Secretary General Antonio Guterres received the letter on Friday from Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of Sudan’s ruling Sovereignty Council, according to UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
“The Secretary-General was shocked by the message he received this (Friday) morning,” Dujarric said. “The Secretary-General is proud of the work done by Volker Peretz and reaffirms his full confidence in his Special Representative,” he added.
The development comes amid fighting between the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that began in mid-April. The two sides agreed to abide by the week-long ceasefire brokered by the United States and Saudi Arabia. But the truce, which was due to expire on Monday, did not prevent fighting in parts of Khartoum and elsewhere in the country.
Dujarric did not disclose the contents of the letter. However, a senior military official said Burhan’s letter asked Guterres to replace his envoy to the northeast African country, appointed in 2021.
According to the official, Al-Burhan accused Peretz of being “biased”, noting that his approach to pre-war talks between the generals and the pro-democracy movement helped fuel the conflict.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to brief the media.
Peretz, who was appointed in 2021 as the UN envoy to Sudan, declined to comment on the letter.
Al-Burhan last year accused Peretz of “exceeding the mandate of the UN mission and flagrant interference in Sudanese affairs”, and threatened to expel him from the country.
Al-Burhan’s message came after the UN envoy accused the two warring sides of breaking the laws of war by attacking homes, shops, places of worship and facilities in water and electricity.
In his briefing to the UN Security Council earlier this week, Peretz blamed the military and RSF commanders for the war, saying they had chosen to “settle their unresolved conflict on the battlefield rather than to sit at the table”.
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