Sudan declares UN envoy Volker Perthes “persona non grata”

Sudanese government declared on Thursday the UN envoy to the country, Volker Perthes, persona non grata, accusing him for several weeks of being responsible for the ongoing war.

Earlier, the UN announced the German envoy was in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on Thursday for a series of diplomatic talks.

Head of the Sudanese army, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, had called for the dismissal of the senior diplomat, accusing him of being responsible for the war that broke out on April 15th between his troops and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo.

The fighting broke out on the day that the two rival generals were due to meet for negotiations aimed at integrating the RSF into the regular army, as the UN had been demanding for weeks.

For several months, thousands of people supporting the army and the Islamists had been demonstrating against the UN envoy and alleged foreign “interference”.

Pro-democracy activists have long accused General Burhane of being manipulated by the Islamists of Omar al-Bashir’s regime (1989-2019).