The United States imposed sanctions Thursday against Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, leader of the Sudanese Armed Forces, on the grounds that he has destabilized the country and undermined moves toward democracy.
Under the penalties announced by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, any property or interests owned or controlled by al-Burhan are blocked.
“Burhan’s SAF has committed lethal attacks on civilians, including airstrikes against protected infrastructure including schools, markets and hospitals,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in a statement. “The SAF is also responsible for the routine and intentional denial of humanitarian access, using food deprivation as a war tactic.”
On Jan. 7, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Hamdan Dagalo Mousa, the leader of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which have engaged in a power struggle with the Sudanese Armed Forces that turned into a full-blown civil war in 2023. Thousands of people have been killed and millions have fled their homes in what the United Nations has called the world’s biggest displacement crisis.
The new sanctions come more than a year after Secretary of State Antony Blinken determined that members of the armed forces had committed war crimes. “Since then, members of the SAF, under al-Burhan’s leadership, have continued to commit atrocities, including targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, and executing civilians,” Blinken said in a statement Thursday.
Earlier Thursday, The New York Times, citing unnamed U.S. officials, reported that al-Burhan’s troops had deployed chemical weapons against the Rapid Support Forces on at least two occasions. Officials told the newspaper that those assaults occurred in relatively unpopulated areas, but that new attacks could occur in cities, even Khartoum, the capital.
Mousa joined al-Burhan in leading an October 2021 military coup against the country’s civilian-led transitional government before they turned on one another.
“Taken together, these sanctions underscore the U.S. view that neither man is fit to govern a future, peaceful Sudan,” Blinken said in the statement.