Two Darfur movements form ‘neutral military alliance’ to protect civilians

The mainstream Sudan Liberation Movement under the leadership of Abdelwahid Mohamed Nur (SLM-AW) and the Sudan Liberation Forces (SLF) alliance led by El Tahir Hajar yesterday agreed on the formation of a neutral military alliance to protect civilians in Darfur.

Following consultations that lasted from September 26 to 30 in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, the two parties agreed to cooperate to protect civilians, humanitarian and commercial convoys, and to secure the transportation of staff of aid organisations.

The SLF will support the El Fasher Call initiative launched by the SLM-AW in early July, in which the movement called for the withdrawal of all warring forces from the North Darfur capital of El Fasher in order to protect civilians and enable humanitarian organisations to deliver aid to the residents and displaced in the ravaged city, where heavy fighting has been going on for more than five months.

Both groups agreed to remain entirely neutral in the current conflict and “stand at an equal distance to the two parties to the war that broke out in Sudan on April 15 last year. They also called for “an end to the war, addressing its root causes and confronting its repercussions”.

In the agreement, signed by Mohamed El Fateh, the SLM-AW Organisational Affairs official, and SLF External Relations Secretary Mohyiddin Harba, the two groups state that they will “go beyond the old method of previous alignments and alliances, and work to unify visions and positions on the building of a broad national front”.

This front is to be “based on a true national partnership between all political forces, working to end the war and calling for democratic civil transformation”, which is to be founded “on new principles, foundations, and approaches”.

The SLF, being a member of the broad Civil Democratic Forces (Tagadom – chaired by former PM Abdalla Hamdok), and the SLM-AW stressed “the necessity of the participation of all political forces, revolutionary rebel and civil forces that believe in stopping the war and ending its causes, in an Sudanese-Sudanese dialogue, to be held in the future”.

For years, the SLM-AW has been calling for an inter-Sudanese dialogue, to discuss way to address the root causes of the recurrent violent conflicts in Sudan.

In June 2022, the Darfur Joint Force was launched in El Fasher. The new force, made up of former rebel combatants, would be concerned with the protection of the people in Darfur as part of the implementation of the security arrangements stipulated in the Juba Peace Agreement signed with the Sudanese government in October 2020. The SLF was one of the rebel signatories. The SLM-AW refused to join the talks from the start.

In February this year, the Darfur Joint Force stopped securing aid convoys from Port Sudan to El Fasher, due to the violence on the roads. Its main members, the SLM faction led by Darfur Governor Minni Minawi (SLM-MM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) faction under the leadership of Finance Minister Gibril Ibrahim are now fighting against the Rapid Support Forces alongside the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).