A proxy war is being waged in Sudan taking a heavy toll of human lives and leaving behind a trail of blood, rape and genocidal violence on an unprecedented scale. The fierceness has assumed such proportions that the country is now being virtually carved out into two, and a partition seems imminent following the fall of El-Fasher in the western region October 28. All this is for a bloody power struggle within the country and the lure of gold locked up in the country’s subterranean region on which some foreign powers have set their eyes.
The involvement of foreign powers is such that both the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), fighting for grabbing power in Sudan since April 2023, have been accusing each other of receiving support from foreign powers. Deeply concerned over one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world now with about 150,000 people killed and 12 million displaced from their homes, the United Nations has repeatedly called on member states to “refrain from any external interference.” All in vain. Sudan’s de facto leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan leads the army while the RSF is headed by Mohamed Hamdan Daglo. In October 2021, Burhan along with Daglo, who was his deputy at the time, led a coup and overthrew the civilian-led transitional government which was set up following the 2019 ouster of deeply entrenched President Omar al-Bashir. However, within two years the two fell out and an internecine war broke out between their forces by mid-April 2023. The war has turned out to be catastrophic for the entire population.
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The RSF originated from the Janjaweed militias who are Arab camel and horse-mounted fighters. They carried out ruthless atrocities during the 2003 conflict that erupted in one region of Darfur. It has now established its control in the entire western region of the country and has formed a rival parallel administration in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur. The situation got complicated by the role being played by Egypt, Sudan’s neighbour to the north and a key backer of the Sudanese army. It considers Burhan the legitimate ruler of Sudan. The RSF has in the past accused Egypt of providing direct military support to Burhan’s troops, an allegation Cairo consistently denies. Cairo is believed to have benefited from Saudi Arabia’s tacit support. On the other hand, the Sudanese army has accused the UAE of supporting the RSF with weapons and mercenaries, including Colombians, sent via Chad, Libya, Kenya and Somalia, by land or air. All these countries are complicit in the ethnic cleansing going on in Sudan for the past two years. Consequently, the army-aligned government severed diplomatic ties with the UAE in May, charging it with supplying drones to the RSF. Predictably, Abu Dhabi has consistently denied any interference, whereas the UN in its reports and investigations, claims to have strong evidence of UAE’s involvement in the conflict. Under Bashir’s three-decade rule, Sudan relied militarily on Russia and negotiated to build a Russian naval base on the Red Sea – a deal that Moscow publicly announced in 2020.
In 2021, Sudan’s military said the deal was “under review” but the issue has in recent months been on the agenda of high-level discussions, according to some Russian media. The two countries have recently signed several bilateral military and economic cooperation agreements. Sudan’s civil war took a critical turn when the RSF captured the entire Darfur region following the fall of El-Fasher, the army’s last Darfur stronghold 30 October. Reports suggest the RSF has killed hundreds of unarmed civilians in ethnically motivated attacks. The group has also been accused of hunting down specific individuals, detaining civilians, and releasing them only after receiving ransom payments.
This is a pattern consistent with what happened after the RSF took over other major cities. The forces even raided a hospital after the fall of El-Fasher and massacred scores of patients, including children, while they keep raping women trying to flee the region. It is unfortunate that the world, which shows so much interest in ending many other conflicts, is paying only lip service to the bloodbath in Sudan. Many powerful nations officially claim to be concerned about the fate of the Sudanese people, but have done nothing so far to hold the perpetrators there of crimes against humanity. That is probably how pages of human history have always been soaked in blood.
