Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said Sunday that the country will not know peace until the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are defeated, rejecting any political settlement that includes the group as fighting grinds on into its third year.
Speaking at his residence in Port Sudan, Burhan said proposals that keep the RSF in Sudan’s political or security landscape merely delay the crisis rather than resolve it.
“There will be no peace until the RSF is eliminated,” Burhan told journalists. “This does not mean everyone must die. It can also mean laying down arms and surrendering. But any solution that includes the RSF only postpones the war.”
The Sudanese army, led by Burhan, has been locked in a brutal power struggle with the RSF since April 2023, a conflict that has devastated cities, displaced millions and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Burhan said the war has spared no Sudanese household, citing widespread civilian casualties and massive infrastructure damage. He insisted public opinion remains firmly aligned with the army against the RSF.
“No Sudanese citizen has been unaffected,” he said. “The people are united.”
Ceasefire skepticism and mediation efforts
Burhan cast doubt on international ceasefire initiatives, arguing that calls for truces intensified only after the RSF gained ground, particularly following the fall of El Fasher in North Darfur last October.
“There were no ceasefire proposals during the siege of El Fasher,” he said. “After it fell, the calls increased because they wanted the RSF to expand its control.”
Sudan has proposed Türkiye or Qatar as mediators, Burhan said, but the RSF rejected both options. He added that Saudi Arabia and Egypt could also play constructive roles.
“We trust in God first, then in President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,” he said.
Burhan also dismissed claims of parity between the warring sides, saying the RSF cannot be equated with Sudan’s national army.
“The two sides are not equal. The RSF is not equal to the Sudanese army,” he said.
Despite U.N. resolutions, Burhan accused the RSF of continuing to attack civilians and smuggle weapons, particularly into Darfur, without facing meaningful international enforcement.
“We are determined to eliminate the RSF,” he said. “And we remain open to all peaceful solutions.”
On the battlefield, Sudanese army forces repelled a joint attack Sunday by the RSF and its ally, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), in Blue Nile state, military sources said.
Troops from the army’s 4th Infantry Division, backed by allied forces, confronted an early-morning assault on the areas of al-Silk and Malakan, destroying several military vehicles, the sources said. Videos circulated by army personnel showed seized and destroyed RSF equipment following the clashes.
Neither the Sudanese military nor the RSF commented publicly.
The fighting followed army airstrikes last week on RSF and SPLM-N positions in the towns of Yabus and Balila. The army controls much of Blue Nile state, while SPLM-N has fought the central government since 2011, seeking autonomy in South Kordofan and Blue Nile.
Along with Darfur, Sudan’s three Kordofan states have seen intensified fighting in recent weeks, forcing tens of thousands of civilians to flee.
The RSF controls all five Darfur states except parts of North Darfur, while the army holds most of Sudan’s remaining 13 states, including Khartoum.
The war’s ripple effects are increasingly felt across the region. In neighboring South Sudan, the U.N. mission (UNMISS) expressed alarm Sunday over reports that a senior military commander urged troops to attack civilians in Jonglei State.
UNMISS said more than 180,000 people have been displaced in Jonglei amid renewed clashes between parties to South Sudan’s fragile 2018 peace agreement.
“Inflammatory rhetoric calling for violence against civilians is utterly abhorrent and must stop now,” said Graham Maitland, UNMISS officer in charge.
South Sudan has struggled with instability since gaining independence from Sudan in 2011. A civil war erupted in 2013 after President Salva Kiir accused his then-deputy Riek Machar of plotting a coup. Despite multiple peace deals, violence persists.
Earlier this year, the White Army militia seized a town in Upper Nile State, prompting arrests of senior figures aligned with Machar. Machar and other detainees face charges including treason, murder and crimes against humanity.
