United States sanctions Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan

The United States has sanctioned Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, head of the Sudanese army, for indiscriminate attacks by the Sudanese armed forces on civilians in the Sudanese civil war.

The US Treasury Department said in an official statement that the Sudanese army's tactics have included indiscriminate bombings of civilian infrastructure, attacks on schools, markets and hospitals, extrajudicial killings and ‘the use of food deprivation as a tactic of war’.

The US has thus accused Al-Burhan of choosing war over negotiations to end a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people and forced millions from their homes. 

‘The action underscores our commitment to seeing an end to this conflict,’ said US Treasury Undersecretary Wally Adeyemo.

‘The United States will continue to use our tools to disrupt the flow of arms into Sudan and hold these leaders accountable for their blatant disregard for civilian lives,’ he added.

The US Treasury also announced sanctions against Sudanese-Ukrainian national Ahmad Abdalla and Hong Kong-based Portex Trade Limited for allegedly procuring weapons for the Sudanese Armed Forces on behalf of a sanctioned supplier.

The measure freezes all US assets and generally prohibits Americans from transacting with them. The Treasury Department said it issued authorisations allowing certain transactions, including activities involving the warring generals, so as not to impede humanitarian assistance.

Earlier, Al-Burhan was defiant about the possibility that he could be affected.

‘I have heard that there will be sanctions against army leaders. We welcome any sanctions for serving this country,’ he said in comments broadcast on Al-Jazeera television.

The Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) together led a coup in 2021 to topple Sudan's Islamist leadership, but drifted apart less than two years later over plans to integrate their forces.

The war that broke out in April 2023 plunged half the population into famine.

In a statement, Sudan's Foreign Ministry said the latest US action ‘expresses nothing but confusion and a weak sense of justice’ and accused Washington of defending the ‘genocide’ of the RSF.

Washington had announced sanctions last week against Al-Burhan's rival in the two-year civil war, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

The US and Saudi Arabia have repeatedly tried to bring both sides to the negotiating table, but the army has rebuffed most attempts, including talks in Geneva in August that were partly aimed at facilitating humanitarian access.

Instead, the army has intensified its military campaign, this week seizing the strategic town of Wad Madani and vowing to retake the capital, Khartoum.

Human rights experts and residents have accused the army of indiscriminate air strikes and attacks on civilians, the most recent of which was a revenge attack in Wad Madani this week. The US had already determined that the army and the RSF had committed war crimes.

In his last press conference before the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump on 20 January, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it was a ‘real regret’ that Washington had failed to end the fighting on his watch.

While there have been some improvements in humanitarian aid reaching Sudan through US diplomacy, there has been no end to the conflict, ‘no end to the abuses, no end to the suffering of the people,’ Blinken said. ‘We will continue to work here for the next three days, and I hope the next administration will address that as well.’

Thus, Antony Blinken lamented his inability to end the brutal war in Sudan and expressed hope that President-elect Donald Trump's Administration will continue to try to do so.

‘For me it is, yes, another real regret that, as far as Sudan is concerned, we have not been able, on our watch, to get to that day of success,’ he told a farewell press conference.