The United States has imposed sanctions on Sudanese military commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, accusing him of choosing war over negotiations to end a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions. imposed.
The US Treasury said in a statement that under Burhan’s leadership, the military’s war tactics included indiscriminate bombing of civilian infrastructure, attacks on schools, markets and hospitals, and extrajudicial executions.
The US government announced the move a week after it imposed sanctions on Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commander of the militia Rapid Support Forces, Burhan’s rival in the two-year civil war.
One of the goals of Thursday’s sanctions was to show that the U.S. government is not choosing sides, officials said.
Earlier on Thursday, Mr. Burhan sounded defiant at the prospect that he might be targeted.
“I have heard that there will be sanctions against the military leadership. We welcome any sanctions for serving this country,” he said in comments broadcast on Al Jazeera television.
The US government also imposed sanctions on the supply of arms to the military, targeting Sudanese-Ukrainians and Hong Kong-based companies.
Thursday’s action freezes U.S. assets and generally prohibits Americans from doing business with them. The Treasury Department said it had issued permits to allow certain transactions, including activities involving warring generals, to avoid disrupting humanitarian assistance.
The Sudanese military and RSF jointly led a coup in 2021 to remove Sudan’s civilian leadership, but they collapsed less than two years later over military integration plans.
The war that broke out in April 2023 left half of the population starving.
Mr. Dagalo, known as Hemedi, was sanctioned after the U.S. government determined that his forces had committed genocide and attacks on civilians. The RSF carries out bloody raids in areas it controls.
Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the U.S. move “reduces nothing but confusion and a weak sense of justice,” accusing the U.S. of defending the RSF’s genocide.
The United States and Saudi Arabia have repeatedly tried to bring the two sides to the negotiating table, but the military has rejected most attempts, including talks in Geneva in August aimed at easing humanitarian access.
Instead, the military stepped up military operations, seizing the strategic city of Wad Medani this week and vowing to retake the capital Khartoum.
Human rights experts and residents have accused the military of indiscriminate airstrikes and attacks on civilians, most recently in reprisal attacks in Wad Medani this week. The United States has long determined that the military and RSF committed war crimes.
In his final press conference ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that the United States had been unable to end the fighting on his watch. It’s unfortunate,” he said.
Blinken said that while there had been some progress in bringing humanitarian aid to Sudan through US diplomacy, there was still no end to the conflict, adding: “We have not seen an end to human rights abuses or an end to human suffering. “I haven’t been able to do that,” he said. “We will continue to be here for the next three days, and we hope that the next administration will continue that.”
