Sudan’s Nadir? Pressing Needs and New Realities

As previously argued, international diplomacy continues to prioritise engagement between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Mohamed Hamdan ‘Hemedti’ Dagalo’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF). This binary thinking is understandable given that what little attention Sudan receives is fixated on delivering greater humanitarian access and a workable ceasefire – outcomes that are sorely needed. By every measure, the situation remains catastrophic. Roughly 26 million people (over 51% of the population) face acute food insecurity (the worst levels ever recorded by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification in-country); nearly 9 million are displaced, up to 5 million of them children; and over 2 million are now refugees. Against this backdrop, reports suggest ‘national cereal production [has] collapsed by almost half’, correlating with an 83% hike in the price of basic goods. Despite considerable ‘data gaps’, monitors accurately predicted (manmade) famine conditions by June; fatalities could exceed 2 million by late September and hit up to 10 million by 2027. With fighting across the breadbasket states of Gezira and Sennar, many in the worst affected areas are already ‘eating leaves to survive’. 

Unfortunately, relief efforts appear hampered by theft, violence, poor logistics and superfluous bureaucracy. Crossing the frontline is a ‘deliberately time-consuming’ process, with SAF originally banning the ‘delivery of supplies via Chad’ and blockading Khartoum. In March, the RSF likewise barred aid from Port Sudan from reaching El-Fashar. Trucks have often been confiscated and local responders ‘harassed, detained, and otherwise abused’. Visas, travel permits, and operating licences are routinely withheld by the military-backed Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC), a well-established front for profiteering recently emulated by Hemedti’s Sudan Agency for Relief and Humanitarian Operations (SARHO). Elsewhere, warehouse raids persist – in one case, militiamen looted stock that could have fed 1.5 million people for a month – and stories are emerging of NGO workers coerced, on video, into saying that the RSF has ‘acted in accordance with international humanitarian law’. Even without this disruption, there is a risk that aid modalities themselves are becoming outdated: unlike rural, highly localised crises of the past, Sudan is now grappling with a nationwide, largely urbanised food emergency – dynamics the ‘UN…[has] little experience in addressing’.

Ramping up and refining the response is therefore a priority, one the global community continues to bungle. Of the $2.3 billion requested by UN stakeholders in 2023, for instance, only 43% was eventually secured. Even after the much-hyped Paris Conference in April, donors stumped up less than 50% of this year’s appeal, pledges deemed ‘gravely inadequate’ by Médecins Sans Frontières. While resourcing for Sudan’s ‘Emergency Response Rooms’ – volunteer support networks – has gradually improved, many international organisations also face administrative and structural difficulties in accommodating mutual aid methodologies, which prioritise ‘community accountability ahead of traditional NGO reporting’. Instead, UN recognition of SAF as the country’s legitimate authority leaves interventions truncated and increasingly susceptible to extortion. Though pragmatic, such approaches are defined by long-standing perceptions of state-centric dependency, tempering the leverage humanitarians could otherwise exert. As experts like Joshua Craze, Kholood Khair and Raga Makawi make clear, better arrangements are possible, however imperfect they may be. 

Comparable problems characterise efforts to impose a ceasefire or, crucially, to prevent a possible genocide. Amid explicit patterns of ethnic cleansing – identity-based pogroms, an erasure of cultural signifiers, mass killings, expulsions and sexual violence – external engagement has generally remained disjointed and inconsistent. Before June’s declaration on El-Fashar, the UN Security Council had only passed a single resolution calling for a (temporary) cessation of hostilities. Mutasim Ali and Yonah Diamond have also criticised major powers for failing to ‘take decisive action’ or even ‘name the genocidaires and their sponsors’ – diplomatic posturing that has ‘not changed [significantly] since the first weeks of the war’. Although UK officials were relatively quick in adopting more appropriate language, a drip-feed of sanctions with little coordination between London, DC and Brussels is unlikely to have any real effect on RSF decision-making. Notably, US senators are still debating whether to pursue Hemedti personally, despite mounting evidence of ‘gross human rights’ violations. Yes, this could reflect long-standing discrepancies between atrocity prevention and conflict resolution, but it also speaks to a fundamental lack of vision over how external parties can constructively intervene. 

As John Prendergast, among others, argues, an effective sanctions strategy should, at the very least, target the (transnational) networks of ‘cutouts, collaborators, and companies’ propping up RSF operations, designed multilaterally and iteratively to ‘account for any changes in nomenclature and structure’. While specific firms have been designated, such as Al-Junaid Multi Activities Co Ltd and Tradive General Trading, the RSF is allegedly affiliated with over 50 commercial entities, including shares in Al-Khaleej Bank. With relationships cross-cutting the UAE, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, this one node alone could reportedly provide second-order connections to the international financial system and even Friends of Sudan member-states, allowing stakeholders to skirt the (full) impact of economic penalties. Plugging these loopholes is therefore imperative. The entire breadth of complicity from the aleutaawa (pro-RSF communities from Darfur and Kordofan) must also be mapped out, exposing the middlemen responsible for translating Hemedti’s policies into practice. 

