KHARTOUM: Sudan on Monday announced it was returning to east African bloc IGAD, two years after freezing its membership over a decision to invite rival paramilitary chief Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo to a summit.
“The government of the Republic of Sudan will resume its full activity in the membership” in the Djibouti-based Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Sudan had suspended its membership in January 2024 after the bloc invited the head of rival paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to a summit in Uganda to discuss the country’s brutal conflict.
The RSF has been at war with Sudan’s army since April 2023 in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands, displaced 11 million and caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The foreign ministry cited a statement by IGAD which reaffirmed “its full recognition of Sudan’s sovereignty and the unity of its lands and people” and pledged “non-interference in member states’ internal affairs.”
