Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and its allies have agreed to set up a parallel government, sources said Sunday, despite warnings such a move could further fragment the war-ravaged country.

Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allied political and armed groups have signed a charter to establish a parallel government, in a move that risks deepening the country’s fragmentation amid a nearly two-year civil war. The agreement, signed late on Saturday in Kenya, aims to create a “government of peace and unity.”

The RSF has seized most of the western Darfur region and swathes of the Kordofan region in an almost-two-year war, but is being pushed back from central Sudan by the Sudanese army.

The RSF has seized most of the western Darfur region and swathes of the Kordofan region in an almost-two-year war, but it is being pushed back from central Sudan by the Sudanese army, which has condemned the formation of a parallel government.