Sudan’s army chief, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has called on troops to “end” their support for authoritarian leaders as talks begin on military reforms in the country. Burhan seized power in a 2021 coup that derailed a short-lived democratic transition following the 2019 ouster of Islamist general Omar al-Bashir. The proposed reforms include the integration of the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) into the regular army, led by Burhan’s deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo. Critics have decried the deal as “vague”. The December deal came after near-weekly protests since Burhan’s October 2021 takeover, which had also triggered international aid cuts, adding to the deepening political and economic troubles in one of the world’s poorest countries.
