Sudanese Interior Minister to AWP: Police Forces Are Training to Confront RSF
(AWP) - Sudanese Interior Minister, Khalil Pasha Sairin, said that the police forces are currently being trained on urban warfare to help the army in confronting the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Sairin told AWP, “There are efforts and arrangements to benefit from the existing manpower. We may not need to recruit new numbers, but the existing numbers are sufficient, and they only need to be provided with weapons in place of those looted in Khartoum so they can play their role in participating with the armed forces on the front lines or in securing states and regions that are being liberated.”
“There is also another direction, which is training for urban warfare because it is a qualitative war and requires specialised training,” he added.
The Sudanese minister revealed that police personnel have received urban warfare training in the states of Gedaref, Red Sea, and River Nile, and have been deployed on the front lines.
He also mentioned that a committee had been formed by the Sudanese Transitional Sovereignty Council to evaluate the financial losses of the ongoing civil war but said its work was still in the early stages, and the cost to reform the police, repair the damage to the headquarters and replace looted weaponry had yet to be determined.
Sairin explained, “The beginning of the war in Khartoum led to the destruction of most of the [interior] ministry’s resources, including state buildings, electrical appliances, information systems devices, transportation, and all other work aids.”
He added, “We made a preliminary inventory of the things affected by the vandalism. However, a financial amount has not yet been determined for them because the committee is still working on the preliminary inventory of everything that was destroyed and looted by the rebel militia.”
Sudanese police were previously accused of abandoning their duties to protect citizens during the first months of the civil war. However, Sairin said that their withdrawal was a tactic to protect the police force which, being a non-combat civilian force, lacked both training and the necessary weapons to fight RSF militias.
The Sudanese Interior Ministry has also contacted police who left their assigned locations to go to other parts of Sudan or fled the country at the beginning of the war, asking them to return to their posts.
Sairin said, “Even those who are outside the country, the Ministry is aware of them, and they have been asked to inform the embassies in the countries they travelled to, given that the embassy represents the state in the places they immigrated to. People were informed, and some of them were needed and were returned to their workplaces.”
According to Sairin, cross-border smuggling is among the most difficult challenges currently faced by the Sudanese police.
“Of course, people are striving to reduce smuggling by the greatest possible percentage, up to 80 or 90 percent, but eliminating it by 100 percent is impossible,” he stressed.
“Especially if we look at the geography of Sudan, adjacent to seven countries, with open borders without natural obstacles, and the war environment itself encourages smuggling,” he added, noting that weapons, ammunition, gold, and drugs are among the most smuggled goods.
Sairin concluded, “The customs administration has precise, specialised department with good capabilities in terms of cars, manpower, and weapons, but it is not sufficient to cover all the borders. There is a trend towards developing surveillance methods by using somewhat advanced means instead of traditional ones, especially drones for [surveillance] cameras, which are inexpensive.”