At a meeting of the Community of Sahel-Saharan States in Tripoli, Sudan's foreign ministry undersecretary asked member states to list the Rapid Support Forces as a terrorist group and to stop weapons, supplies and fighters crossing their territory.
Sudan has called on members of the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD) to designate the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) a terrorist organisation, the state news agency SUNA reported on 8 November.
Ambassador Muawia Osman Khalid, undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, led Sudan's delegation to the 22nd ordinary session of the CEN-SAD Executive Council, held in the Libyan capital on Saturday 7 November. According to SUNA, he told ministers that Sudan faced an "existential threat" from what the agency called the "terrorist militia", accused unnamed regional powers of fuelling and supporting a destructive war against vital facilities and cultural heritage, and said the country had seen ethnic cleansing and systematic starvation by the RSF and mercenaries brought in from several countries.
He urged member states to condemn these abuses, designate the RSF a terrorist organisation and refuse to allow logistical support, weapons and mercenaries to pass through their territory. SUNA said the session closed with the adoption of decisions and recommendations to strengthen the bloc, but did not say whether any of them related to Sudan. CERHA found no published text of the outcome and no response from the RSF or the Tasis administration.
The Tripoli meeting
Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah opened the session, attended by the foreign ministers of Egypt, Tunisia, Chad, Djibouti, the Central African Republic, Sierra Leone, Somalia and Guinea-Bissau among others, Anadolu reported. Dbeibah called for closer coordination against terrorism, organised crime and irregular migration, and for a timetable to return the bloc's secretariat to Tripoli. CEN-SAD, founded in 1998, has 28 member states, including several of Sudan's neighbours.
Context
Port Sudan has sought terrorist designations of the RSF in several forums; CERHA is not aware of any regional or international body having adopted one. The United States determined in January 2025 that RSF members had committed genocide and has sanctioned its leaders, while UN experts and rights groups have documented abuses by both the RSF and the army. The RSF leads the Tasis coalition, whose Government of Peace and Unity administers much of Darfur and parts of Kordofan; it rejects the terrorist label and accuses the army and allied Islamist units of abuses of their own. Supply routes into Darfur through neighbouring states have been the subject of repeated allegations, most of which those states deny.
Image: Tripoli, Libya, on the Mediterranean coast, photographed from the International Space Station. NASA Johnson Space Center, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.