File photo of Sudan's Foreign Minister Ali Youssef / Image: MOFA Sudan on X
Cairo: The army-aligned government of war-devastated Sudan has protested to Britain over its planned hosting this month of a conference on the conflict, which Khartoum says it has been excluded from.
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy in February told Parliament he will host foreign ministers in London, around the second anniversary of Sudan's war, "to foster international consensus on a path to ending the conflict."
Sudan's Foreign Minister Ali Youssef sent a letter to Lammy "in which he protested the organisation by his country of a conference on Sudan without inviting the Sudanese government".
Youssef denounced Britain for what he said was an attitude that put the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on equal footing with the Sudanese state, the Sudanese government said in a statement issued on Sunday.
The war between Sudan's army and the RSF has created what the United Nations describes as the world's worst hunger and displacement crises.
More than 12 million people have been uprooted, tens of thousands killed, and a UN-backed assessment declared famine in parts of the country.
Germany and the European Union are co-organising the conference with Britain on April 15, the war's second anniversary, France's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations Jay Dharmadhikari said last month.
The United Kingdom has sanctioned businesses linked to both the army and the RSF in Sudan's war.
The United States has sanctioned army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, accusing his forces of attacks on civilians. It has similarly sanctioned the RSF leader Mohammed Hamdan Daglo and said the paramilitaries "committed genocide" in Sudan's vast western region of Darfur.
The RSF are rooted in Darfur and control much of its territory, as well as parts Sudan's south.
The army reclaimed the capital Khartoum last month, and holds sway in the east and north, leaving Africa's third-largest country essentially divided in two.
Youssef also criticised invitations to the conference for the United Arab Emirates, Chad and Kenya which he termed "stakeholders in the war".
