SUDAN NEWS ALERT: Sudan Tribune - Al-Mahdi rejects linking peace in Sudan to secular state

13/1/2020: Sudan Tribune - Al-Mahdi rejects linking peace in Sudan to secular state

Sudan Tribune reports that the leader of the National Umma Party, Sadiq al-Mahdi rejected the demands of the SPLM-N led by Abdel Aziz al-Hilu for a secular state in Sudan as a condition to end the armed conflict.

In a speech in Sennar, al-Mahdi told his supporters that every political entity has the right when elections are held to campaign for the separation of religion from the state, or to call for a religious state, “but someone cannot say that if you do not accept my political programme, I will not accept peace.”

Al-Mahdi added that “peace should be agreed upon by removing the causes that led to the war.”