Sudan’s new prime minister dissolves government

Cairo — Sudan’s new prime minister, Kamil Idris, has dissolved the country’s caretaker government, the state news agency reported late on Sunday.

The Sudan News Agency did not specify when a new government, the first since war broke out between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), would be announced.

Idris was appointed by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Sudan’s head of state. Idris took the oath of office on Saturday as the country’s first prime minister since a military-led coup in 2021.

The RSF has said it would form its own parallel government with allied parties.

In a speech on Sunday, Idris vowed to remain at equal distance from all political parties and to prioritise stability, security and reconstruction in Sudan.

The Sudanese army and the RSF have been battling since April 2023, with tens of thousands of people killed or injured and about 13-million uprooted in what aid groups call the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The fighting has resulted in destroyed infrastructure, power outages, unclean water and overcrowded hospitals.

One consequence of the infrastructure breakdown is the rapid spread of cholera, which said 172 deaths out of 2,729 cases last week alone, mainly in Khartoum. According to government statistics, a total of 60,993 cholera cases have been recorded in Sudan, including 1,632 deaths.

Reuters