What began in April 2023 as a contest for power and control of the country’s rich resources between the national army, the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that it had created and collaborated with up to that point, has, as of the time of writing, metastasized into an all-out war. Twenty months in, the violence has escalated, leaving a contest characterized by ruthless violence. The war has destroyed the country’s infrastructure and all but wiped out generations of work in building an industrial and commercial base for Sudan. Representing the two faces of a military establishment that has an uninterrupted record of waging war against the Sudanese people’s aspirations for democracy and fair representation and distribution of national wealth since the country’s independence in 1956, the SAF and the RSF have resorted to tactics of collective punishment of entire communities accused of supporting the other side because of their ethnic or regional origins.
This military mindset has made the war in Sudan one of the world’s largest humanitarian and human rights catastrophes. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of civilians, forcibly displaced nearly 14 million, and rendered nearly half the population of 50.4 million in need of food assistance. Famine has already been declared at a localized level and there are real prospects that it will take hold more broadly.
Conflict become more complex in 2024
Key developments in 2024 have rendered the conflict more complex and difficult to untangle. The SAF has, for the first time since the early weeks of the war, carried out major offensive operations over the past few months, retaking Sinja, the capital of Sennar state in November. This has led to increased dry season fighting in key axes in eastern Sudan, Central Sudan (Khartoum and Gezira) and El Fasher. The lack of progress by either party serves as a reminder that neither side would appear to have the capacity to win militarily.
Further complicating the conflict, the warring parties are increasingly drawing on ethnic rhetoric in local conflicts and fracturing coalitions. The defection of Salah Jok, a senior commander in the neutral Sudan Liberation Movement/Army – Abdulwahid faction, on December 28 is emblematic of this tendency. Jok announced that he was defecting to form a new faction, the SLM/A – Call of the Homeland which would fight against the RSF, further expanding the dizzying array of armed factions in Sudan. The move also reflects new ethnic trends, with Zaghawa increasingly aligning with the army and the Fur seeking to maintain neutrality and resist recruitment.
In addition, both warring sides are seeking to exploit and engage local conflicts to draw in allies to their cause. Sudan Transparency Policy Tracker highlighted, for example, these dynamics in Blue Nile and Eastern Sudan, in which national actors are using local conflict dynamics to align local actors with their cause. In doing this, however, they are increasingly drawing on ethnically aligned groups and increasing the role of ethnic identity in the conflict. They are also creating increasingly complex coalitions.
Escalation in ethnicization and ideological manipulation of the conflict
This ethnicization of the war is also reflected in the warring parties and their allies’ use of ethnic mobilization, laced with virulent strands of hate language, for recruitment and to increase their political base. Hate speech has been used on social media platforms by both sides to delegitimize the other warring party and its supporters. This has included language dehumanizing the “social incubators” of the RSF and ethnic targeting of civilians seen as supporters or sympathizers of the movement. At the same time, on the RSF side, there have been targeted attacks on those who are assumed to be supporters of the SAF.
With this increasing ethnic focus, creation of complex coalitions, and ethnically based recruitment, the chain of command and control within both the SAF and the RSF over the ideologically and ethnically based militias fighting alongside their forces has weakened to such an extent that it is doubtful whether the two main belligerents would be capable of enforcing a ceasefire, even if they were to agree on one. In short, not only is it increasingly clear that they lack the capacity to end the war militarily, they are also eroding their own capacity to end the conflict through negotiation.
Further complicating efforts to reach a negotiated settlement is the significant influence of Islamist hardliners from the former regime of Omer al-Bashir in shaping SAF’s military operations and political decisions with the ultimate goal of returning to power. Loyalists of the former ruling party and its guiding Islamist movement have trained thousands of fighters now actively participating in the war alongside the army. They have also launched extensive media and propaganda campaigns, urging the SAF to continue fighting until achieving total victory over the RSF. These recruitment and propaganda campaigns play a critical role in the SAF’s reluctance to engage in ceasefire talks.
