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A new ceasefire proposal has reached Sudan’s Security and Defense Council. Following a meeting chaired on Sunday by Transitional Sovereignty Council head and military chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the council said it prepared a response.
The proposal is the same one US Senior Advisor for Arab and African Affairs Massad Boulos brought to Cairo in late June for discussions with senior Sudanese officials, Sudanese sources in the TSC and Foreign Ministry told Mada Masr.
The framework, according to Sudanese sources and former Sudanese diplomats in Gulf capitals, is the product of months of diplomacy during which Saudi Arabia played an influential role in reshaping key aspects of it into something Khartoum is willing to engage with.
The proposal links a 90-day humanitarian truce to phased military withdrawals. And unlike a Saudi-US initiative circulated in January, it no longer envisions RSF-affiliated civilian administrations remaining in place in areas under the paramilitary group’s control. It also introduces a new international reconstruction fund aimed at supporting Sudan’s economic recovery.
Even so, the proposal remains far from settled. Khartoum continues to insist on a complete RSF withdrawal from Sudanese cities, backed by enforceable guarantees and mechanisms to ensure compliance, before any truce can take effect, according to the Sudanese sources. Washington, meanwhile, has argued for a more reciprocal formula in which a ceasefire and phased withdrawals move forward in parallel.
Boulos stressed in a post on Monday that “multiple substantive issues” in the proposal are yet to be accepted or “have been outright rejected.”
Egyptian officials told Mada Masr that preventing North Kordofan’s Obeid from becoming another Fasher has become the immediate priority driving Cairo’s intensified diplomacy and attempts to pressure the Sudanese military to accept a deal.
But military operations designed to stretch the RSF across several fronts, a former military source had previously told Mada Masr, seem to have eased some of the pressure on the city.
While the Obeid front was relatively calm this week, a military pushback against weeks of RSF offensives in North Darfur’s Ambro locality and along the western axis bordering Chad gathered pace.
RSF positions came under sustained drone strikes as ground forces retook one of the areas lost during the paramilitary group’s recent campaign.
Over 300 military vehicles carrying military-allied fighters arrived in North Darfur this week, two senior military-allied joint force sources said, describing the reinforcement as the largest sent to the state since the fall of Fasher, with more convoys expected.
In Blue Nile, after losing Kurmuk — its main logistical hub in the state — the RSF and the allied Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North attempted to establish a new supply route through the neighboring Geisan locality, according to a military source. The military repelled the incursions and continued advancing to secure additional ground.
In West Darfur, where a military campaign launched in late June brought military and allied forces within reach of the state capital Geneina, the RSF poured reinforcements into the city and retook Kulbus to its northeast on Friday after the military withdrew without engaging. A joint force source described the move as a tactical retreat. The following day, the military and its allies captured Bir Saliba, 30 km from Geneina.
Away from the frontlines, Khartoum took a step toward restoring one of the country’s most important judicial institutions. Nearly six years after Sudan’s constitutional court stopped functioning, Burhan completed its reconstitution by appointing six judges in a decree issued in late June. Four former court judges speaking to Mada Masr described the move as long-overdue and critical to fill the institutional vacuum, but said the court’s credibility will hinge on whether it can prove its independence as it confronts years of unresolved litigation and unprecedented cases born of the war.
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US truce proposal reaches Khartoum after Saudi-influenced revisions, RSF withdrawals still a sticking point
The Security and Defense Council discusses a peace proposal during a meeting in Khartoum, July 12. Photo: Transitional Sovereignty Council via Facebook.
Sudan’s Security and Defense Council said on Sunday it was “deliberating in depth” a peace proposal presented by mediators and “has prepared an agreed upon response,” in a statement the TSC issued following the council’s regular meeting.
That proposal was the subject of a series of Egypt-arranged meetings in Cairo on June 20 between US Senior Advisor for Arab and African Affairs Massad Boulos and senior Sudanese officials, according to Sudanese sources in the TSC and the Foreign Ministry.
Sudanese officials and former Sudanese diplomats described the proposal under discussion as marking a shift from Washington’s earlier efforts. The latest draft links a 90-day truce to phased military withdrawals backed by monitoring mechanisms and implementation guarantees while shifting humanitarian arrangements toward internationally led mechanisms.
The core difference, a source in Sudan’s Foreign Ministry, a TSC source and a former diplomat who served in the Gulf told Mada Masr, is that whereas previous versions of the US draft initiative contained language regarding the RSF’s withdrawal from city centers, thereby defining areas that did not have to be withdrawn from, the current draft speaks of a general withdrawal without specifying areas that will remain under civilian RSF control. Boulos, according to one of the former diplomats, also arrived with what they described as a different “diplomatic tone.” The emphasis has shifted away from foregrounding power-sharing arrangements and sidelining the military, giving Khartoum greater political space to engage with the proposal.
That evolution bears the imprint of months of Saudi diplomacy, former diplomats said, reflecting Riyadh’s insistence on prioritizing state institutions and resolving security arrangements before political negotiations. They also reflect the balancing act facing Boulos, who has been trying to navigate competing approaches by Riyadh and Abu Dhabi — both influential players with opposing interests in Sudan and fellow members of the US-led Quad — before presenting a draft that the military-led government would be willing to discuss.
Even with those revisions, the proposal remains far from settled. The main sticking point, all seven Sudanese sources Mada Masr spoke to agreed, is the order in which the terms should be implemented. Khartoum insists that the RSF withdraw from cities before a truce enters into force, while Washington has pressed for a more flexible sequencing.
“We continue discussions and to press the parties on specific proposals, with multiple substantive issues yet to be accepted and/or that have been outright rejected. Any official agreement would be formally announced,” Boulos said on Monday.
The Security and Defense Council likewise stressed in the TSC statement that any official Sudanese position would be communicated only through relevant state institutions.
The urgency surrounding those discussions comes amid heightened diplomatic warnings that North Kordofan’s Obeid could see a repeat of the atrocities committed in Fasher. Two Egyptian officials told Mada Masr that Cairo has been rallying diplomatic pressure and aiming to push Burhan to strike a deal in order to give him time to “remanage” his situation, as much as to assuage Egypt’s fears of such a potential outcome, fears that Sudanese officials do not share.
Within the US track , a detailed discussion of the proposal dominated the Sudanese delegation’s meetings with Boulos in Cairo, according to a source in the TSC.
The talks were divided into political and military tracks. Boulos discussed humanitarian and political provisions with Foreign Minister Mohie Eddin Salem, while ceasefire arrangements were taken up separately with TSC member and former deputy commander-in-chief of the military Shams Eddin Kabbashi, a Sudanese Foreign Ministry source said.
The TSC source said the framework had evolved over several months, after the failure of a January plan that saw staunch opposition from Khartoum over the language of the RSF’s partial withdrawal. This set off a new beginning with a five-point plan Boulos unveiled in February that underwent further revisions after the International Sudan Conference held in Berlin on April 15.
Addressing the United Nations Security Council in February, Boulos laid out what he called “five key pillars for international alignment:” an immediate humanitarian truce, sustained humanitarian access and civilian protection, a permanent ceasefire backed by credible security arrangements, an inclusive civilian-led political transition and a long-term recovery and reconstruction process.
Talks held between February and April focused on issues such as state sovereignty, the status of Sudan’s institutions and Khartoum’s insistence that the RSF not be accorded political legitimacy, the TSC source said.
By the time negotiations reached Cairo, discussions with US mediators had moved beyond broad “principles” and into the technical architecture of a possible agreement, the source added.
According to the Foreign Ministry source, the version presented in Cairo proposed a first phase built around a 90-day humanitarian truce accompanied by undefined withdrawals and overseen by an international monitoring mechanism comprising the UN, the African Union and the Arab League, alongside regional guarantors. It also envisioned an international reconstruction fund focused initially on restoring basic infrastructure and public services while reviving Sudan’s agricultural sector, which the source described as critical for easing the humanitarian crisis.
