Abdel Fattah al-Burhan Abdelrahman al-Burhan (; born 1961) is a Sudanese army general who is the de facto ruler of Sudan. Following the Sudanese Revolution in April 2019, he was handed control of the military junta, the Transitional Military Council, a day after it was formed, due to protesters' dissatisfaction with the establishment ties of initial leader Ahmed Awad Ibn Auf. He served as chairman of the TMC until a draft constitutional declaration signed with civilians went into effect in August 2019, and a collective head of state Transitional Sovereignty Council was formed, also to be initially headed by al-Burhan.
The 2020 Juba Agreement allowed al-Burhan to continue to lead the Sovereignty Council for another 20 months, rather than stepping down as planned in February 2021. Al-Burhan seized power in a coup d'état in October 2021, dissolved the Sovereignty Council, and reconstituted it the following month with new membership, keeping himself as chairman. He was formerly the General Inspector of the Sudanese Armed Forces.
Early life and education
Abdel Fattah al-Burhan was born in 1961 in the village of Gandatu in northern Sudan, to a Sufi family. Al-Burhan studied elementary and intermediate level in his village school, and later moved to Shendi to complete his education before joining the Sudanese Military College among the 31st batch.
Military career
After graduating from the Military Academy, al-Burhan worked in Khartoum, as part of the Sudanese army, and participated in the fighting fronts in the Darfur war and in the Second Sudanese Civil War in South Sudan and other regions. He was regional commander in Darfur. He later traveled to Egypt and then to Jordan to receive training courses in his military field until in 2018 he was appointed commander of the ground forces of the army.
Al-Burhan held several positions throughout his career as he began as a soldier with the Border Guard Forces and later became commander of this force before becoming Deputy Chief of Staff of the Ground Forces Operations and then Chief of Staff of the Sudanese Army in February 2018 before he served as Inspector General of the Army for a period of time. By 26 February 2019, during the massive protests that swept the country and demanded the fall of Omar al-Bashir's regime, al-Burhan was elevated to the rank of lieutenant general.
Chairman of the Transitional Military Council (2019)
Shortly after his appointment, al-Burhan ordered the release of all jailed prisoners who had been arrested by his predecessor, Omar al-Bashir, in a televised address.
Khartoum massacre
In early June 2019, following al-Burhan's and Hemedti's visits to the Egyptian, UAE and Saudi leaders, the Sudanese Security Forces and Rapid Support Forces, including Janjaweed militias, led by al-Burhan and his deputy cracked down on peaceful protests in Sudan, starting with the 3 June Khartoum massacre. Human rights groups said that peaceful protesters were killed and about forty of the bodies were thrown in the river Nile, hundreds were tortured, violated and raped in the streets of Khartoum.
Al-Burhan's talks with the opposition on forming a combined government were then cancelled. During the days that followed, the TMC arrested several of the opposition leaders.
Iyad el-Baghdadi interpreted the decision-making by the TMC under al-Burhan's leadership as being strongly influenced by the general context of the Saudi, UAE and Egyptian leaders being afraid of democratic movements. Mahmoud Elmutasim, a political activist and doctor who graduated from the University of Khartoum, similarly stated that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are opposed to the existence of democracies in the Middle East, since if "the idea of democracy itself [should] ever take root, or become widespread in the Middle East," then it would constitute a threat to the governmental systems of Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Internet shutdown
Several human rights organisations including Human Rights Watch (HRW) condemned the al-Burhan-led TMC for shutting down the internet in June 2019. A spokesperson, Shamseldin Kabbashi, stated that the internet would be shut down for a long time because it represented a threat to national security. The move was described by HRW as a "gross violation of human rights". International media saw this as a sign of dictatorship and condemned the act. Many see it as an attempt to hide what al-Burhan's allied militia, known as the Janjaweed, were doing in Khartoum and
to delay uploading evidence of the violations that took place on 3 June 2019 and in the days that followed.