Armed conflict broke out in Sudan on 15 April 2023, once again propelling the unstable African nation into the news headlines for all the wrong reasons. This was the result of a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by its commander-in-chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the state-backed paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), commanded by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo- popularly known as “Hemedti” (a diminutive form of “Little Mohamed”). The alliance of al-Burhan and Hemedti, respectively president and vice-president of Sudan’s ruling Transitional Military Council, imploded in the run-up to implementation of the Political Framework Agreement of December 2022, which aimed to transfer power from a military administration to a civilian government. The RSF and SAF apparently disagreed over the timing and process of their proposed integration and over the leadership of the consolidated force that was to follow. Attempts at truces and ceasefires failed as Khartoum and other urban centres were transformed into combat zones. Large numbers of Sudanese people started escaping to neighbouring countries, while diplomats and foreign nationals were evacuated from Sudan’s capital.
Al-Burhan, then the local commander of the Sudanese army, and Hemedti, as commander of an Arab militia, collaborated during the 2003-2005 conflict in the western region of Darfur. The Sudanese government made use of Arab tribal militias, collectively known as the Janjaweed, to suppress the non-Arab Darfuri rebels. The Janjaweed were mostly drawn from the Mahamid and Mahariya clans of the Rizeigat ethnic group of northern Darfur and adjoining Chad. In 2013, remnants of the Janjaweed were brought together by Omar al-Bashir as the RSF, a state-sponsored paramilitary group that was independent of the army.
Sudan’s location at the crossroads of Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East makes it geopolitically important and has invited the attentions of Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and other regional powers. Sudan is endowed with substantial mineral resources (gold, silver, chromite, iron, zinc), making it a major exporter of gold to the UAE and a provider of gold to the pro-Russian paramilitary Wagner Group, but it has lost around three-quarters of its crude oil reserves to South Sudan. Sudan also benefits from strategically important ports, along its 485-mile-long Red Sea coastline, on a busy waterway linking the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean.
On 1 January 1956, Sudan became the first African country to gain independence in the aftermath of the Second World War. The Republic of Sudan succeeded the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium, formed in 1899 and ruled ever since by a Governor-General from the capital city of Khartoum, located at the confluence of the Blue Nile and White Nile. Sudan’s complex history includes two major civil wars (1955-72 and 1985-2003); conflicts in the Darfur region, and the Two Areas of South Kordofan and Blue Nile states; genocide; massive internal displacements of people; several coups and attempted coups; totalitarian military dictatorships; and wars with neighbouring Chad. What was once Africa’s biggest country was reduced to its third largest after the secession of South Sudan as Africa’s 54th independent state in July 2011, falling behind Algeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Jaafar al-Nimeiry’s Islamic Revolution of 1983 alienated non-Muslim (Christian and animist) and non-Arab southern Sudanese people and hastened the breakdown of Sudan, as deserting southern troops formed the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement under Colonel John Garang de Mabior and embarked on a protracted struggle against their Arab overlords. Brigadier Omar al-Bashir then seized power in a coup on 30 June 1989, supported by Hasan al-Turabi’s National Islamic Front, clinging on until he was dislodged in another coup during April 2019. Under al-Bashir, Sudan was designated a State Sponsor of Terrorism by the US State Department and subjected to international sanctions. His exit paved the way for a power-sharing agreement between the military leadership and the pro-democracy movement, which was signed on 17 August 2019. But it was to be short-lived. A military coup on 25 October 2021, led by army chief al-Burhan, saw off Western-backed Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok and the Sovereign Transitional Council. The Constitutional Charter of 2019 was suspended and a state of emergency declared. Hamdok briefly returned as PM between November 2021 and January 2022, only to resign. Over a year later, Sudan has once again descended into warfare, moving further away from any immediate prospects of civilian rule.
Sudan’s various experiments with democracy have not been sustained over time. Ethnic and religious divisions, political instability, endemic corruption, economic shocks, and natural disasters have weakened the country, while stable democratic institutions are a distant dream. It is now up to the SAF and RSF to iron out their differences and prevent yet another civil war. For the present, the solutions to Sudan’s problems lie within its own borders and international pressures are likely to have limited impact.
Ashis Banerjee