An Egyptian state official briefed on the plan who spoke to Mada Masr in early July said that the discussion is now focused “on the maps and how the aid convoys could move, the protection of these convoys and the team that will be responsible for handing over the humanitarian aid.”
The US is presenting the proposal as a single package linking security, humanitarian relief and economic recovery, the Foreign Ministry source said.
But despite the linkages, Washington is trying to use the intersections of security, aid and economic provisions as confidence-building mechanisms.
The Egyptian official involved in shaping Cairo’s Sudan policy told Mada Masr that Boulos’s plan is trying to achieve a reciprocal equation — “one step from the RSF is met by one step from Burhan.”
This is at the core of the flexible sequencing of events. According to the Foreign Ministry source, US officials proposed launching the truce in parallel with phased military withdrawals, arguing that an immediate cessation of hostilities would create more favorable conditions for implementing the remaining commitments.
Khartoum remains unconvinced, and Sudan is approaching it as a question of a clear hierarchy of obligations, according to the Foreign Ministry source.
For Khartoum, the source said, any truce must first address the RSF’s presence inside Sudanese cities — the central point of contention since the Jeddah declaration of May 2023, in which the RSF and the military pledged to “vacate urban centers, including civilian homes” and committed to vacating and refrain from occupying all public and private facilities or using them for military purposes.
It was around that question, another TSC source said, that Kabbashi proposed revisions intended to bring the US framework closer to Khartoum’s position.
According to the source, Kabbashi argued that the complete withdrawal of the RSF from urban areas should precede any broad humanitarian truce, rather than occur alongside it. He also called for clear verification mechanisms and a defined timetable, arguing that implementation should be monitored on the ground to ensure a ceasefire does not become an opportunity for the RSF to regroup or consolidate its positions.
The Sudanese delegation insisted that any monitoring mechanism be backed by effective enforcement powers as well as regional and international guarantees, the source said, saying such safeguards were necessary to avoid a repeat of the failures that plagued previous agreements.
Drawing on its experience since the signing of the Jeddah agreement, the military argued that agreements lacking the prior implementation of security measures were vulnerable to collapse, the source said.
Although Khartoum and Washington continue to disagree over the timing of the withdrawals, a former official at Sudan’s embassy in Riyadh argued that their inclusion in the US document reflected the degree of Saudi influence over the negotiations.
It marked a shift from an approach centered on halting military operations to one that sought to address the causes that led to the failure of previous ceasefire agreements, the source added.
According to the former official, that evolution was already evident during negotiations over the final statement of the Berlin conference, where participants debated how Sudan’s state institutions should be characterized. At the heart of those discussions were competing views over the place of the armed forces in any future transitional arrangement.
Saudi Arabia pushed for, and succeeded in including, language affirming the importance of preserving Sudan’s state institutions and recognizing the armed forces as the country’s regular military responsible for safeguarding national unity and ensuring the continuity of the state, the former official and a source close to Burhan said.
According to a former official at Sudan’s embassy in Abu Dhabi, that position was met behind the scenes with resistance from the United Arab Emirates — the RSF’s main backer and a member of the US-led Quad mechanism on Sudan alongside Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
The source close to Burhan said that divergence between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi has been the defining constraint on Washington’s mediation. The US’s desire to secure a rapid diplomatic breakthrough that could be presented as a foreign policy achievement have been complicated by fundamentally different Saudi and Emirati conceptions of state legitimacy and the future of Sudan’s military establishment, making the reconciliation of those competing positions a prerequisite for Boulos’s proposal before presenting the final draft to the Sudanese military.
While Saudi Arabia insisted on the 2023 agreement as the sole framework for a peace process, the UAE has argued within the Quad for moving beyond what the source described as the “Jeddah declaration complex” and proceeding directly to a comprehensive ceasefire — such as the proposed 90-day truce — while freezing military positions where they stand, the former official at Sudan’s embassy in Abu Dhabi said.
The same faultline also shapes competing visions for Sudan’s post-war transition. Influenced by what a former official described as overseas Sudanese political groups aligned with the Emirati agenda, Washington initially favored a transitional framework that would sideline the current military leadership and immediately establish a civilian authority with broad executive powers.
