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Plumes of smoke rise during clashes between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the army in Khartoum, Sudan, September 26, 2024.
Sudanese Army launches offensive to retake capital
Residents of Khartoum awoke Thursday to dawn airstrikes and artillery shelling as the country’s armed forces launched an offensive against the rebel Rapid Support Forces militia. The Sudanese Armed Forces have reportedly captured two bridges connecting Khartoum, on the east bank of the Nile, to Omdurman on the west, and are pushing toward the presidential palace amid heavy fighting.
What’s the outlook? Sudan’s military counts on air superiority and artillery, but the RSF’s infantry has historically outmatched them. The RSF also enjoys considerable backing from the United Arab Emirates — a significant military power — as well as Libyan warlord Khalifa Belqasim Omar Haftar and the Russian mercenaries formerly known as the Wagner Group.
Sudan’s armed forces can count on less outside backing: Russia’s involvement has led to a limited deployment of Ukrainian special forces, and Iran has provided some drones (which, ironically, Tehran also provides Russia to fight against Ukraine). Even if they do manage to push the RSF out of Khartoum, Sudan’s military faces steep odds for regaining the whole country.
Is there a chance for peace? Only through negotiation, according to Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the head of Sudan’s military. He called for the end to hostilities and a holistic peace process when he spoke at the United Nations General Assembly in New York Thursday. However, his speech was hardly an olive branch: He accused the RSF of genocide for their slaughter of Black ethnic groups in Darfur province and even alleged that women and children had been sold as chattel in RSF-controlled markets.
We’re watching for who wins the fight in Khartoum, and whether the result of the battle might bring relief closer for the long-suffering Sudanese population.
People hold pots as volunteers distribute food in Omdurman, Sudan, September 3, 2023
Sudan descends into disaster
A United Nations report delivered to the UN Security Council Friday has found that between 10,000 and 15,000 people were killed last year in the city of El Geneina in the West Darfur region of Sudan. This exceeds the UN’s original estimate of 12,000 deaths following six months of ethnic violence committed by the country’s Paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and allied Arab militia against its Masalit minority.
In the report, UN monitors describe as “credible” accusations that the United Arab Emirates furnished military support to the RSF via northern Chad.
In response, a UAE spokesperson denied that the country was “supplying arms and ammunition to any of the warring parties” and claimed it does not favor either side.
A humanitarian crisis
One thing no one can deny is that Sudan is in crisis on multiple levels. Doctors Without Borders says half of Khartoum’s 6 million people have no access to healthcare. The city itself has descended into a lawless anarchy replete with sexual violence. And the displacement of farmers has left five million people at risk of starvation.
With the world’s focus divided between wars in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as geopolitical tensions between the US, China, Russia, and Iran, this fresh catastrophe in Sudan once again risks being ignored until it is too late.
Saudi navy officials help civilians onboard their ship to be evacuated from Sudan.
No truce in Sudan
Fierce fighting between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces resumed on Sunday in Sudan, with the two warring parties accusing each other of violating a fragile ceasefire. The truce was again extended for another 72 hours, but don't keep your hopes up.
As the security situation worsens, foreign countries keep scrambling to get their citizens out. The US, which last week was reluctant to carry out a mass evacuation of Americans, over the weekend changed its mind and dispatched a convoy to Saudi Arabia via Port Sudan. Other foreign nationals were less lucky: A Turkish aircraft came under fire, highlighting how dangerous airlifts have become.
Meanwhile, the humanitarian crisis has gone from bad to worse. Some two-thirds of hospitals in battleground areas of Khartoum are out of service, with medical supplies, health workers, water, and electricity all in short supply. More than 500 civilians have been killed in three weeks of clashes and over 20,000 Sudanese have fled to neighboring Chad.
Former PM Abdalla Hamdok warned that the ongoing conflict could become worse than Libya or Syria. Based on the available firepower and the sheer number of outside players that might get involved, it's certainly no exaggeration.People gather at the station to flee from Khartoum.
Fleeing Sudan
As fighting in Sudan between two warring army factions reached its ninth day on Sunday, a wave of countries evacuated their embassies in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. (See this primer on what’s fueling the conflict and who the main players are.)
The US and UK, for their part, announced that they’d evacuated embassy staff and their families in a mission that’s proved increasingly difficult amid heavy shelling that’s kept Khartoum’s five million plus residents hiding in their homes.
