Sudan’s army leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, announced a cabinet reshuffle on Sunday, replacing four key ministers as the country grapples with a devastating civil war and a deepening humanitarian crisis. Among the new appointments are Ambassador Ali Youssef al-Sharif as foreign minister and Khalid Ali Aleisir, a journalist and TV presenter based in London, as the minister of culture and media. Omar Banfir and Omar Bakhit have been appointed to oversee trade and religious affairs, respectively.
The reshuffle, confirmed by Sudan’s ruling sovereignty council on social media, did not come with an explanation. However, it aligns with escalating violence between Burhan’s military forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo. Since the outbreak of war in April 2023, Sudan’s government has largely operated from the coastal city of Port Sudan, spared from the conflict gripping much of the country. Despite this, Sudan has become the site of one of the world’s largest displacement crises, with the UN warning of famine risks amid critical shortages of aid.
The violence has intensified in the al-Jazira region, south of Khartoum, and in North Darfur, near Sudan’s western border with Chad. Last month, over 200 people were killed in al-Jazira alone, according to an AFP count, as the RSF ramped up attacks on civilians. The surge in aggression followed reports of a defected RSF commander joining the military. The United Nations condemned the escalating attacks, echoing concerns from the United States.
Sudan now hosts more than 11 million displaced individuals, with an additional 3.1 million people having fled the country. As the conflict drags on, the nation’s already fragile infrastructure and services are crumbling, and economic experts warn that the state is “completely absent” across key sectors.
