By Coletta Wanjohi
Former Prime Minister of Sudan Abdalla Hamdok says the ongoing fighting in the country must stop immediately because ‘’it has so many ramifications.’’
Mr Hamdok who was removed from power in 2021 by the two generals leading the current battle for power, said: ‘’God forbid if Sudan is to reach a point of civil war engulfing entire region…I think it will be a nightmare for the world.”
Hamdok was speaking on Saturday in the Kenyan capital Nairobi at the The Ibrahim Governance Weekend (IGW), organized by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, an NGO committed to promoting good governance in Africa.
“This is not a war between an army and a small rebellion group, this is like two armies and well trained, well-armed,’’ Mr Hamdok asserted.
The former Sudanese PM called on the country’s military and the rival paramilitary, Rapid Support Forces to end hostilities. He said in order to protect the country’s transition to civilian rule ‘’we need to stay unified.”
He particularly stressed the need for civil society organisations and political parties to work together to mount pressure on the military to get the country back on a democratic transition track.
Mr Hamdok, a renowned economist, said the immediate priority is to have a humanitarian ceasefire working and then persistent pressure for a permanent truce.
He suggested there is no benefit in the ‘‘senseless war’’ in Africa's third largest country no matter the outcome.
According him, “as Sudanese we will not believe even if one faction claims victory. Victory over the corpses and deaths of your people? What victory is this?”
Abdalla Hamdok became head of a transitional government in Sudan following the overthrow of the country’s long-time ruler Omar al Bashir by the military in 2019.
But he was also removed by the army in October 2021, reinstated a month later following international pressure but he resigned in January 2022.
The battle for power between two top generals - Abdul Fatah al Burhan of the Sudanese army and Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo of the Rapid Support Forces has killed more than 500 people and sent hundreds of thousands fleeing for their lives - many across borders.
In some areas in and around the capital Khartoum, residents on Saturday reported that shops were reopening and normalcy gradually returning as the scale of fighting dwindled following the extension of a fragile truce.
But in other areas, terrified residents reported explosions and gunfire thundering around them and fighters ransacking houses.
