On June 14, 2022, ECFA organized a symposium in which it hosted His Excellency the former Minister of Foreign Affairs / Mohamed El-Orabi, ECFA member, to talk about the objectives, activities and results of the visit of the Egyptian civil society delegation, which he headed, to the sisterly Republic of Sudan, from May 10 to 12, 2022. The symposium was opened by Ambassador Dr. Mounir Zahran, ECFA Chairman, and attended by Ambassadors: Dr. Ezzat Saad, ECFA Director, Ali El-Hefny, Rakha Hassan, Mohamed Mounir, Farouk Mabrouk, Dr. Hazem Attiatallah, Dr. Gamal Al-Shaer, Dr. Sadeq Abdel-Aal, and Ms. Laila Moussa, Mr. Ayman Adly, and a number of researchers and those interested in Sudanese affairs.
The guest indicated that this visit is the third, after two visits in 2015 and 2017, successively, in order to get acquainted closely with the situation in Sudan, including the positions of the political spectra present there, adding that the delegation consisted of a number of political, parliamentary, academic and media figures. Ambassador El-Orabi reviewed the delegation’s agenda, and the role of the Egyptian embassy in Khartoum in carrying out its tasks, indicating that the delegation met with a Sudanese media and academic elite, elements of the Forces for Freedom and Change, and members of the Transitional Sovereign Council led by the Sudan Revolutionary Front, where they were received by Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, Chairperson of the Sovereign Council. The delegation also met with elements of the Popular Resistance Committees youth, meanwhile it held a meeting with a joint delegation from the Sudanese civil administrations and Sufi orders, and with a number of families of the citizens martyred in the events of October 2021, in addition to visiting the Coptic Orthodox Church in Sudan.
In this context, Ambassador El-Orabi indicated that there are several Sudanese entities, each having its own different organizational body, with many orientations, titles and designations, which involves more complications in the Sudanese scene, especially as these entities level accusations against each other; adding that despite the different Sudanese entities, they all settled on the fact that Cairo was expected to engage in the Sudanese scene a long time ago. Rather, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan called for the importance of Egypt joining the tripartite mechanism consisting of the United Nations, the African Union and the IGAD, which is concerned with completing the necessary arrangements to facilitate the process of negotiations between the Sudanese stakeholders, in order to find consensual political solutions satisfactory to all parties.
The guest appreciated Egypt’s very wise position on the Sudanese scene, especially since the Sudanese are very sensitive to any external attempts that involve dictating them their will, and they confront them violently. He added that Cairo should approach the Sudanese society and maintain continuous communication with it, by presenting various development projects in the fields of electricity, health, education, arts and culture, and arranging exchange visits and workshops between Egyptian and Sudanese university professors, especially at the University of Khartoum, as well as restoring Egyptian media interest in Sudan, and its features are similar to the “Rukn al-Sudan” program, which was previously broadcast on Egyptian channels. It is also necessary to build on the Sufi trait and its strong emotional influence in Sudan, as this brings about a deep rapprochement and a revival of fraternity between Egyptians and Sudanese who are religious in nature.
