Sudan condemns the killing of 18 people by the Chadian group

Sudan’s foreign ministry on Saturday condemned the killing of 18 Sudanese in an attack by an armed group from Chad, state media reported.

The killings occurred on Thursday when Sudanese herdsmen from West Darfur state were ambushed as they followed the tracks of camels plundered by the Chadians the day before, according to Sudan’s ruling Sovereign Council.

On Saturday, Sudan’s acting foreign minister, Ali al-Sadiq, expressed his country’s “protest and condemnation of the incident” during a meeting with the Chadian ambassador in Khartoum.

According to the official Sudanese news agency SUNA, “He also demanded that Chad make efforts to arrest the attackers and recover the stolen items.”

Sudan has faced escalating unrest since army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan led a military coup last October. The coup reversed a transition to civilian rule instituted after President Omar al-Bashir was overthrown in 2019.

The seizure of power exacerbated the political and economic turmoil in the country. The security situation has deteriorated, with an increase in ethnic clashes in the remote regions of Sudan.

Thursday’s incident sparked anger among Sudanese living in Geneina, the capital of west Darfur state near the Chad border.

Deputy head of the Sovereign Council Mohamed Hamdan Daglo was in N’Djamena on Thursday to discuss border security at a meeting with Chad’s leader General Mahamat Idriss Deby.

On Friday, Daglo called for restraint and, during the funeral of slain Sudanese herdsmen, vowed to take action to contain “the chaos” along the border.

Daglo commands the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that emerged from the Janjaweed militia unleashed by then-President Bashir’s government in Darfur.

An ally of Bashir, Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, is on trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague for war crimes allegedly committed in Darfur some two decades ago, when he was a Janjaweed commander.

Bashir is also wanted by the court.

Last month, Burhan vowed to step aside and make way for civilian groups to form a new government, but Sudan’s main civilian bloc dismissed the move as a “ploy”.