Since April 2023, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), controlled by his former deputy, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo alias Hemeti, have been fighting for the control of central power in Khartoum. As the conflict worsens, Chad is accused of supporting Hemeti with weapons from the United Arab Emirates. Historically, the two neighboring countries have accused each other of fueling rebellions inside one another’s borders. The reasons for this are the existence of ethnic groups present in both countries as well as mercenary activities available to the highest bidder, thus leading to shifting alliances. The challenge now facing Sudan and Chad is not unique to them. Many other African countries during the colonial era were configured, by cutting through the borders of ethnic groups into two, or even three and more states. Many of these groups ignore state borders drawn under colonization, maintaining loyalty to their ancestral ties. Through these ongoing ethnic ties, they manage to influence the governance of the nations they live in all the more easily since central actors, on both sides, are recruited from their midst. Perhaps most interesting is the fact that it is common to see the same families leading in two countries, under different nationalities.
Borders intangibility
These ethnic solidarities question the “intangible borders,” one of the founding principles of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the predecessor of the African Union. It was the second OAU Conference of Heads of States and Governments, meeting in Cairo, Egypt, that adopted the “principles of intangible borders” on July 21, 1964. The summit “solemnly declared that all member states undertake to respect the borders existing at the time they gained independence.” These borders were supposed to constitute a rigid symbol of the African political and social space.
The debates were intense, to the point of dividing African leaders into two blocs: the ‘Casablanca Group’ and the ‘Monrovia Group.’ The first, said to be progressive, preached continental unity and the physical overhaul of the new states, in order to take into account, among other arguments, the homogeneity of their respective populations. The second group, considered ‘conservative,’ were supporters of the status quo, insisting on the inviolability of existing borders, in the name of stability. It won over the first group. Basically, in both cases, it was a question of avoiding conflicts between neighboring states and of promoting African integration. Considering themselves as serious victims of such a status quo, Morocco and Somalia rejected this principle of the inviolability of borders.
Sudan and Chad are painfully experiencing the consequences of this concept of borders. When General Hassan Omar al-Bashir took power in June 1989, western Darfur was a battlefield where troops loyal to the Chadian government of Hissène Habré and organized rebels under Idriss Deby, supported by Libya and France, clashed. Deby is of the Zaghawa ethnic group, present on both sides of the border. A large colony of refugees of the same ethnic group lived in Darfur. Hissène Habré’s troops pursued the rebels there, arming his ‘relatives’ to defend themselves against his adversary’s troupes. In December 1990, Idriss Déby emerged victorious from the confrontation. The Sudanese government and that of Idriss Déby established cooperative ties. However, the two countries would proceed with vigilance.
Roots of conflict lie in Darfur
Due to the Darfur conflict, Chad declared itself in a state of conflict with Sudan in December 2005. Indeed, many Sudanese fled to refugee camps in Chad. Sudanese government troops and militias crossed the border to attack them, assimilating them, rightly or wrongly, to rebels. The following year, things got worse, with Chad suspecting the Sudanese government of still supporting Chadian rebels. Although the two governments signed the Tripoli Agreement in Libya on Feb. 8, 2006, ending hostilities, the fighting continued. Thus, on April 13, 2006, militiamen from the United Front for Democratic Change (UFDC) threatened N’Djamena. President Idriss Deby accused Khartoum of being behind the audacious attack. For him, the rebels are either Sudanese or Chadian, supported by Sudan. Consequently, he broke off diplomatic relations with his neighbor, and threatened to expel the thousands of civilians from Darfur who had taken refuge in Chad.
On Oct. 26, 2006, a new rebel movement, created four days earlier, the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD), bringing together several groups hostile to Idriss Déby Itno, headed to the Chadian capital. A column of about 800 men with 70 vehicles from Darfur got to 500 km from N’Djamena. General Mahamat Nouri, president of the UFDD, had managed to merge them with the Revolutionary Democratic Council (CDR) of Hissène Habré’s former minister, Acheikh Ibn-Oumar. Once again, Chad accused Sudan of supporting these rebels, three months only after the normalization of relations between the two countries, broken off after the attempt to overthrow the N’Djamena regime in April. Chad was convinced of that because the rebels fired a surface-to-air missile at a French plane flying over them. In early October, the Sudanese army had a run-in with a rebellion in northern Darfur, which benefited from the support of part of the Chadian army: ‘’shepherd’s response to the shepherdess.”