Additionally, concerted pressure should be piled onto regional enablers sustaining the RSF’s military capabilities. Although Abu Dhabi denies the claims, a UN assessment cites ‘credible’ allegations of weapons shipments – multiple-rocket launchers, howitzers and anti-aircraft missiles – being smuggled over the Chadian border, with wounded fighters medevac-ed the other way. Accounts similarly describe a web of brokers and local proxies stretching across the Central African Republic, Libya, South Sudan and Uganda, disguising munition flows as humanitarian aid. Quadcopter drones have dropped 120mm mortar rounds purportedly tracing back to UAE stockpiles, and Emirati passports were recovered from RSF-occupied Omdurman, feeding claims of covert deployments. At the same time, Sudanese gold is reportedly still finding its way to Dubai’s souks, supplementing erstwhile shipments of RSF bullion – packaged as ‘cookies’ – to Russian bases in Syria (liquidity that previously kept a cash-strapped Kremlin afloat in exchange for armaments and tech). 

While there has been movement in recent months – US legislation threatened to suspend arms sales to the UAE over its support for Hemedti; the Treasury Department blacklisted ‘seven Emirati-based companies’ for sanctions violations; and diplomatic pressure did appear to delay the assault on El-Fashar – this is far from sufficient.

Structural Changes and Long-Term Problems

Improving these efforts is not only urgent but entirely feasible. However, a genuine resolution to the conflict goes far beyond negotiation strategies or immediate crisis management. Successful humanitarian and peace-making processes must also account for the contested realities of the ‘new’ Sudan, a very different political, societal and normative landscape to that of April 2023. There is little space to provide a full exposition of such dynamics, but as the first round of talks in Geneva conclude, it is worth exploring a few structural issues that will inevitably condition the efficacy and longevity of any intended outcomes.

As noted, violence is inherently transformative, reshaping both the conflict parties themselves and the ecosystems they inhabit. In this context, the distortion of Sudan’s political economy is already immense. Khartoum and the wider ‘Hamdi Triangle’ – a middle-income enclave of industry, investment and trade – is beset by power outages and daily shelling. Labour displacement, infrastructural damage, and severed supply lines continue to cripple productivity, with the IMF predicting an 18.3% contraction in GDP by late 2024 (following a 12% decline the previous year). Crucially, this has been accompanied by a wave of primitive accumulation, with the ransacking of Sudanese cities upending much of the post-colonial dispensation. Whereas in the past, a riverain elite – the Jellaba – ran a predatory system of resource extraction, ‘reap[ing] profits in the provinces and plough[ing] them into Khartoum’, the inverse is becoming readily apparent, as vehicles, household goods, and heavy machinery are funnelled to Darfur. Makeshift entrepôts – ‘Dagalo markets’ – have quickly sprouted up, brokering everything from stolen cars and mobile-phones to oil, gold and electronics. While the mechanics of this ‘destructive economy’ are not necessarily new, the scale of wealth redistribution from core to periphery may be unprecedented. These shifts have also been accompanied by rapid demographic changes, with affluent neighbourhoods now reportedly occupied by 80,000 ‘RSF families’ and rural tribesmen. Across Darfur, the transformation is even more acute after the expulsion of non-Arab residents from towns and villages. Amid virulent strains of ethno-populism, Sudanese society – with all its attendant norms, hierarchies and assumptions – is therefore being reconfigured, introducing a new set of power dynamics that will define the scope, resonance and durability of any political settlement.

Analogous – albeit less radical – changes are evident in SAF territory, with most of the country’s institutional, military and industrial architecture being transposed to Port Sudan. This raises its own problems, not least by disturbing local political arrangements that tie back to the Juba Peace Agreement (2021) and Eastern Sudan Peace Agreement (2006). A rapid injection of international assistance and financing, for example, has already provoked disputes around land and compensation rights, compounding divisions within the Beja Nazir Council. Of course, the implicit creation of a new capital could be beneficial over time, diffusing commercial monopolies previously confined to Khartoum and fostering growth in otherwise neglected regions. But given the city’s limited capacity, and ethnic and class-based cleavages, this shift may, in the short term, not only be detrimental for the efficiency of Sudan’s post-war economy but also drive further instability. 

Moreover, the securitisation of the country’s agro-industry poses massive complications for tackling food scarcity. Unsurprisingly, war has proved deleterious for producers, processors and exporters alike. The cumulative impact of untilled farmland, lost harvests, and seed shortages is devastating, with cultivated acreage across Darfur and Kordofan dropping by over 65%. At the same time, damage to El-Obeid and Khartoum – vital markets for livestock and crops, with the latter home to most large-scale factories – has effectively paralysed the sector. The issue is not only material but structural, with violence precipitating shifts in agency and power. While SAF and the RSF have always been prominent in the country’s food system, the fighting has consolidated and expanded their duopoly, squeezing out independent smallholders and rival businesses. This raises serious problems, particularly if domestic supply chains become wholly dependent on two ever more unstable cartels. Starvation tactics applied liberally across southern Sudan in the 1990s are evident again today, used to compel local recruitment and to depopulate towns. Both sides are likewise prioritising conflict over commerce, with knock-on effects for agricultural output. Operations are either suspended – as is the case with SAF’s Military Economic Corporation – or placed on a war footing, impacting the long-term capacity (and inclination) to feed civilians, and hampering the sustainability of humanitarian outcomes. 

