Abdel Fattah al-Burhan

Biography

Abdel Fattah al-Burhan was born in 1960 in the village of Gandatu in northern Sudan and attended the Sudanese Military College. As an army officer he served in the war in Darfur, where he became a regional commander, and in the Second Sudanese Civil War, and he took further military training in Egypt and Jordan. He began in the Border Guard and later commanded it, became chief of staff of the army in February 2018, and was also inspector general. During the mass protests against Omar al-Bashir he was promoted to lieutenant general in February 2019.

After the army removed Bashir in April 2019, the first head of the military junta, Ahmed Awad Ibn Auf, stepped down within a day under pressure from protesters, and al-Burhan took over as chairman of the Transitional Military Council on 12 April. On 3 June 2019 forces under the council violently dispersed the Khartoum sit-in, killing well over a hundred people. A power-sharing deal with civilian groups followed, and in August 2019 he became chairman of the new Transitional Sovereignty Council, with Abdalla Hamdok as prime minister.

The 2020 Juba Agreement extended his chairmanship. On 25 October 2021 he led a coup that removed the civilian government, dissolved the Sovereignty Council and reconstituted it under his chairmanship in November. Hamdok was briefly reinstated but resigned in January 2022.

In April 2023 fighting broke out between the army and the Rapid Support Forces led by his former deputy Hemedti. Al-Burhan was trapped at army headquarters in Khartoum until August 2023, when he moved to Port Sudan. He survived a drone attack on a military ceremony in Gebeit in July 2024, and in January 2025 the United States imposed sanctions on him.