Sudan to form new government after regaining Khartoum, say military sources

PHOTO CAPTION: Plumes of smoke rise during clashes between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the army in Khartoum, Sudan, September 26, 2024. REUTERS/Stringer

By Khalid Abdelaziz

DUBAI (Reuters) -     The formation of a new Sudanese government is expected to happen after the recapture of Khartoum is completed, military sources told Reuters on Sunday, a day after army head Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said he would form a technocratic wartime government.

The Sudanese army, long on the backfoot in its war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, has in recent weeks regained ground in the capital Khartoum along several axes, closing in on the symbolic presidential palace along the Nile.

The RSF, which has said it would support the formation of a rival civilian administration, has retreated, overpowered by the army's expanded air capacities and ground ranks swollen by allied militias. 

"We can call it a caretaker government, a wartime government, it's a government that will help us complete what remains of our military objectives, which is freeing Sudan from these rebels," Burhan told a meeting of army-aligned politicians in the army's stronghold of Port Sudan on Saturday.

The RSF controls most of the west of the country, and is engaged in an intense campaign to cement its control of the Darfur region by seizing the city of al-Fashir. Burhan ruled out a Ramadan ceasefire unless the RSF stopped that campaign.

The war erupted in April 2023 over disputes about the integration of the two forces after they worked together to oust civilians with whom they had shared power after the uprising that ousted autocrat Omar al-Bashir.  

The conflict has created one of the world's largest humanitarian crises with the displacement of more than 12 million people and half the population facing hunger.

Burhan said there would be changes to the country's interim constitution, which the military sources said would remove all references to partnership with civilians or the RSF, placing authority solely with the army which would appoint a technocratic prime minister who would then appoint a cabinet.

Burhan called on members of the civilian Taqadum coalition to renounce the RSF, saying they would be welcomed back if they did so. 

 (Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz, writing by Nafisa Eltahir; Editing by Ros Russell)