Saudi Arabia and Egypt, by contrast, pushed for what the source described as political realism: an acceptance of the military’s role in government.
The Egyptian official involved in shaping Cairo’s Sudan policy said the US approach had continued to reflect an Emirati push, advanced through Boulos, to integrate the RSF into Sudan’s state institutions.
“That is not something that Burhan will do even if he would want to, which is not the case,” the official said. According to the official, Burhan is constrained by influential constituencies within the Sudanese political and security establishment that would not tolerate major concessions to the RSF or a settlement that falls short of the group’s military defeat.
The former Sudanese official argued that Saudi diplomacy helped reframe international discussions over Sudan by shifting the emphasis away from power sharing between the warring parties toward preserving state institutions and preventing their collapse before addressing broader political questions.
However, Saudi Arabia is aware that the military cannot rule alone. As the US worked with Egyptian mediators and incorporated Saudi-backed revisions into its framework, Riyadh and Cairo continued advancing parallel political efforts through other channels.
A source in the opposition Sumud coalition told Mada Masr that Saudi officials have stepped up consultations with members of the coalition to explore a political formula capable of bridging the gap between civilian forces and the military. The discussions, according to the source, have centered on designing a transition that the armed forces could accept while preserving civilian participation in governing the post-war period.
Saudi Arabia also appears to be keen to use its sizable economic influence to try to ensure broader cohesion amid Sudan’s fragmentation.
The former Sudanese official in the embassy in Riyadh said that Saudi Arabia has sought to link political talks to economic recovery, arguing that any agreement to end the war would remain fragile unless accompanied by a credible reconstruction and recovery program.
That thinking was reflected in the revised US initiative, which included proposals for the international reconstruction fund, the rehabilitation of critical infrastructure and improvements to public services.
According to the source, Washington viewed those economic measures as practical incentives that could encourage the parties to comply with an agreement while also influencing public opinion — which puts pressure on the military — by offering civilians tangible benefits from any future settlement after more than three years of war that have devastated Sudan’s economy.
The source close to Burhan expects further negotiations would be required before a final framework could be agreed upon for formal talks, acknowledging both internal and external disagreements over the proposed truce.
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Military blocks RSF push for new supply corridor in Blue Nile, expands control
The commander of the military’s 13th Infantry Brigade announces that his forces secured villages in the Geisan locality in Blue Nile, July 10. Photo: The fourth Infantry Brigade Damazin via Facebook.
After losing Kurmuk, its main supply hub and staging ground in Blue Nile, last week, the RSF and the allied SPLM-N sought to establish a new supply route by advancing into the neighboring border locality of Geisan, a military source told Mada Masr.
The military repelled the incursions and pushed forward to secure more ground in the locality.
RSF and SPLM-N fighters attacked the villages of Adasi, Yara and Dim Saad, north of Geisan near the Ethiopian border, on Sunday, the military source said.
Troops from the military’s 13th Infantry Brigade, backed by the General Intelligence Service’s counter-terrorism authority, moved in and repelled the assault, capturing several motorcycles, according to the source. The attackers withdrew into forests in Ethiopia, they added.
Brigade commander Mohamed Adam said his forces fully secured the villages and reinforced their presence around them, adding that the security situation was now stable.
The next day, the military took control of Fashfoun, south of Geisan, following clashes with the RSF and SPLM-N. In a statement, it said troops from the 13th brigade, supported by special operations forces, captured the area on Monday after inflicting significant losses in personnel and equipment.
According to a former military officer, the areas secured in Geisan this week hold strategic value because of their proximity to the Ethiopian border and their exposure to repeated RSF and SPLM-N movements. The officer said control of the area could limit the allies’ ability to establish logistical routes from Ethiopia, while also securing an economically important area vital for trade, agriculture and livestock rearing.
With Kurmuk now under military control, the RSF and SPLM-N’s remaining positions in Blue Nile are concentrated in Yabus, in the far south of the state, as well as parts of the Bao locality.
