Since April of last year, Sudan has been locked in a brutal conflict between the army, led by Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan, and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, leader of the RSF.

During the conflict, the paramilitary group gained control of large areas, including most of Khartoum and Darfur. In contrast, the internationally recognised, army-led government in Port Sudan controls northern and eastern Sudan and is slowly regaining territory in central Sudan.

The RSF's announcement to work with a new government comes after 20 months of civil war and has raised fears of a potential partition of Sudan.

The move would challenge the internationally recognised administration, which was ousted from Khartoum last year and is now based in Port Sudan.

Members of the group forming the new government told Reuters this week that civilian politicians and armed group leaders have agreed to establish a so-called "peace government," civilian-led and independent of the RSF, but will collaborate with the paramilitary group to oversee the territories it controls.

While the RSF has said it will handle military and security matters, civilian forces will carry out governance. "We in the RSF will only carry out the military and security role, but governing will be undertaken by civilian forces independently," the group said in a statement to Reuters on Sunday.

Details on how this new administration will be structured, how it will raise funds, or when it might begin functioning remain unclear. However, members have indicated it will be based in Sudan's capital, Khartoum.

The government in Port Sudan and the army have not commented on the RSF's actions but maintain their stance as the legitimate national government. Western diplomats, aware of the discussions, have raised concerns about the RSF's capacity to govern, citing its lack of a functional chain of command and its involvement in ongoing atrocities, including ethnic cleansing in Darfur.

"I see no one rushing to recognise them," one Western diplomat told Reuters on Monday. "The biggest weakness of the RSF is no functioning chain of command. All the atrocities we see, how do we see that in a government?"

US Special Envoy to Sudan, Tom Perriello, described any new RSF-led administration as a step backwards, warning that it could function as a "government-in-exile" or a government only over RSF-controlled territories.

According to Reuters, the civilian group forming the new government includes figures who were part of the power-sharing administration that governed Sudan after the ousting of longtime president Omar al-Bashir in 2019.

Key participants include former Sovereign Council members Mohamed al-Taishi, Alhadi Idris, and Al-Tahir Hajar, alongside politician Ibrahim al-Mirghani and Suleiman Sandal, leader of a Justice and Equality Movement faction.

The civil war, which began as a power struggle between the RSF and the army after Bashir's ouster, has killed tens of thousands, displaced 12 million people, and left 26 million at risk of starvation, with millions more at risk of disease. Peace talks have stalled, with both sides relying on foreign arms for support and insisting on a decisive military victory before negotiations can resume.

Both the army and the RSF have been accused of indiscriminately bombing medical facilities and civilian areas and deliberately targeting residential zones.

"Each belligerent has their own set of tools, and they're employing them without restraint, sticking to their maximalist territorial claims," Jalel Harchaoui, an associate fellow at the London-based Royal United Services Institute, told Reuters. "This stubbornness, combined with unbridled foreign interference, may well result in partition."