Ananta Insights | Sudan Conflict 2.0: From Civil War to a War Among Quasi-States By Ambassador Mahesh Sachdev | April 2025

As the Sudan conflict entered its third year on April 15, it betrayed foreboding signs of a calamity entrenching itself. In particular, two related developments during the largely “Mayhem as Usual” anniversary week, pointed in that direction.  

Firstly, to mark that dubious anniversary, the RSF (Rapid Support Force) militia leader Gen Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo announced the formation of a “Government of Peace and Unity” of the country – thus building upon the National Charter adopted in Nairobi in February. This announcement was also seen as a formal claim to be the rival government to the Sudan Armed Force (SAF) backed national government headed by Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Both these governments claim to represent the entire country. The RSF-led government is still to be recognised by any foreign state, while the SAF-led government has international acceptance. This action flew in the face of clear warnings against it by the UN, EU and the African Union.

Secondly, a multinational London Sudan Conference was held conspicuously without the participation of either of the two belligerents. Even as it garnered some funds for humanitarian relief in Sudan, it failed to make any headway in its primary task of establishing a “Contact Group” to bring the hostilities to a negotiated end. In particular, sharp differences between Egypt and the UAE, backing SAF and RSF respectively, derailed the gathering.

These developments marked a further twist in the tail of the already grim situation in the war-torn Sudan. The recent UN testimonies disclosed that the ongoing conflict has evolved into the world’s most severe humanitarian emergency, affecting 30 million individuals, two-thirds of Sudan’s population. More than 14 million—over a quarter of Sudanese—have been displaced, including nearly 3.5 million forced to seek refuge in the neighbouring countries. The estimates of the cumulative casualties in two years of bloodletting vary widely from 20,000 to 150,000. However, given the humungous extent of largely undocumented, no-holds-barred brutality involving mass killings, sexual violence, looting and tribal-prejudice-based ethnic cleansing unleashed by the conflict, the actual figures may well be many times higher. In economic terms, the losses are put at over $15 billion with the national GDP expected to shrink by 48% in 2025.

The horrific casualties and damages notwithstanding, two years of civil war has produced no clear outcome on the ground. In the beginning, the RSF had an upper hand in capturing important state institutions in the capital Khartoum and forcing the SAF and its governance paraphernalia to relocate to Port Sudan. Over the past few months however, SAF has been able to turn the tables and recapture most of the capital including Presidential Palace, Armed Forces Headquarters and the airport. RSF still has a remanent presence on the southern outskirts of the city. In a strategic move in February 2025, the SAF captured Wadi Madani, the capital of al-Gazeera state, a major breadbasket and a national logistical hub. RSF on the other hand, controls much of the east and south comprising vast states such as Darfur (where SAF is still holding on to North Darfur capital el-Fasher), Kordofan and Blue Nile. In addition, RSF has an alliance with SPLM – Hilu faction, a powerful militia that dominates South Kordofan and Blue Nile states. On the other hand, SAF has the support of some Islamist factions which were close to the erstwhile al-Bashir regime.

Although Sudan is the third largest country in Africa with seven neighbours and a coastline along the strategic Red Sea, two years of civil strife has attracted scant international attention. In 2024, the UN Security Council passed two resolutions each with a limited remit of Ramadhan Ceasefire and appeal for stoppage of fighting around el-Fasher in North Darfur. Both of these were largely ignored by the belligerents. Over one year after the UNSC resolution on Northern Darfur, the UN Human Rights Office disclosed on April 25 that during the preceding fortnight, more than 480 civilians were killed in that state amidst wanton human rights abuses. Despite widespread and well-documented human rights abuses, the relevant international agencies, such as the International Criminal Court, UN Human Rights Council, etc. have largely failed to bring culprits to account. While there has been no dearth of attempts to curb the fighting, none of these have succeeded so far. These efforts were made by countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United States, or International Organisations such as the UN, IGAD, African Union, etc. The international community has reacted warily to the announcements by the belligerents. In a statement on March 5, the UN Security Council expressed “grave concerns” over the RSF’s “founding charter”, adding it could worsen an “already dire humanitarian situation”. On March 12, the African Union reiterated its warning that the move to form a parallel government by the RSF posed “a huge risk of the partitioning of the country”. It urged all of its member states, as well as the international community, “not to recognise any government or parallel entity aimed at partitioning … the Republic of Sudan or its institutions”. The EU also reiterated its commitment to the “unity and territorial integrity of Sudan”. 