Finally, the conflict’s regionalisation has important implications for peace-making. Amid porous boundaries, weak institutions and patrimonial politics, cross-border clientelism is not new to Sudan, with experts describing a well-established ‘rentier system’ of extraversion and graft. Accordingly, the role of transnational sponsors and spoilers – the UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Russia and, recently, Iran – has received significant coverage, and is rightly viewed as a determining factor for any resolution. 

But violence has also assumed its own momentum, diffusing along the kinship, patronage and political networks that enmesh Sahelian states together. Over 18,000 ‘ethno-mercenaries’ have supposedly joined the RSF alone, drawn from across the ‘Baggara Belt’ – a confederacy of nomadic tribes spanning from Darfur to Niger. Additionally, the fighting is starting to intersect with neighbouring disputes. Reports suggest Tigrayan militants could be collaborating with SAF in Sennar, raising concerns of possible ‘tit-for-tat’ cooperation between the RSF and ‘Fano’, a loose assortment of ethno-nationalist militias in Amhara waging a ‘low intensity insurgency’ against federal authorities. Eritrea is purportedly training ‘popular resistance’ groups from Eastern Sudan, further militarising local social dynamics and creating a ‘time-bomb’ for renewed inter-communal hostilities. In Chad, freshly ‘elected’ President Mahamat Déby has received Emirati loans amounting to $1.5 billion (equivalent to 83% of his annual budget) – a deal coinciding with alleged UAE weapons shipments starting to reach Hemedti via Amdjarass. Yet he also faces growing pressure from local Zaghawa communities – the powerbase of his regime – demanding material support for co-ethnic, anti-RSF paramilitaries in Darfur. With further massacres threatening El-Fashar, these competing priorities may not only upend Déby’s ruling coalition but inflame ethno-regional tensions across Chadian society more widely. Elsewhere, unrest in White Nile State led to a provincial pump station running out of diesel, a seemingly banal hiccup that eventually precipitated ‘gelling’ issues along South Sudan’s Petrodar pipeline. With the route previously channelling 100,000 barrels of crude per day – 60% of Juba’s oil production – to Sudan’s Bashayer terminal on the Red Sea, the blockage effectively cuts off an ‘insolvent kleptocracy’ from its main financial lifeline (roughly 90% of foreign exchange earnings). Without the cash to keep ‘factious security elites in check’, the payroll peace underpinning President Salva Kiir’s government looks increasingly untenable, risking yet another humanitarian catastrophe.

These externalities are not unique. War tends to be contagious, spilling over national borders and metastasising into complex, highly inter-dependent systems of insecurity. Libya is indicative, with state collapse facilitating the transnational ‘proliferation of [guns], jihadists, traffickers, and gangsters’. Analysts fear Sudan may prove even worse. Refugee flows are already placing a massive strain on under-resourced borderlands, and the circulation of small arms, drones and heavy weaponry – especially man-portable air-defence systems (MANPADS) – poses a direct threat to regional stability. In this context, civil wars often start as endogenous processes, but they rarely stay that way, evolving into ‘wicked problems’ of global proportions.

The Fraught Realities of Now

Against this backdrop, the limitations of what former Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok calls the ‘Sudanese model’ of peace-making – namely elite bargains between military and civilians – are well documented. As Payton Knopf argues, diplomatic efforts like Jeddah and Geneva fail on several counts: mistakenly assuming that securocrat power-sharing offers a basis for stability; that ceasefires end violence or are a ‘prerequisite for doing so’; and that ‘political legitimacy is less important than coercive force’. This flawed logic is not a recent aberration, but has marred international engagement for decades, rewarding militancy while undervaluing (or undermining) civic agency. 

Of course, these interventions can quickly be improved: they will not resolve the war in its entirety, but they may help temper its worst excesses and better address immediate humanitarian needs. However, any sustainable solution must also confront the realities of Sudan today. The warring parties have fragmented and multiplied: SAF is a bricolage of competing interests and ideologies, while the RSF appears bound together by little more than spoliation. Amid massive structural problems, any deal between Hemedti and al-Burhan is subsequently unlikely to trickle down or resonate in a meaningful way. With the country now at a ‘cataclysmic breaking point’, mediators can no longer afford to ‘shelve’ the broader political issues feeding the conflict. They should be embedded into discussions from the outset, otherwise the same mistakes (and shortcomings) will be continually repeated.

The views expressed in this Commentary are the author’s, and do not represent those of RUSI or any other institution.

Have an idea for a Commentary you’d like to write for us? Send a short pitch to commentaries@rusi.org and we’ll get back to you if it fits into our research interests. Full guidelines for contributors can be found here.