Four graphics depict the fighting that threatens the entire region.
THE WAR in Sudan, which began on April 15th, has already forced almost 400,000 people from their homes. Tens of thousands have crossed into neighbouring countries, including Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia and South Sudan (see map 1). The UN expects as many as 800,000 refugees in the coming weeks and months.
At its heart, this is a battle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF)—the national army, which seized power in 2019—and a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The RSF is commanded by Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo (better known as Hemedti), a warlord from the Darfur region who has in effect been Sudan’s vice-president since the coup. At first glance this appears to be a narrow fight between two armed factions struggling for power. But it is in fact one which threatens to reshape not just Sudan but the wider region—with the potential to draw in neighbours such as Egypt or allied countries in the Gulf.
Fighting in the first few days of the war centred on military facilities in Khartoum, the capital, and air bases elsewhere in the country (see map 2). In a bid to neutralise the Sudanese air force, the SAF’s key asset, the RSF quickly seized control of the international airport in Khartoum. Sudanese fighter jets bombed it in response. The RSF also took over the Merowe airfield in northern Sudan, capturing some Egyptians (it is unclear whether they were soldiers or pilots). Egypt is the SAF’s closest foreign ally, and has reportedly been sending it military aid. The SAF retook Merowe about a week later.
Fierce fighting between RSF and SAF units was also reported in the provincial capitals of the Darfur region—el-Fasher, el-Geneina and Nyala—where Mr Dagalo and the RSF are dominant. Nyala and el-Geneina airports soon fell to the RSF. Some of the clashes in Darfur took on an ethnic dimension, with Arab tribal militias aligned with the RSF attacking non-Arab tribes. In many places they ransacked homes and looted businesses. Warehouses storing food aid and medical supplies were also stripped bare. According to Mohamed Lemine, head of the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency in Sudan, almost all UN offices (and those of other aid agencies) in Darfur have been robbed.
By early May, an uneasy calm prevailed in much of the country outside of Khartoum where, despite multiple ceasefires, fighting continued almost without pause. Localised peace agreements brokered by elders, activists and religious leaders had put a stop to the big battles in Darfur. The countryside around Khartoum, too, was more or less stable. Thousands of foreign nationals and Sudanese civilians rushed to be evacuated from Port Sudan, in the country’s poor and troubled east, which was quickly secured by the SAF.
Even before the war, some 15m people (around one-third of all Sudanese) were in need of emergency aid such as clean water, shelter or food (see map 3). Almost 12m were going hungry . Three workers for the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) were killed in Darfur in the early days of the fighting; the WFP immediately halted aid operations. Although these were later resumed, access for humanitarian deliveries remains severely limited.
The current war is rooted in long-standing competition between factions of the Sudanese army. That, in turn, is a legacy of the armed forces’ dominance of Sudanese politics since independence from Britain in 1956. In less than seven decades the country has experienced six coups and ten failed attempts (see map 4). In the past four years alone there have been two successful ones. The latest putsch, staged in 2021 by Mr Dagalo and his current foe, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who is Sudan’s de facto president, led to today’s crisis. For as long as men with guns dominate Sudan’s politics, it will struggle to find peace.■
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