Indeed, the Pentagon said it had flown in Navy Seals and Army Special Forces for a mission that lasted less than one hour and resulted in around 70 diplomats and family members being flown out. Still, the US State Department has said that evacuating the 16,000 American citizens there, mostly dual nationals, remains a long shot.
The Netherlands, Canada, Japan, Italy, and other countries say they are conducting similarly complex operations as Khartoum’s airport remains closed amid ongoing bombardments.
But these missions are anything but straightforward. A German evacuation attempt had to be aborted in recent days due to shelling. On Sunday, a French convoy came under fire while evacuating its citizens and had to turn back to the embassy.
Also on Sunday, a UN convoy started a 525-mile drive toward the Port Sudan on the Red Sea to evacuate UN staff and aid group workers. While the two warring factions refused last week to honor a number of ceasefires, it appears that they agreed, for the most part, not to fire on aircraft carrying foreign diplomats or on UN vehicles.
However, for millions of Sudanese stranded in the war-torn country, there is no safe haven. Many of those trying to flee have been turned back from neighboring countries, like Egypt, for not having appropriate travel documents. There's growing fear that this could spiral into a full-blown regional crisis: Around 20,000 people in the western Darfur region have crossed into neighboring Chad since the fighting began, and more than 2,000 have fled to South Sudan.
The humanitarian situation is becoming increasingly dire. Food and water supplies in the capital are dwindling. Many are resorting to getting water from the River Nile to get by. Meanwhile, Netblocks, a watchdog group, says that the internet is functioning at 2% of ordinary levels, making communication and evacuation efforts even more difficult.
Satellite image shows smoke and an overview of Khartoum International Airport in Sudan.
What We’re Watching: Sudan on the brink, unwanted Ukrainian grain
Army-militia turf war turns bloody in Sudan
Over the weekend, Sudan's slow and bloody transition to democracy was turned on its head by fierce fighting in Khartoum, the capital, and elsewhere between the army and the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group. By Monday, almost 100 civilians had been killed along with unknown numbers from the two warring sides in three days of intense battles.
The backstory. The oil-rich North African nation has been mired in instability since the 2019 coup that ousted dictator Omar al-Bashir after 30 years. A transitional civilian-military government was booted in another coup in 2021, followed by mass street protests brutally repressed by the army. The latest deadline for the army to hand over power to civilians lapsed last week — perhaps a clear sign of what was coming.
The players. On one side we've got Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country's army chief and de facto leader since leading the 2021 coup. On the other is his former ally and junta deputy Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, aka Hemedti, head of the RSF, a militia that grew out of the Janjaweed death squads that committed genocide in Darfur. Both men had close ties to al-Bashir yet worked together to depose him.
Al-Burhan and Hemedti accuse each other of starting the latest fighting. At the heart of the crisis is their personal rivalry over who will ultimately control the armed forces: Al-Burhan wanted to integrate the RSF within the military in two years, but Hemedti says he needs a decade.
So, what happens now? If the warring parties don't back down, the risk of the conflict turning into a full-blown civil war is real. This comes 12 years after the last one ended with the independence of South Sudan. But even just continued violence will surely worsen an economic crisis spurred by sky-high inflation.
There are a lot of outside interested parties. Russia has long been trying to finalize a deal for a Red Sea naval base in Sudan, while the US doesn't want Khartoum to return to supporting international terrorism. Neighboring Egypt also has close ties to Sudan (both countries oppose Ethiopia's controversial Nile dam), while Saudi Arabia and the UAE also want Khartoum under their sphere of influence.
Sudan is in a semi-permanent state of turmoil and, despite its oil wealth, the economy is a shambles. But its geopolitical and strategic value remains as high as low are the odds of the country returning to democracy in the near future.
Polish/Hungarian friendship with Ukraine has limits
The EU on Sunday rejected bans on imports of Ukrainian grain announced by Poland and Hungary on Saturday. Brussels said that individual member states can't conduct trade policy, although it didn't specify how it would respond if the two countries ignore the call.
Meanwhile, Warsaw and Budapest insist they have to protect their farmers from cheap Ukrainian grain. Most of Ukraine's grain is now exported via the Black Sea, thanks to a deal with Russia brokered by the UN and Turkey. But in the early months of the war, large amounts of cheap Ukrainian grain entered Europe by land and got stuck there because of a lack of trucks to move it to ports.
Kyiv, for its part, is not happy but wants to talk things out with the Poles on Monday. Still, Ukraine is hardly in a position to play hardball with Poland, perhaps its strongest European ally since the Russian invasion. (Hungary, of course, is a different story.)