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Military, allies launch renewed campaign in North Darfur; reinforcements arrive
The military and allied armed movements have begun a renewed push in North Darfur, sending reinforcements into the state while stepping up attacks on RSF positions near the border with Chad, according to three military-allied sources and an activist in the area who spoke to Mada Masr.
More than 300 military vehicles carrying fighters from the armed movements crossed the desert from Northern State this week, two senior sources in the movements’ joint force said. The deployment, they added, is the first of its kind since the RSF captured Fasher in October of last year and is expected to be followed by additional reinforcements from the military and allied battalions.
The incoming forces are primarily reconnaissance units and are being positioned to reinforce troops stationed in the strategic border town of Tina and along the western Chad border, they said. Their mission also includes disrupting RSF supply lines from Libya and carrying out attrition attacks against RSF positions and troop concentrations, according to the sources.
On Wednesday, the joint force launched a surprise attack on the recently established RSF position at the Orshi reservoir in the Ambro locality, according to a field source.
The source said fighters attacked from multiple directions, forcing RSF troops to retreat. During the operation, the joint force captured ammunition depots and several military vehicles while destroying others, they added.
The RSF had taken control of Orshi in mid-June amid its broader campaign in Ambro. Its fighters killed several civilians and burned down eight nearby villages during the attack, a tribal leader told Mada Masr at the time.
The ground offensive coincided with sustained drone strikes on RSF positions across Ambro this week, a political activist from the area told Mada Masr. The strikes prompted large numbers of RSF fighters to leave the locality, the activist said, while those who remained are surrounded by forces from the armed movements and mobilized civilian fighters.
The renewed push comes after weeks of RSF operations across Ambro that have affected more than 50 towns and villages and displaced over 40,000 people, according to a member of the Ambro emergency room coordination committee who previously spoke to Mada Masr.
The tribal leader said that the RSF campaign against Ambro was aimed at driving communities out of the area to secure RSF supply routes running through Chad and Libya.
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RSF retakes West Darfur’s Kulbus, military allies move within 30 km of Geneina
The RSF retakes the town of Kulbus in West Darfur, July 10. Photo: Sudan War Updates via X.
As the RSF rushes reinforcements into West Darfur’s capital of Geneina in response to a campaign that has brought military troops within reach of the city, the paramilitary group retook the strategic town of Kulbus to its northeast on June 10 after the military and its allied joint force withdrew without fighting.
A field source in the joint force described the withdrawal as tactical, saying the RSF advanced with large numbers of fighters and military equipment in an effort to secure a swift victory. Rather than engage, military forces pulled back.
An RSF field source confirmed that the group retook Kulbus and parts of Jebel Moon on June 10 before sweeping the area and establishing defensive positions.
The military and joint force troops seized Kulbus, around 160 km from Geneina, in a surprise operation in late June, taking control of a key RSF logistics hub on the Chadian border.
According to the joint force source, the withdrawing troops repositioned at three points around Kulbus: east toward Jebel Moon, southwest around Bir Saliba and north along the Chadian border. The source said the military continues to pursue a strategy of attrition rather than attempting to hold ground.
On Saturday, the joint force and mobilized civilian fighters captured the strategic Bir Saliba area, about 30 km north of Geneina, after heavy clashes that inflicted casualties on the RSF and destroyed or led to the capture of several military vehicles, according to a former state official.
The RSF source said the group is expected to move next to retake Bir Saliba before advancing toward the joint force’s main positions in Gargira and Tina in North Darfur.
The source dismissed the prospect of the military and its allies mounting an assault on Geneina, saying thousands of RSF-aligned fighters are now concentrated in the city.
The RSF has spent the past week reinforcing Geneina with additional fighters and military equipment, the former official said. The group also began digging trenches and building sand berms around the city’s outskirts, they added.
In the aftermath of the RSF’s recapture of Kulbus, the International Organization for Migration said on Wednesday that nearly 600 civilians were displaced from the town and surrounding villages between July 10 and 13. The displaced families fled to other areas in the Kulbus locality or across the Chadian border, the agency said.
