Largely ignored by the global media, war has been raging in Sudan for the last 15 months. The conflict between the official Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) of General Abd al-Fatah al-Burhan and the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo has cost somewhere between 15,000 and 150,000 lives (accurate casualty assessments are impossible).
Some 10.2 million people have been displaced (from a total population of 47 million). A recent report by the World Food Program (WFP) estimates that around 25 million people in Sudan need humanitarian assistance. The report describes the situation in Sudan as constituting the “world’s largest hunger crisis.”
The prospect looming now, according to aid groups, is famine. A statement by the Norwegian Refugee Council, quoted by Al Jazeera on September 3, said that “Sudan is experiencing a starvation crisis of historic proportions. And yet, the silence is deafening. People are dying of hunger every day, and yet the focus remains on semantic debates and legal definitions.”
The conflict in Sudan fits into the pattern of wars that have gripped the Middle East over the last decade and a half as it heads toward the de facto collapse of the state, the entry into the country’s territory of rival powers, each sponsoring their preferred local client, and the resulting de facto partition of the country.
Versions of this scenario have taken place over the last 15 years in Libya, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon. Sudan has already seen one large part of its territory broken off, with the formation of the new Republic of South Sudan in 2011 after a successful and bloody insurgency. South Sudan is unique (so far), since it is the only one, of the many de facto entities in existence on the ruined corpse of the Arab state order, to have achieved international recognition as a new state.
The current war in Sudan between the SAF and the RSF differs from other conflicts in Arab League member states because there is no obvious ideological aspect to it. At the same time, it would be simplistic to see it as divorced from the larger geopolitical rivalries that define power relations in the region.
In terms of the direct participants, both the SAF and the RSF derive from the armed forces of the regime of Omar al-Bashir, the Islamist-tinged dictatorship that held power from 1989 until it was brought down in 2019. The SAF constituted the official armed forces of the dictatorship. The RSF, meanwhile, emerged from murderous western Sudanese tribal militias recruited by the regime during the earlier civil war and were known initially as the Janjaweed (devils on horses).
These militias emerged from the Arabic-speaking populations of Sudan’s Darfur province. They were the force responsible for the huge massacres of the African population in that area, on behalf of the Bashir regime, in the first decade of this century.
The SAF and RSF cooperated in bringing down Bashir in 2019 and in toppling the civilian successor government of Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok in October 2021. Since then, General Burhan has functioned as the effective head of state. In mid-2023, as the two remaining effective power centers in the country, the SAF and RSF turned on each other. Fighting began in Khartoum on April 15, 2023.
THE RSF made rapid advances. As of now, they control much of the west of the country, including the capital and Jazeera state, known as the “breadbasket” of Sudan. The SAF has made its headquarters in Port Sudan, the country’s sole port, and remains in control of most of the country’s east.
Alberto Fernandez
Alberto Fernandez, a former US diplomat who served in Sudan, in a recent briefing on the country to the Middle East Forum, characterized both sides as “basically corrupt business empires feeding off of Sudan.” The SAF, Fernandez noted, owns “corporations, factories, industries” that form a “commercial empire.” The RSF, meanwhile, has taken over gold mines in the west of the country.
At the same time, Fernandez does not entirely dismiss the ideological element of the conflict. He noted that the SAF was thoroughly “Islamized” under Bashir and, as a consequence, it is still “intimately tied at various levels with the Islamist political project in Sudan.” By contrast, the RSF, while “bloody and brutal, is not particularly ideological. They’re transactional.”
The array of international powers supporting each of the sides appear to partially reflect this characterization. The SAF is supported by Egypt and Saudi Arabia but also has backing from Iran.
The RSF, meanwhile, has the support of the United Arab Emirates (though Abu Dhabi officially denies this) and from General Khalifa Haftar’s de facto government in eastern Libya. In the initial stages of the conflict, reports also suggested that it was supported by Russia’s Wagner (or Africa Corps) group, though later reporting has suggested that the Russians have now shifted their preference to the SAF.
Sudanese real estate
SUDAN CONSTITUTES prime strategic real estate at the dividing point between the Middle East and Africa. The country has 800 km. of coastline along the Red Sea. It is the entry point to the Sahel, the Sahara, and the Horn of Africa. Red Sea access is the key geostrategic element, making Sudan important to rival Middle East powers. Iran is currently providing Mohajer-6 and Ababil drones to the SAF in its war effort, hoping to attain increased influence in the Red Sea area following a Burhan victory.
The Gaza war and the Houthis’s campaign against shipping in the Red Sea/Gulf of Aden have underlined the vital importance of this area. Iran wants to leverage support to the SAF to gain additional influence there. It is likely that such influence would also be used to induce Khartoum to retreat from its establishment of relations with Israel in the framework of the 2020 Abraham Accords.
Egypt has been the strongest backer of the SAF from among the Arab countries. This is despite the Islamist component on the SAF side, and Cairo’s hostility to the Muslim Brotherhood and Sunni political Islam. The reasons for Egyptian support for the SAF are practical – deriving from concerns about a possible flow of refugees into Egypt and, primarily, suspicions of RSF links to Ethiopia, with which Cairo is locked in a key dispute over issues related to access to the Nile.
On the other side, and despite official denials, the UAE appears to have similar ideas regarding the RSF. Abu Dhabi is a major importer of gold from Sudan, and the RSF has taken control of gold mining areas of the country. The UAE is acutely aware of the strategic importance of the Red Sea area; according to some reports, it has extensive plans for new ports along the Sudanese coast. Abu Dhabi has supplied drones and other military assistance to the RSF.
The RSF (like the SAF) is a murderous force, and the UAE clearly understands that public association with it will bring little benefit. At the same time, the geopolitical underlying logic is clear. The Islamist links of the SAF probably constitute an additional significant motivating factor.
US- and Saudi-sponsored talks to resolve the Sudan war have currently broken down. With deaths from starvation increasing, the prospect appears to be for the fighting between the two rival conglomerates to continue. This is set to bring greater suffering to the people of Sudan. The “international community” and “global civil society” appear largely indifferent.