Egypt confirms killing of embassy staff in Sudan

By Ibrahim Khazen, Adel Abdelrheem and Hamdi Yildiz

CAIRO (AA) – Egypt on Monday confirmed the killing of the assistant administrative attaché at the country’s main diplomatic mission in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan engulfed in incessant violence.

Mohammad al-Gharrawi was killed while he was driving to the embassy building to take care of the evacuation procedures of Egyptians stranded in Sudan, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Initially, the Sudanese army announced that Egypt’s assistant military attache was killed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces fire. However, later the statement regarding the killing was corrected.

More than 400 people have been reported killed and 3,500 injured since April 15, when fighting erupted between the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Khartoum and its surroundings.

A disagreement had been fomenting in recent months between the army and RSF over military security reform. The reform envisages the full participation of the RSF in the military, one of the main issues in the negotiation process carried out by international and regional parties for the transition to civilian and democratic rule in Sudan.