forces (RSF). To add insult to injury, the paramilitary and its affiliates were in town to discuss launching a rival government in the sectors of Sudan they control. The move triggered outrage from Khartoum who urged the international community to denounce Kenya, claiming that Nairobi is violating UN and African Union principles by supporting efforts that threaten Sudan’s territorial integrity.
Sudan also accuses Kenya of endorsing, and even being complicit in, the RSF’s actions, which include ethnic cleansing and other atrocities against civilians during the ongoing conflict that erupted in April 2023.
This is not the first time Nairobi has welcomed the RSF. In January 2024, President William Ruto met with RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, who was later sanctioned by the US for his involvement in genocide. Hemedti has been implicated in targeting non-Arab Sudanese in the Darfur region, where he was involved in ethnic cleansing from 2003 to 2005 under the regime of the ousted president Omar al-Bashir. The Darfur Genocide is estimated to have resulted in over 200,000 deaths and the displacement of more than 2-million people.
Nairobi’s credentials as a regional peace broker had already come under scrutiny in December 2023, when Kenya hosted the launch of the Congo River Alliance – a coalition of rebel forces fighting in the DRC’s mineral war, including the Rwanda-backed M23.
Currently, Sudan is experiencing another surge in violence as the army, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, seeks to reclaim control from the RSF in the capital and surrounding areas. Approximately 12.5-million Sudanese have been forcibly displaced, with 8.9 million newly internally displaced and 3.4 million seeking refuge in other countries. The UN has described this situation as the most severe humanitarian crisis and displacement scenario globally, with 30.4-million individuals – two-thirds of the population – requiring humanitarian aid.
Sources;
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8j9j72lvdvo
https://hmh.org/library/research/genocide-in-darfur-guide/
https://web.archive.org/web/20240810062543/https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/darfur
https://web.archive.org/web/20240810062543/https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/darfur