Fifteen staff members of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Embassy in Sudan have been declared persona non grata, receiving an injunction on Sunday, December 10, to leave the country within 48 hours. The expulsion notice was directly communicated to the Acting Chargé d’Affaires of the United Arab Emirates in Sudan, Badriya Al-Shahi, who was summoned for this purpose by the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as reported by the Sudanese official news agency, « SUNA. »
This decision by the authorities in Khartoum, without providing details on the motivations behind these expulsions, comes two days after the United Arab Emirates declared three Sudanese diplomats persona non grata and expelled them from their territory on Saturday, December 10.
In late November 2023, the Sudanese Army had asserted that in the conflict opposing it to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the UAE government played a supporting role on the enemy’s side. This allegation was promptly denied by Abu Dhabi.