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Seven killed in Northern State’s Dabba clashes as drug trafficking groups exchange fire
Clashes break out between armed groups in Dabba, Northern State, July 14. Photo: Darfur Victims Support via X.
Seven people were killed and at least 16 injured in clashes that broke out on Tuesday afternoon in Dabba, Northern State, a medical source told Mada Masr. Security sources and a community leader said the violence began as a dispute between rival trafficking networks before spiraling into a deadly exchange of fire.
A government source in Dabba said security forces had since brought the situation under control and launched an investigation into the violence.
The fighting broke out near the Nakheel resort west of the Dabba market, amid an intensified anti-narcotics campaign by security agencies, according to a security source on the Dabba locality’s security committee and the community leader in the area.
A vendor at the Dabba market said the intensity of the gunfire forced vendors to close their shops while shoppers fled the market, bringing commercial activity to a standstill.
The wounded were taken to the Dabba hospital, where, the trader said, staff struggled to cope with the sudden influx of casualties.
A senior source in the Northern State branch of the General Intelligence Service said several residents were injured because the fighting broke out in a densely populated neighborhood before security forces intervened.
Security personnel have been conducting operations around the resort and nearby Hosh Mallit — a major transit hub for trucks travelling from Darfur that authorities suspect is used for smuggling, the Dabaa security source and the community leader said.
In the days leading up to the clashes, the area’s rival trafficking groups — one affiliated with the Kababish tribe and the other with the Midob tribe, part of the Zaghawa tribe — accused each other of cooperating with security forces, the sources said.
The community leader alleged that clashes also drew in the military-aligned joint force — the coalition of Darfuri armed movements whose ranks are largely drawn from the Zaghawa. Four of its military vehicles, the leader said, entered the area where the fighting had broken out and attacked Kababish fighters, turning the clash into what the leader described as an ethnically charged confrontation.
Another security source said the scale of the clashes and the number of fatalities suggested possible joint force involvement, adding that investigators have not yet ruled out the possibility that members of the force were implicated.
Joint force spokesperson Motawakkel Ali Wakil categorically denied any involvement, telling Mada Masr the joint force “had no connection to the clashes in Dabba” and that none of its units had taken part in the fighting.
The Dabba clashes and accusations of joint force involvement come amid mounting scrutiny of the coalition, the military’s main battlefield ally, following a string of deadly security incidents over recent weeks.
In Port Sudan, a counter-narcotics raid ended in a deadly shootout that investigators linked to members of the coalition’s constituent movements. Days earlier, authorities had announced the seizure of narcotics from joint force members in River Nile State, before a confrontation inside a White Nile police station involving individuals in the force killed a police officer.
The latest violence has added to pressure on authorities to reassess a wartime policy that expanded the joint force’s role beyond the frontlines, entrusting it with securing state institutions, protecting transport corridors and participating in policing operations inside military-held cities.
Security and armed movement sources previously told Mada Masr that the rapid expansion of those responsibilities, accompanied by accelerated recruitment, weakened vetting mechanisms and enabled individuals with criminal backgrounds to enter its ranks.
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Burhan reconstitutes constitutional court after six-year hiatus; former judges say it faces tests of independence, wartime disputes
Nearly a year after appointing a president to Sudan’s long-dormant constitutional court, Burhan completed the court’s reconstitution by appointing six judges in two decrees issued June 30.
The decrees, of which Mada Masr obtained copies, are yet to be published in the Official Gazette.
The appointments restore Sudan’s highest constitutional authority after years during which it remained effectively defunct, leaving thousands of constitutional petitions without a judicial body empowered to hear them.
A copy of the decree by the Transitional Sovereignty Council appointing judges to the constitutional court, obtained by Mada Masr.
Four former constitutional court judges told Mada Masr that ending that vacuum is an institutional necessity. But they said the court must now prove it can act independently and earn public trust in a deeply contested political environment.
