🌐🤯 UN Stands Firm as Sudan Tries to Evict Diplomat – Is This An International Breakup?

TL:DR; 🚀💨 Sudan’s army chief is looking to oust the UN’s special envoy, Volker Perthes, accusing him of being a third-wheel in their internal affairs. 🧐 But the UN, in its resilient love for diplomacy, isn’t letting go. A fierce debate is unfolding, with the Sudanese authorities refusing to let Perthes back into the country. Meanwhile, UN’s big boss, Antonio Guterres, is sticking up for his envoy. 🤷‍♀️ Whose side are you on?

💥 Here’s where the drama starts, folks. The Sudanese army chief, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, sent a rather unexpected letter (which no one seems to have an official copy of, suspicious 🧐) to UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, saying, “Hey, we don’t want your envoy Volker Perthes anymore.” They’re accusing Perthes of, get this, ‘foreign intervention,’ and causing a ruckus in their transition to a civilian government. Not cool, right?

Perthes, for his part, is chilling in New York City, where he just briefed the UN Security Council about the situation in Sudan. 😎✌️ When asked about his return, the officials shrugged, saying they haven’t been giving out visas since the war started. Guess the welcome mat is not out for Perthes?

But Guterres isn’t taking this lying down. In a statement, he expressed his shock 😲 and backed Perthes, proud of the work he’s done. 💪 He’s standing by his special representative, leaving us all to wonder if Sudan will budge. 🤔

Meanwhile, al-Burhan and his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Daglo, who controls the mighty Rapid Support Forces, are at war. And by that, we mean literal war. They’re in the middle of a one-week ceasefire brokered by the US and Saudi Arabia, but they can’t seem to stop throwing accusations at each other. 🙄

As this diplomatic tango unfolds, observers are stating that the UN’s presence in Sudan has always been a thorn in the military’s side, especially since the conflict in Darfur during the 2000s and the 2021 coup. 😕

So, it seems like Perthes’ exit wasn’t a total shocker. Aicha Elbasri, a former spokeswoman for the African Union-UN mission in Darfur, said, “He knew the future in Sudan was rather bleak for himself.” 💔

Meanwhile, Sudan’s defence ministry called on “army pensioners … as well as all those capable of bearing arms” to arm themselves and protect their families and neighbours. Later, they toned it down to just army “reservists” and “pensioners”. 🙈 It’s a mess, folks, and it’s cost over 1,800 lives, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.

The UN reports that more than a million people have been displaced within Sudan, and another 300,000 have sought refuge in neighbouring countries. The situation is, to put it lightly, chaotic. 🌪️

This news raises a lot of thought-provoking questions, doesn’t it? How do we define ‘foreign intervention’? Should global entities like the UN have the right to intervene in a country’s internal affairs? Are countries like Sudan able to make their own decisions without being subjected to international influence?

But most importantly, what’s your take on the UN standing by its