Sudanese Army Accuses UAE, France of Plot to Divide Country

Lt Gen Yasir Al-Atta

September 25, 2024 (PORT SUDAN) – A senior Sudanese army official has accused the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and France of attempting to divide Sudan and establish a homeland for Arab groups from West Africa in the Darfur region and parts of Kordofan.

Yasser Al-Atta, Assistant Commander-in-Chief of the Sudanese Army and a member of the Sovereign Council, said the UAE was fuelling the conflict by supplying military aid to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) through Chad and the Central African Republic.

In an interview with the Al-Manbar website, Al-Atta said, “Talk of deploying international forces in Sudan is an international conspiracy sponsored by the UAE and some Western countries, particularly France, which seeks to create a homeland for displaced Arabs or divide Sudan, limiting it to Darfur and parts of Kordofan.”

He accused UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed of trying to control Sudan’s coastline, agricultural lands, and gold and said France had ambitions regarding uranium in Darfur.

On April 15, France, Germany and the European Union organised an international conference in Paris to mobilize humanitarian funding for Sudanese affected by the war between the Sudanese army and the RSF.

In a speech at the meeting, France’s President Emmanuel Macron urged external actors to cease supporting both sides of the Sudanese conflict. He also pledged to raise the issue with regional leaders accused of igniting the conflict.

Al-Atta threatened to fight any international forces if they entered Darfur, where the RSF controls most of the territory.

He also claimed the UAE encouraged RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo to consider establishing an Arab state in Sudan to facilitate control over agricultural lands, ports in eastern Sudan, and gold.

Earlier in September, the international fact-finding mission in Sudan recommended deploying an independent force to protect civilians, expanding the existing arms embargo in Darfur to cover all of Sudan, extending the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) across the entire country, and establishing a separate international judicial mechanism.

Al-Atta criticized the arms embargo in Darfur, claiming it would be ineffective as international organizations and the world know that weapons are entering through Chad and Khalifa Haftar’s Libya to Darfur, with the UAE organizing these operations.

(ST)