Alongside clearing years of accumulated constitutional litigation, the court is also expected to confront unprecedented disputes arising from the extraordinary legal and executive measures adopted since the outbreak of the war, according to the former judges.
It will also have to determine which constitutional framework should govern its rulings after years of amendments, competing legal arrangements and suspended constitutional provisions. And even then, they questioned how its decisions could be enforced across a country administratively and territorially divided by the war.
The constitutional court serves as the country’s highest constitutional authority. It is responsible for determining whether laws comply with the constitution, protecting fundamental rights and freedoms and settling disputes over the limits of state power. It is also the only court empowered to hear constitutional challenges.
That institution has effectively been missing since 2019. Following the ouster of former President Omar al-Bashir, the country’s transitional authorities failed to agree on the composition of the court despite establishing other institutions under the 2019 constitutional document. The October 2021 coup led by Burhan and his then-ally Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, the leader of the RSF, further derailed the process, before the outbreak of war in April 2023 disrupted much of the state’s remaining judicial infrastructure.
The process of restoring the court began in September of last year, when Burhan appointed Wahby Mokhtar as its president. Mokhtar headed the court from 2014 until 2019, serving under Bashir before the court was dissolved in the aftermath of his ouster. But despite the appointment, the court remained unable to function for months, with no judges appointed to sit alongside him.
For the former constitutional court judges who spoke to Mada Masr, appointing the court’s panel of judges was long overdue as its prolonged absence had created a serious gap in the justice system.
“The constitutional court is not a political institution that can simply be dispensed with during times of crisis,” one former judge said. “It is the final guarantor of fundamental rights and the institution citizens turn to when they are unable to obtain constitutional protection from any other body.”
Yet all four former judges stressed that filling the posts is only a first step. Whether the court can reclaim its constitutional role, they argued, will depend on whether it is seen as independent of the authorities that appointed it.
That question is particularly challenging, another former judge said, because Sudan remains without a permanent constitution or a constitutional framework that commands broad political consensus after years of overlapping transitional arrangements.
“Some political forces may view the court’s formation as part of the current governing arrangement,” they said. “That makes it essential for the court to earn public trust through its rulings and institutional conduct.”
The court’s first politically sensitive cases, they added, are likely to become an early test of its independence. Questions surrounding executive authority and constitutional limits on state power will reveal whether the institution is prepared to act autonomously rather than as an extension of the political order.
The former judges also pointed to the unprecedented terrain awaiting the court. Years of emergency decrees, wartime measures and exceptional executive decisions have created constitutional disputes unlike those the court previously handled. A third former judge said resolving those cases would require “judicial reasoning of the highest caliber,” balancing the extraordinary realities of war against the fundamental principles of justice and the rule of law.
The judges also raised a more fundamental question: what constitutional text the court will interpret. Since Bashir’s overthrow, Sudan has operated under a succession of constitutional arrangements and amendments, leaving the legal basis for constitutional adjudication far less straightforward.
“Constitutional courts are, by nature, expected to interpret legal texts in light of overarching constitutional principles,” a fourth former judge said. “But the absence of a stable constitutional framework may subject the court to unprecedented legal tests.”
The former judge also questioned how constitutional rulings could be enforced nationwide while the country remains divided by parallel, competing administrations in territorial spheres of influence.
A senior TSC official hailed the appointments as a step toward rebuilding Sudan’s judicial institutions and ending the constitutional vacuum. The official denied that political considerations had shaped the selection process, saying judges were chosen based on experience and professional qualifications.
The official added that the council would provide the support necessary for the court to exercise its mandate independently without interference from the executive branch.
A human rights lawyer in Khartoum said the court’s return is something Sudan urgently needs to help define the legal boundaries of the state as it addresses the consequences of years of wartime governance.
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The post Sudan Nashra: US truce proposal reaches Khartoum after Saudi-influenced revisions, RSF withdrawals a sticking point | Military blocks RSF push for new supply line in Blue Nile | Military, allies launch renewed campaign in North Darfur | RSF retakes West Darfur’s Kulbus after ‘tactical’ joint force withdrawal first appeared on Mada Masr .