Sudan war: army chief in Egypt, his first trip abroad

Sudan's army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, will travel to Egypt on Tuesday for his first trip abroad in four months of war against paramilitaries, his office announced.

General Burhane, the country's de facto leader since his 2021 putsch, is due to hold talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi "on the latest developments in Sudan and bilateral relations between the two countries", the Sovereignty Council, the country's highest authority, said in a statement.

Since 15 April, the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, former number two in the military, have been at war. Due to the general chaos, the death toll is widely underestimated at 5,000, and the UN has counted more than 4.6 million displaced persons and refugees.

For the first time on Tuesday in Port Sudan (east), General Burhane appeared in public in civilian clothes. Since the start of the war, he had made very rare appearances in fatigues, gun in hand, and making numerous bellicose statements.

His plane took off from Port Sudan, the only city in the country with a functioning airport, the one in Khartoum having been bombed on the first day of the war.

General Burhane is accompanied by the head of Sudanese intelligence, Ahmad Ibrahim Muffadal, and the interim foreign minister, Ali al-Sadeq.

This is his first trip outside the country, at a time when rumours of negotiations between the two generals abroad are multiplying.

He arrived in Port Sudan on Sunday, where he called for an "end to the rebellion" by paramilitaries.

Several attempts at mediation to end the conflict, mainly by Saudi Arabia and the United States, have failed.

In July, Egypt, a large neighbour to the north which has taken in more than 250,000 Sudanese refugees, launched a group of Sudan's neighbours with six other countries.