The government of Sudan has strongly condemned the terrorist attacks that struck the French capital Paris on Friday, expressing its “full solidarity with France…to combat violence and fundamentalism.”
The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has claimed responsibility for the attacks, which targeted cafes, restaurants, a concert hall and a sports stadium. According to media reports, as many as 129 people were killed and 350 were injured. The attackers reportedly used assault rifles and suicide vests.
In a statement issued on Saturday, Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned in the strongest possible terms the “criminal bombing” in Paris.
As quoted by state-run media SUNA, the Sudanese government “sends its condolences to the government and people of France and the families and relatives of the victims.”
The Sudanese Foreign Ministry said that the attacks “go against all norms and all religions and against all human values,” blaming these acts on “traitorous hands now targeting innocent people and spreading blind destruction around the world.”
French President François Hollande on Saturday called the attacks an act of war against his country. “What happened yesterday in Paris and St. Denis was an act of war. Faced with war, the country has to take appropriate stteps.
“Its an act of war which was committed by a terrorist army – Daesh [the Arabic acronym ‘ISIS’], a Jihadist army, against France… It was an act of war that was prepared, organized, planned from from outside, with help from the inside, which inquiries will establish.”
Meanwhile, Sudan’s SPLM-N rebel leader Malik Agar has also condemned the attacks in Paris, calling them hateful crimes “against peace-loving people worldwide.”
“The SPLM-N stands with the people of France and pays condolences to the families and French people, you are not alone we are in the same trench with you against terrorism,” he said.
Separately, the Belgian government arrested three people suspected of links to the attacks in Paris, following a police raid on a residential area in the capital Brussels. The police said the raid followed the discovery of a a car rented in Belgium that was found in Paris near the Bataclan concert hall, one of the sites where civilians were killed.
Also on Saturday, German police reported that they arrested a man traveling in a vehicle near the German-Austrian border whom they suspected of involvement in the Paris attacks. The man was found carrying firearms, explosives and hand grenades.