Failed efforts to negotiate an end to the war
Since the start of the war, numerous efforts towards negotiation have been undertaken, with little to no success. Early on in the war, the United States and Saudi Arabia convened negotiations in Jeddah, which agreed to a series of humanitarian commitments and a ceasefire which was never respected. Subsequent efforts organized by the African Union (AU) and the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) were similarly unsuccessful, leading to an environment in which the parties could engage in forum shopping.
In 2024, there was an effort to consolidate efforts through negotiations convened in Geneva in mid-August by what came to be known as the Aligned for Advancing Lifesaving and Peace in Sudan (ALPS) Group. This effort aspired to create a unified front, including the AU, IGAD, the United Nations (UN), European Union (EU), and Sudan’s neighbors, and regional powers with influence over the parties. However, as the war drags on, the international community is also becoming ever more divided, driven by contention over the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. This paralysis was evident in the Russian veto of the very weak Security Council resolution on civilian protection proposed by the United Kingdom and Sierra Leone in November. With a lack of international leadership, regional powers and others can increasingly become drawn in, seeking to advance their interests through support for their preferred local ally, further complicating a solution.
A push in mid-December by Mauritania, the new Chair of the AU, to enhance coordination of peace initiatives supported UN Secretary-General Personal Envoy Ramtane Lamamra to coordinate. However, Lamamra’s approach privileged the convening of the SAF and RSF commanders to develop implementation mechanisms for their earlier commitments to protect civilians and facilitate humanitarian access at the expense of the demands of Sudanese civilian actors. The latter are calling for an inclusive peace strategy that addresses the root causes of the conflict and develops alongside the security and humanitarian tracks a political process to respond to the demands of accountability for gross rights violations and democratic post-war dispensation.
The lack of a holistic and comprehensive approach is only likely to worsen with the inauguration of the second Trump Administration, which is expected to subordinate resolving the conflict in Sudan to the US geostrategic and economic agenda in the Middle East, Africa, and the Red Sea, further empowering regional actors who see Sudan as a field for their own competition.
War divides Sudan into East and West
Meanwhile, the war has effectively divided Sudan in two, with the SAF controlling the eastern and northern half of the country, and the RSF largely holding on to the western half as the two actively dispute control over the central and southern states. The rebel movements led by Abdelwahid al Nur and Abdelaziz al Hilu also control quasi-autonomous pockets of territory. Economic and other policy decisions taken by the main warring parties in the second half of 2024 are bound to solidify these territorial divides. Sudan’s de facto government, which is controlled by SAF, decided to issue new banknotes for the largest denominations of the Sudanese pound, a measure that will create a currency divide in the country. The RSF’s decision to ban exports to Egypt of agricultural products, livestock, and gold produced in its areas is also destined to increase the economic hardships of the population and negatively impact their ability to buy food items, thus aggravating food insecurity and increasing the likelihood of famine in RSF-controlled areas.
Civilians are also likely to continue to suffer with little chance of attracting international attention. However, at the same time, civilian efforts are ongoing and hold a glimmer of hope. Sudanese mutual aid efforts are increasingly getting support from the international community and are supporting communities in ways that allow those communities a unique role in defining their own priorities and holding providers accountable. The ability to build on these efforts through both direct support to them and complementary programs by more traditional humanitarian actors is likely to attenuate the severity of the ongoing humanitarian disaster. Civilian efforts to articulate a political program for the future are also ongoing and their capacity to chart a way forward is ultimately likely to determine whether the country can free itself from its history of military dominance and chart a way towards peace and democracy.
Dr. Suliman Baldo is an expert in justice, human rights and conflict resolution in Africa and served as the Africa head of International Crisis Group, the International Center for Transitional Justice, and has also held human rights and mediation posts in the United Nations. He has provided expert advice on human rights in Mali and Darfur and currently leads the Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker.