However, under the terms of the Tripoli Agreement, the parties were invited “to refrain … from any interference in each other’s internal affairs and to also refrain from any support to armed groups operating in either country.” There was a new outbreak of conflict in February 2008, when, with the financial and material support of Sudan, the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD), another rebel group based in Darfur, launched an incursion on N’Djamena, which it reached at a surprising speed. Only an intervention by the French army helped to stop it. The Sudanese and Chadian presidents, once again, initiated a non-aggression agreement aimed at ending cross-border hostilities between their two countries, on March 13, in Dakar, Senegal. Definitely skilled at signatures, Sudan and Chad concluded a peace agreement on Feb. 9, 2010, in Khartoum, which allowed the creation of a border force responsible for tracking down all the rebels scouring their countries and their immediate environment. They also agreed to stop funding them.
The late Idriss Déby Itno worked with South Sudanese President Salva Kiir, a representative from the UAE and the Chairperson of the AU Commission to secure the signing of a peace agreement between the Sudanese Transitional Government and the Sudanese Revolutionary Front. The ceremony took place in Juba, South Sudan, in early October 2020. The Sudanese Revolutionary Front, based in the West Darfur, Southern Kordofan, and Blue Nile region, is part of the pro-democracy movement that led to the uprising against President Hassan Omar al-Bashir on April 2, 2019. However, these rebels did not fully support the resulting power-sharing agreement between the military and civilians.
Chad claims neutrality in Sudan conflict
Since the start of the Sudanese conflict in mid-April 2023, President Mahamat Déby Itno has been facing a perilous diplomatic exercise. His regime proclaimed itself ‘neutral’ at the start of hostilities. An agreement concluded in June 2023 with the UAE may have called this fragile balance into question. The Emirates granted a ‘loan’ of $1.5 billion to Chad, equivalent to 80 percent of its national budget. They have also undertaken to strengthen security, energy and mining cooperation with N’Djamena. In October 2024, they moved even closer to Chad, granting it a second loan estimated at $500 million.
That approach allows the UAE, according to reports from the United Nations and American and French intelligence services, to supply General Hemiti’s FSR with weapons and various military equipment. Cargo ships chartered by them first landed in Amdjarass, province of East Ennedi, in the country northeast, then at N’Djamena airport. Their contents were then transported to Darfur by road. Hemeti and his brothers have invested in a metal that the UAE is in great demand for: gold. The UAE is also targeting the vast areas of Sudanese agricultural land, and wants to build a port on the Red Sea, a strategic location, at a cost of $6 billion. This interest is coupled with another diplomatic advantage and support for ‘Arab brothers’. The UAE versus the rival brother Egypt, which lends a hand to the official Sudanese army, still commanded by General Abdel Fattah al-Bhuran. In early September 2023, the United States sanctioned the two generals for genocide and refusal of peace. However, the conflict cannot ignore its many indirect causes: the eternal question of the ‘Nile waters.’
With that arrangement with the UAE, has Chad definitively won the game? It is unclear. As recalled, at the end of October 2024, on Radio France Internationale by the governor of Darfur and leader of the Sudan Liberation Movement (ALS-MM), Minni Arcou Minnawi: “There are many children of Sudanese refugees who entered Chad in 2003, who are in the Chadian army and in the Republican Guard. They are officers of the Chadian army. There are more than 20 common tribes that extend to Chad as well as Sudan. Geography does not prevent you from having compassion for your brothers. The official position regarding Sudan is rejected by a large number of Chadian officers.” A partisan statement?
Liman Nawada is an analyst with Centre 4s. This article was translated from French.
