British website: Millions of Sudanese face starvation and a bitter political game is unfolding

Britain's Middle East Eye published an article criticizing Sudanese military leaders and the "political incompetence" of the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS) at a time when it says millions of Sudanese are starving.

The author of

, Magdy El-Gizouli, a Sudanese academic and fellow at the Rift Valley Institute in Kenya, explains that a bitter political game has begun to unfold in a conflict between the head of the Sovereign Council, the commander of the Sudanese army, Abdel-Fattah Al-Burhan, and his deputy, the commander of the Rapid Support Forces, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, while the Sudanese suffer from for a living.

He said Sudan's future is currently determined by a diverse group of military officers, security forces and ex-rebels, without a unified structure or publicly definable decision-making process to mediate their conflicting interests.

Hemedti is complaining about the bad situation

He referred to Hemedti's statements last month in which he complained about the deteriorating economic situation to the extent that Sudan's embassies had not received any funding over the past 18 months, he said.

Al-Jizouli also wrote that Al-Burhan expressed his fears to Egyptian officials that Hemedti might be planning to overthrow him, after the latter's visit to Moscow.

The writer also referred to Al-Burhan’s visit to the UAE, and to his tour of an army camp south of Khartoum, and his assertion that the army would only hand over power to a government that would be formed through a “national consensus” or transparent elections.

politically poor performance

On the performance of the United Nations Mission in Sudan, Al-Gizouli says that its mission is to provide support to Sudan during its political transition to democratic rule, including promoting human rights and mobilizing economic aid.

He added that this mission worked mostly in the background, and although its head, Volker Perthes, spoke publicly about the need to accelerate the pace of reforms, but with the coup carried out by Al-Burhan and military leaders last October, Unitams has effectively lost its raison d'être.

Fail to acknowledge the facts

He noted that Peretz conducted a series of consultations on the political process in Sudan, and issued a summary report last month that he said was the product of more than 110 meetings attended by 800 people, along with more than 80 written reports.

The writer described the report of the head of the mission as like a wish-list, or administrative points - not political - taken from an administration book, and that it failed to acknowledge the brutal realities of the authority on the ground, such as the killing of more than 80 Sudanese protesters since the coup and the arrest of dozens amid regular demonstrations against the military rule.

tough months ahead

Al-Jizouli expected that nearly two-thirds of the population of Sudan will face severe levels of hunger by next September, according to the World Food Program, with rising food costs, and the government resorting to raising taxes and increasing the prices of fuel, electricity and bread.