Sudan's army chief names former UN official as new premier

Sudan's top army general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan holds a press conference at the General Command of the Armed Forces in Khartoum, on October 26, 2021. [AFP]

Sudan's army chief and de facto leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan appointed on Monday former UN official Kamil Idris as the country's new prime minister, more than two years into a brutal war.

Idris, a career diplomat and past presidential candidate, was the director general of the United Nations' World Intellectual Property Organisation and has also served in Sudan's permanent mission to the UN.

"The chairman of the sovereignty council issued a constitutional decree appointing Kamil El-Tayeb Idris Abdelhafiz as prime minister," a statement from Sudan's ruling Transitional Sovereignty Council read.

In 2010, Idris ran in the presidential elections against longtime Islamist-military ruler Omar al-Bashir.

Since April 2023, the war in Sudan has pitted Burhan's army forces against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, commanded by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

The conflict has killed tens of thousands, displaced 13 million and created what the United Nations describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Idris replaces veteran diplomat Dafallah al-Haj Ali, who was appointed by Burhan at the end of April and served less than three weeks as acting prime minister.

Burhan had earlier said that he would form a technocratic wartime government to help "complete what remains of our military objectives, which is liberating Sudan from these rebels".

In April, the RSF announced it would form a rival government, a few weeks after signing a charter in Kenya with a coalition of military and political allies.

The move has raised international fears that Sudan would be permanently divided between the two sides, both of which have been accused of war atrocities.

The conflict has already carved up Sudan, with the army holding the north, east and centre while the RSF dominates nearly all of Darfur and, with its allies, parts of the south.