Why diplomacy over Sudan, Africa’s enduring nightmare, is stuck

It is hardRSFSAF to imagine a greater irony than a man who stands accused of genocide being welcomed on an official tour of a memorial to that most heinous of crimes. But on January 6th that is precisely what happened, when Sudan’s most infamous warlord, Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo (better known as Hemedti), visited the genocide memorial in Kigali that commemorates the Rwanda catastrophe of 1994. Sudan, he said barefaced, “must learn from Rwanda”.Mr Dagalo’s paramilitary body, the Rapid Support Forces (), is waging a war to the death against Sudan’s regular army, the Sudanese Armed Forces (), for control of the state. Since the fighting erupted last April, more than 7m Sudanese have been forced from their homes; 1.4m of them have fled to neighbouring countries. Khartoum, the capital,, while parts of the countryside are on the brink of famine.