Leader of Sudan’s RSF visits Ugandan president

By Hamza Kyeyune

KAMPALA, Uganda (AA) - Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and the head of Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, held talks this week at Museveni’s Rwakitura country home on strategies for ending Sudan’s long-running conflict.

Dagalo, popularly known as Hemetti, said on X that they discussed the war in Sudan as well as his vision for negotiations to end the fighting.

A planned face-to-face meeting between Dagalo and Sudanese Army Commander-in-Chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan that was supposed to take place in Djibouti today under the sponsorship of the country, which is the current chair of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an eight-country trade bloc in Africa, was postponed until January.

The Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement confirming that a meeting had been scheduled for Dec. 28, but Djibouti’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed them that the RSF leader was unable to travel to the country to take part.

The statement cited “technical reasons” communicated by IGAD as the cause for the meeting’s cancellation, with a rescheduled date set for January next year, but the exact day remains undisclosed.

The meeting was initially supposed to be attended only by Djibouti’s President Ismail Omar Guelleh, as the chair of IGAD, and representatives of Sudan’s warring factions, but sources close to the meeting said Dagalo requested that it include the participation of some leaders of the East African bloc to facilitate discussions on the conclusion of a cease-fire.

Dagalo’s meeting with President Museveni is his first confirmed appearance outside of Sudan since the war between the RSF and the Sudanese army broke out in April.