Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), accused of carrying out crimes against humanity as it fights the country’s army in a 20-month war, has signed a charter with allied political and armed groups to establish a “government of peace and unity”, its signatories said.
The signing ceremony was held behind closed doors in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, but it was not immediately clear whether the document was signed late on Saturday or on Sunday.
The RSF is also accused of carrying out ethnic cleansing and even genocide by international human rights organizations and by countries that include the United States.
The charter, however, is a sign that the splintering of Sudan is cementing, as the RSF focuses on the western region of Darfur as it loses ground elsewhere.
According to the text of the charter, the signatories agreed that Sudan should be a “secular, democratic, non-centralized state” with a single national army, though it preserved the right of armed groups to continue to exist. The war between the army and the RSF—former allies—began after a dispute over the timing of the RSF’s integration into the army.
Read more here.
