Port Sudan – almohagig
The Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has accused the Abu Dhabi-owned TV channel “Sky News Arabia” of blatant forgery and professional degradation.
The ministry said in a press statement issued today that the channel rebroadcasted on the night of 29 March 2024, a video from Euro News in 2016 about Al-Shabaab’s attack on Mogadishu Airport in Somalia, claiming that elements of ISIS were fighting alongside the Sudanese armed forces against the terrorist Rapid Support Forces (RSF)!
The statement added, “The approach of the mentioned channel in covering Sudanese news, which lacks the minimum professional and objective standards, does not need an explanation. However, the descent to the level of blatant forgery is unprecedented, and it must be stopped.”
The statement noted that the report’s broadcast “coincides with the complaint filed by Sudan to the UN Security Council against the United Arab Emirates for its ongoing aggression against the country and its people, using terrorist militias and tens of thousands of mercenaries from several countries.
Therefore, what the channel has done is a desperate attempt to cover up detailed information and conclusive evidence of the UAE’s main role in the war imposed on Sudan.”
The statement accused the channel of “trying to hide that the UAE government sponsors a terrorist militia that meets all the requirements of that classification. This sponsorship includes financing, arming, recruiting mercenaries, providing war propaganda services, as the channel does, and buying political loyalty. The UN experts’ report on Security Council Resolution 1519 has confirmed this sufficiently.”
The statement provided a number of examples that it said embody the practices of the militias sponsored by Abu Dhabi and are considered “worse than those known about ISIS, Boko Haram, and the Lord’s Resistance Army,” citing a number of examples as follows:
1. Abduction and enslavement of women and girls for forced marriage or sexual slavery and domestic labour. Twenty-five UN human rights and women’s and children’s protection experts have warned of this since 17 August 2023, as documented by several human rights organizations, including the “Scream” women’s network, which issued several documented reports on this matter, and the Mashad Human Rights Organization and the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies, as well as a number of UN and Western officials.
2. Forcible recruitment of children and minors, as an example of this, the Sudanese government handed over thirty children who were captured while fighting alongside the militia to the International Committee of the Red Cross in September 2023. An investigative report by CNN this month documented the militia’s methods of forced recruitment of children and boys in the Jazeera state.
3. Targeting places of worship, especially churches. The Sudanese Council of Churches has documented one hundred and fifty-seven attacks on churches and the total destruction of seventeen churches, including historic churches, and the injury of about three thousand worshipers with various injuries. The militia also destroyed several major mosques, such as Sheikh Qurayb Allah Mosque and the Nilein Mosque. It also killed several imams, muezzins, and worshipers. The militia itself documented an incident of trying to force priests to convert to Islam.
4. Using civilians as human shields, a daily practice of the militia.
5. Resorting to well-known terrorist groups such as Boko Haram and Seleka and recruiting mercenaries from terrorist backgrounds.
The statement concluded by saying that “targeting the Sudanese state and the elements and pillars of national unity in our country through this aggression means spreading chaos, turmoil, and the spread of international terrorism, and those responsible for all this are the sponsors of terrorist militias.
