The administration of outgoing United States President Joe Biden has imposed sanctions on the head of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, accusing him of destabilising the war-torn country.
In a statement on Thursday, the US Treasury Department said that, under al-Burhan’s leadership, the SAF has “committed lethal attacks on civilians, including airstrikes against protected infrastructure including schools, markets, and hospitals”.
“The SAF is also responsible for the routine and intentional denial of humanitarian access, using food deprivation as a war tactic,” it said.
The move comes just days after the Biden administration imposed sanctions on Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a Sudanese paramilitary group that has been locked in a war with the SAF since April 2023.
Under Dagalo’s leadership, “the RSF has engaged in serious human rights abuses, including widespread sexual violence and executing defenseless civilians and unarmed fighters”, the Treasury Department said on January 7.
Washington also accused the RSF and its allied militias of committing genocide in western Sudan’s Darfur region.
The war in Sudan has killed thousands of people and pushed the country into a dire humanitarian crisis.
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