A bloody conflict has raged since April 2023 between the Sudanese army under the country’s de facto ruler Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the RSF led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
Chad’s government was accused of aiding the RSF by Sudan’s Darfur Governor Minni Minnawi, who heads a faction allied with the Khartoum government.
On Wednesday, Minnawi told radio station RFI he had travelled to Paris to “ask France to halt the role of the Chadian government in the transit through its territory of non-humanitarian aid — military equipment — to RSF-controlled areas in Sudan”.
Chad, which has taken in some 680,000 refugees from Sudan — more than any other country — rejected the claims on Thursday.
“Chad has no interest in amplifying the war in Sudan by supplying weapons,” said foreign minister and government spokesman Abderaman Koulamallah, pointing out that Chad was “one of the rare countries upon which this war has had major repercussions”.
“We do not support any of the factions that are fighting on Sudanese territory — we are in favour of peace,” Koulamallah told RFI.
Sudanese authorities have previously charged that Chad was facilitating the delivery of weapons from the United Arab Emirates to Sudan, which both Chad and the UAE have denied.
The fresh accusations came days after a report by the Sudan Conflict Observatory — a platform funded by the US Department of State — said “the UAE has facilitated weapons to the RSF” via the airport of Amdjarass in northeast Chad between June 2023 and May 2024.
“There are always very large quantities of military equipment that cross Chad to Sudan,” Darfur Governor Minnawi said.
Minnawi added that the weapons transit through multiple Chadian airports or via the port of Douala in Cameroon, before entering Sudan through the Adre border crossing.
“We have a good relationship with the United Arab Emirates… but this relationship in no way takes a military shape by supplying weapons to any faction,” said Koulamallah, denouncing “fanciful information”.
The conflict in Sudan has left tens of thousands dead and some 26 million people facing severe food insecurity, with famine declared in the Zamzam displacement camp in Sudan’s western Darfur region.
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© Agence France-Presse
