Tue 27 October 2020:
The UAE sent an aid package worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Sudan, just days after the African country normalised ties with Israel.
The Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD) sent $556.5 million worth of aid to support Sudan’s financial, economic, health, education, nutrition and agriculture sectors, Emirati WAM news agency reported.
“The aid was part of an overall Emirati grant worth 1.5 billion dollars to fulfil the basic needs of the Sudanese people,” ADFD Director-General Mohammed Saif Al Suwaidi told WAM in statements.
The UAE is a staunch backer of the current military junta in Sudan – which now shares power with civilian entities – that displaced former President Omar Al-Bashir in 2019.
Abu Dhabi has spearheaded the Arab-Israeli normalisation project since announcing in August it would establish ties with Israel.
Sudan’s ambassador to the UAE said that Abu Dhabi had played a key part in Khartoum’s normalisation with Israel, which was announced on 23 October and strongly opposed by the public.
“The UAE has played a significant role in achieving the peace accord. They closely followed the negotiations from the beginning and offered assistance to bring more parties to the negotiation table,” said the ambassador Mohammed Amin Abdullah Al Karib.
The military – as well as the adjacent Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a powerful paramilitary force that activists said played a leading role in last year’s killings – is now in a fragile, three-year pact with civilians.
On 3 June 2019, anti-junta protesters took part in a sit-in in the capital Khartoum, which led to the military killing around 130 people during its crackdown on the demonstration.
Sudanese opposition parties also blamed the UAE for pressurising Khartoum into normalisation.
