Sudan demands UN action against RSF foreign backers

Addressing the UN General Assembly on behalf of Sovereign Council head Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Sudanese Foreign Minister Mohieddin Salim said Burhan was barred from attending the annual gathering after the United States, as host country, refused to issue him an entry visa despite interventions by the UN Secretariat and Secretary-General.

Salim urged the General Assembly and the UN Committee on Relations with the Host Country to formally investigate the decision, describing it as a breach of the 1947 UN Headquarters Agreement.

“Sudan is a peace-loving nation, but we also seek a just peace,” Salim said, arguing that lasting stability cannot take root while foreign powers continue funnelling weapons and mercenaries across Sudan’s borders to exploit its minerals and strategic Red Sea coastline.

Salim accused neighbouring states of allowing the RSF to launch daytime military assaults from across their territories, deliver supplies, and run border medical facilities for wounded paramilitaries.

Sudanese authorities have repeatedly accused Ethiopia of allowing the RSF to launch combat drones towards Blue Nile state, including Ed Damazin, while accusing Chad of facilitating arms and logistics shipments originating from Libya and elsewhere.

Salim warned that international proposals to expand the existing Darfur arms embargo to cover all of Sudan would be disastrous, saying such a move “paves the way to victory of the militia and the foreign mercenaries that constitute 60 per cent of its members.”

He condemned the UN Security Council for failing to formally name and censure external sponsors of the paramilitary force, while hitting out at international mediators for drawing an equivalence between the regular military and an insurgent force.

“We are astonished by the selectivity and double standards regarding weapons remaining in the hands of rebel and invading militias targeting state institutions and their survival,” Salim said.

“The unjust narrative of equating a national army with a terrorist militia rebelling against state authorities is the primary reason for escalating this war of aggression against Sudan,” he added.

Salim stressed that international inaction and the refusal to designate the RSF as a terrorist organization amounted to complicity in widespread atrocities, particularly in Darfur following the fall of El Fasher.

That silence is not only shameful, Salim said, “it is a betrayal of the civilian victims — of women and girls — who have demonstrated unprecedented resilience in enduring suffering beyond description, and indeed the entire people.”

Salim insisted genuine peace requires “dismantling the Rapid Support Forces”, disarming non-state actors, and restricting weapons solely to the military.

He reiterated Khartoum’s engagement with UN Personal Envoy Pekka Haavisto based on a national transition roadmap submitted to the Security Council in December 2025, which aims to guide the country toward free and fair elections through an inclusive process that excludes only “outlaws and traitors.”

He ruled out any political reconciliation with civilian groups aligned with the RSF.

“This factor alone undermines the credibility of any political partnership during the remainder of the transition with the political wing of the RSF militia, given its persistent and sinful complicity in the killing of our people in Darfur, Kordofan, and the Blue Nile,” Salim said.