New York — A plain-talking UN Secretary-General António Guterres lays the blame for the ongoing war and humanitarian catastrophe in Sudan and Darfur squarely at the feet of "two generals that completely disregard the interests of their population".

Responding today to questions on the situation in Sudan at a press conference at the conclusion of the high-level dialogue between the United Nations and the African Union on developments in Africa, Guterres "calls a spade a spade" and lambastes the Commander-in-Chief of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), Lt Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan, and Lt Gen Mohamed 'Hemedti' Dagalo, commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

'This is the fault of those that sacrifice the interests of their people for a pure struggle for power...'

Guterres pull no punches: "You have two generals that completely disregard the interests of their population, that in a struggle for power, have been fighting, in some situations with massacres like the one of the Massalit that has occurred, after a gigantic effort that was led by the African Union, that established an agreement [Juba 2020] that should lead to a full democratisation of Sudan, and all of a sudden, instead of implementing that agreement, the do coups d'états, and after that they fight each other, and probably with the support in money and weapons by some others, and then people say it's the fault of the African Union or United Nations. I think it's time to call a spade a spade..."

Laying the blame at the leaders of the warring parties, Guterres says: "This is the fault of those that sacrifice the interests of their people for a pure struggle for power, and of the ones that support them, based on considerations that I would not like to comment on today."

International voices have appealed to the UN to increase rather than decrease its presence in Sudan, following a unilateral decision by the Khartoun junta to close the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS).