Khartoum protests UK’s decision to host conference on Sudan without inviting its government

KHARTOUM, Sudan

The Sudanese government has officially objected to the UK’s decision to host an international conference on Sudan on April 15 without inviting Sudanese authorities to attend.

Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Yusuf conveyed this stance in a letter to his British counterpart David Lammy last week, according to a Sudanese Foreign Ministry statement.

The ministry said Yusuf’s letter expressed “Sudan’s objection to Britain holding a conference on Sudan without extending an invitation to the Sudanese government.”

He criticized “the British government’s approach, which equates the sovereign Sudanese state -- a UN member since 1956 -- with a terrorist militia (the Rapid Support Forces RSF) committing genocide, crimes against humanity, and unprecedented atrocities against civilians.”

The army and RSF have been fighting a war since April 2023 that has killed more than 20,000 people and displaced 15 million others, according to the UN and local authorities. Research from US universities, however, estimates the death toll at around 130,000.

Yusuf highlighted what the ministry called “evidence of Britain’s leniency toward the militia,” urging the UK to reassess its Sudan policy and engage constructively with the government “based on historical ties between the two nations.”

Britain is set to host a high-level international conference on the Sudan crisis in London on April 15.

In recent weeks, the territorial control of the RSF has been shrinking rapidly in favor of the army across several states, including Khartoum and Bahri, while controlling most of Omdurman except for parts of its west and south.

Since late March, army victories in Khartoum have accelerated, including seizing the presidential palace, ministry headquarters, the airport, and key security and military sites for the first time since the war began two years ago.

Across Sudan’s 17 other states, the RSF now holds only portions of North and West Kordofan, pockets in South Kordofan and Blue Nile, and four of Darfur’s five states in the west. The army, however, controls Al-Fashir, the capital of North Darfur, the region’s fifth state.