Sudan Foreign Affairs: RSF Is a Terrorist Group

The Sudanese Foreign Ministry considered that the practices of the Rapid Support Force is similar to the Islamic State (ISIS) groups, Boko Haram, and the Ugandan Lord's Army movement, which the international community has classified as terrorist groups.

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The Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on the international community to classify the RSF militia as a terrorist group, and to provide support to the government to protect its national, regional and international security.

This is not the first time that the Foreign Ministry coup government calls for to classify the militia as a terrorist group. Since the outbreak of war between the army and the RSF in mid-April, it accused the militia of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The coup government's foreign ministry said in a statement on Monday that the government has been alerting the international community to the terrorist and criminal nature of the militia, which it described as rebellious. The ministry said that this terrorist nature is represented by the use of civilians as human shields, the targeting of unarmed citizens, especially women and children, sexual violence, and the recruitment of child soldiers.

The statement added that the militia's attempt to attack the armored corps in Khartoum, “in which it employed large numbers of children and minors as soldiers, revealed that the militia does not have any concerns to humanitarian, moral and religious considerations.” The statement continues “it also ignores the standards of international humanitarian law, or even common sense and what it entails in protecting children and avoiding them from the scourge of war, as expressed in the United Nations Convention for the Prevention of Recruitment and Use of Children in War, and the appointment of a special rapporteur on the matter.”

The statement added, “instead, the militia insists on using children as fuel in its war aimed at hijacking the state and subjugating society.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it is the duty of the international community to consider this petition. It referred to the frequent news and reports of militia “kidnapping large numbers of girls and women, using them as forced labor, and subjecting them to rape, sexual violence, and detention, in order to obtain large sums of money from their families as ransom.”

It noted that the United Nations experts and rapporteurs referred to this last week, including the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, the Special Rapporteur on Sexual Assault, and the Special Rapporteur on Human Trafficking.

The statement described these brutal practices as the worst methods of terrorist groups in terrorizing societies, undermining state institutions. This is in addition to “killing, looting and aggression to impose their political agenda.”

The statement concluded by saying: “The duty of the international community is to classify the rebel militia as a terrorist group, and to provide the necessary support to the Sudanese government, which is playing its role in confronting this militia to protect its national, regional and international security.”