A prominent Beja leader warned Sudan’s SAF junta ruler, Gen. Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan, that eastern tribes will “wipe him off the face of the earth” if their interests are sidelined in ongoing political talks, a viral video circulating Friday shows.
Ali Ukod, who heads the Democratic Front in Eastern Sudan, delivered the threat late Thursday while addressing a crowd in Port Sudan, the Red Sea city that became Sudan’s provisional capital after war erupted on April 15, 2023.
Surrounded by supporters, Ukod said any settlement that ignores Beja chief Nazir Mohamed al-Amin Terik would trigger severe retaliation.
“If Terik is bypassed, we will close the port, the airport and every highway in eastern Sudan,” Ukod declared, adding that Beja fighters would seize military vehicles if the SAF fails to supply them “just as it armed others.”
The warning deepens tensions inside al-Burhan’s camp as his newly appointed prime minister, Kamil Idris. Since late May, Idris has been consulting SAF-aligned factions in Port Sudan, but disputes over cabinet posts and the influence of Darfur rebel movements—now grouped in a “Joint Force” supporting the SAF—have stalled progress, according to local media.
Ukod singled out al-Burhan, his deputy Gen. Shams el-Din al-Kabbashi and aide Gen. Yasser al-Atta, accusing them of favoring allies from other regions while neglecting Beja demands. He reiterated that no deal is legitimate without Terik’s consent: “No one, whatever their rank, can bypass the Beja nation.”
Eastern Sudan’s Beja tribes have long complained of marginalization by Khartoum-based elites. Their strategic homeland includes Port Sudan, the country’s main seaport and a lifeline for humanitarian aid amid the civil war between the SAF and the Rapid Support Forces.
Neither the SAF nor Idris’s office immediately responded to Ukod’s remarks. Videos of the speech were widely shared on Sudanese social media, drawing both condemnation and support in a country already fraught with regional rivalries and two years of conflict.