There are several domestic and global reasons for this failure to contain the conflagration. Apart from a strong sense of entitlement between the two clashing generals, each has a “winner takes all” fixation. The two sides are concerned about neither the population nor the geo-political realities. Among other concomitant causes are the tribal structure of society, Arab – Non-Arab social faultlines and the relatively miniscule size of the civil society. Moreover, historically, large and multi-ethnic Sudan is no stranger to civil strife and misgovernance. Since independence in 1956, the country has had 15 military coups and two civil wars that killed 1.5 million people and resulted in the eventual secession of South Sudan in 2011. For the past two decades, a conflict in the western region of Darfur has been waged by the infamous Janjaweed militia against local non-Arab Muslims, cumulatively killing over 200,000 people and displacing two million.

Although mainstream stakeholders have been against the repartitioning of Sudan, the wider international context is more nuanced. The Sudanese civil war does not rank high on the priority list of the international community, which has more politically pressing crises such as Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Israel, Iran and Ukraine, to worry about. There seems to be a clear division among the various regional countries. The SAF-led government is widely recognised and it is militarily supported by Egypt, Turkey and Iran. On the other hand, the UAE is believed to be militarily backing the RSF, even as Abu Dhabi stoutly denies it. SAF-backed Sudan government has initiated a case at the International Court of Justice against the UAE accusing it of being complicit in the genocide of the Masalit community in West Darfur by backing the RSF. The UAE vehemently denies the accusation. Abu Dhabi’s motives are unclear and could range from profiteering from smuggled gold from Darfur mines to curbing Sudan’s “political Islamic” tendencies backing the SAF. Chad and Gen Khalifa Haftar’s Benghazi-based government in Libya are also supporting the RSF, which reportedly continues to receive the support of Russia’s Wagner militia, officially disbanded two years ago. Further, there is no dearth of arms and mercenaries from the global grey market as well as the motley non-state actors in the Middle East and Africa. The resumed civil wars in South Sudan and Ethiopia and instability in eastern Congo are also likely to cast their long shadows on Sudan.

At the same time, some observers see an east-west partition of Sudan as a natural progression in the unwinnable civil war. The optimists among them expect that such a division would bring an end to the spread-out civil war that has devastated the entire country. Post-partition, they expect the two sides would get preoccupied with the consolidation of their respective fiefs, the physical and institutional reconstruction, and muzzle demands for a due political process towards democratisation. However, given the bitter legacy of the two years of civil war, such sanguinity would be a ‘hoping-against-hope’ wager against realism.  

More realistic among the foreign stakeholders point to the disastrous partition of neighbouring Libya and worry about the RSF move precipitating a similar east-west divide. The stakeholders also worry that even if an RSF-led state comprising Darfur and Kordofan could secede, such a fledgling entity would exacerbate the regional fragility. It would remain at war with the SAF in Khartoum. Moreover, it would border brittle states such as Libya, Chad, the Central African Republic and South Sudan, all of which are facing fissiparous tendencies. Last but not least, over the past two decades, the RSF, stemming mainly from the Arab Janjaweed militia, has engaged in pogroms against the African tribes of Darfur. These activities have intensified during two years of civil war, sending millions of refugees to neighbouring countries. Creating a separate state under RSF would coagulate this problem. Sooner than later, these temporary refugee settlements would become the breeding grounds for undesirable activities, including a base for anti-RSF militias. 

Some observers also point out that civil strife in Sudan has a historic pattern: it begins at the capital but then spreads to the periphery where it sputters as a lingering conflict for years if not decades. South Sudan and Darfur insurrections are often cited as examples. One wonders if the ongoing SAF-RSF bloodletting would also remain long frozen in a similar manner, hitting the headlines with its periodic venality.

The previous issues of Syria: Now For More Difficult Part (West Asia& North Africa Digest)are available here: LINK