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For almost two years, Sudan hasimploded amid a ruinous civil war. Battles between the country’s army and a rival paramilitary force have led to the deaths of more than 150,000 people and triggered the world’s single largest displacement and hunger crises. Some 12 million people have fled their homes and 30 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, as Sudan’s economy lies in tatters with major cities devastated.
International diplomacy has failed to bring an end to the war in one of Africa’s largest countries, but recent events suggest a steady shift in battlefield fortunes. On Friday, forces loyal to Sudanese army chief and de facto head of state Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan captured the presidential palace in Khartoum, the country’s war-blighted capital, from militiamen fighting for the Rapid Support Forces. The RSF, a faction led by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, a warlord widely known as Hemedti, had driven Burhan and his allies out of Khartoum in April 2023, when the fragile alliance between the two commanders collapsed.
“In a swift assault in the early days of the war, the RSF captured many of Khartoum’s most important landmarks, including the gold market, major bridges, and state television and radio headquarters,” my colleagues reported. “Virtually all had been clawed back by the Sudanese army in recent months, with the palace representing the RSF’s last major redoubt. Most remaining paramilitary fighters are now in the east and south of the city, where they hold a single bridge.”
Over the weekend, the Sudanese army pressed its advantage, taking back the country’s central bank. Residents in Omdurman, an adjacent sister city of Khartoum, reported an uptick in indiscriminate shelling. Burhan’s forces gained ground over the past half-year, in part because of the RSF’s difficulties in supplying its troops in Khartoum, as well as thanks to the aid of new Iranian and Turkish drones. A statement from a spokesperson for the Sudanese military celebrated the army’s conquest of the presidential palace, describing it as “a symbol of the sovereignty and dignity of the Sudanese nation.”
Video shows destroyed buildings and piles of rubble along the streets of North Khartoum on April 24 and 25, as Sudan pledged a 72-hour ceasefire. (Video: Storyful)
The civil war has played out over a sprawling, tragic canvas. Rights groups point to atrocities carried out by both sides; in January, the outgoing Biden administration placed sanctions on Hemedti and a number of RSF-linked companies, accusing the warlord of being complicit in Sudan’s “second genocide in a generation,” as the RSF and its affiliates have carried out mass slaughters and rapes of non-Arab ethnic communities in the western Darfur region. Beyond the violence, aid organizations bemoan the complexity of delivering food to starving populations, with trucks traversing a wartime landscape carved up by the main warring parties as well as a hodgepodge of local militias.
The RSF counts on tacit support from the United Arab Emirates — a major market for gold mined in areas dominated by the paramilitary group — and, to a certain extent, Russia. The Sudanese military has been backed by Egypt, Turkey and Iran. Efforts to mediate a truce have repeatedly failed, with limited ceasefires often being broken shortly after they were brokered.
Even as Burhan and the Sudanese army appear to have the upper hand, a decisive victory is not in sight. The RSF is still battling in the environs of Khartoum and controls large swaths of the country’s south and west, including most of the vast Darfur region. Much to the ire of their opponents, a group of RSF officials and their allies convened in Kenya last month and agreed on a charter that outlines the framework of a potential parallel government that could emerge in areas under their control.
“Effectively, where this leaves Sudan right now is divided into two, with the army controlling the eastern, northern and parts of the southeast, and the RSF controlling the western and southwestern parts of the country,” reported Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan.
The crisis in Sudan has had a ripple effect across the border in fragile South Sudan. A tenuous power-sharing agreement between rival leaders has collapsed in part due to the failure of the main pipeline exporting South Sudan’s oil to the north. Foreign governments are evacuating staff from the fledgling nation’s capital, Juba, amid renewed violence. A top U.N. official in the country warned that South Sudan was “poised on the brink of relapse into civil war.”
Despite the dire conditions in both countries, they remain victims of international neglect. Even before the Trump administration’s seismic gutting of U.S. foreign assistance, analysts pointed to failing commitments from the rest of the world. “With a quarter of the year gone, the U.N.’s collective humanitarian response for Sudan has reached just 6.63%, a shortfall of $3.9bn,” noted the Guardian this week. “Multimillion-pound projects have not received a penny. … The pooled Sudan fund is also struggling. Last year it granted Sudan $183m, with the U.K. to contribute almost a third. So far it has amassed $15.9m.”
Though many Republican officials still back sending humanitarian relief to Sudan, the administration’s freezing or shuttering of the bulk of foreign aid programs is taking a profound toll. Local civil society groups and aid workers warn of mounting hunger and failing clinics.
“It’s difficult to overstate how devastating the USAID cut will be for Sudan, not just because Sudan is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis but also because the U.S. was Sudan’s largest humanitarian donor,” Kholood Khair, founder of Sudanese think tank Confluence Advisory, told the Middle East Eye news site.
Khair added that Western attention to conflicts elsewhere had already harmed efforts to support the Sudanese people. “We are seeing a double whammy here, where countries that could step in are diverting their money to defense, also because of [President Donald] Trump’s policy in Ukraine,” she said. “Millions of people in Sudan will be bearing the brunt of these changes in Washington.”