Introduction

Since April 15, the political crisis in Sudan has escalated into violent conflict in the capital Khartoum before spreading to other areas of the country. The fighting follows months of protracted tensions between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), commanded by the Chairperson of the Sudan Sovereign Council, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Sudan Response Force (RSF), led by his deputy, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. The friction between the two former allies, which took control of government in October 2021, disrupted a faltering, internationally-backed political framework agreemen to transition the country back to civilian rule.[1] Burhan and Dagalo differed over security sector reforms leading to highly intractable contestations that elevated the tensions but, most importantly, revealed a power struggle between the army and the RSF in a post-transitional era. The disagreements ranged from the RSF integration timelines into the army, with SAF favouring a two-year process, to the RSF’s decade-long process, and nettlesome issues concerning command and control issues with disputes over the distribution of ranks and salaries.[2]

Genesis of the Conflict

The SAF-SRF fighting is a spillover of the intricate balance of power strategies that influenced the political theatre during the era of former President Omar Bashir. For purposes of regime survival, Bashir used patronage networks to splinter the different security units[3], thus minimizing the threats of a coup from a unified military. However, beyond the divide-and-rule strategy of reducing the military threat through the designed inter-unit-checks-and-balances during Bashir’s regime for years, the policy triggered intense competition and influence, creating entrenched rivalries between security units. In the Periphery areas of the country, Bashir propped tribal militia by arming them against armed groups hostile to his regime. Understandably, this strategy led to the proliferation of armed groups, producing an oligopoly of violence in these areas.

Dagalo emerged into the national security scene as the commander of the Khartoum-sponsored Janjaweed brigade, organised through the National Intelligence and Security Service against rebels in southern Darfur during the 2003-2005 civil war[4]. In 2013, Bashir constituted the Janjaweed into the RSF as a separate security unit to fight the Sudan People’s Liberation Army-North rebels in the Nuba Mountains.

In November 2017, Dagalo’s sources of income appreciated when his RSF fighters took control of the artisanal gold mines in Jebel Amer in Darfur, Sudan's single largest source of export revenues, after defeating and capturing his arch-rival Musa Hilal, who rebelled against Bashir.[5] Herein, Dagalo gained unfettered control of the country’s largest source of the two primary high-paying sources of hard currency. Consequently, Dagalo used the resources to recruit and equip the RSF into a formidable force capable of challenging the Burhan-led Sudan military complex, with the paramilitary personnel estimated at 75,000 and 100,000 fighters in 2021 compared to SAF’s 120,00 to 200,000 troops.[6] Undeniably, the rapid rise of Dagalo into a key mover at the core of the Sudanese political sphere rattled the Sudanese military, for it threatened SAF’s dominance, which resulted in intense rivalry. 

Rising Tensions

The protracted political crisis following the 2019 ouster of Bashir exacerbated the rivalry between Burhan and Dagalo, each manipulating the situation to exert influence and secure their interests and positions in the post-transitional period. Herein, the two sustained their rivalry and evoked fears of a possible escalation to extract political concessions from the civilian population. The political brinkmanship strategies paid dividends when the civilian-led parties disagreed on whether to establish a transitional government bereft of military representation or not.[7] The grassroots resistance committees and the Sudanese Community Party declined to sign the December 2022 Political Agreement Framework claiming it legitimised the military through power-sharing.[8] In a ploy to draw support from the civilian parties, Dagalo denounced the October 2021 coup as a mistake, following intense street protests demanding a civilian-led transitional government in February. This was a significant shift because it publicly confirmed the existing differences, particularly with reports of Dagalo’s reluctance to participate in the coup.[9]

To outmanoeuvre Dagalo, the military rekindled contacts with the Islamists, not just former members of Omar Bashir’s National Congress Party (NCP), but also through reappointments to important government positions and restoring their privileges.[10] The apprehensions of the Bashir-era loyalists in the military towards Dagalo are anchored in two political scenarios. First, they fear a political agreement allowing a longer timeline to integrate RSF into the army might significantly harm their economic and political power. Second, the loyalists claim Dagalo abandoned Bashir during the 2019 coup.[11]

Domestic Repercussions of the Conflict

The conflict between Dagalo and Burhan risks exacerbating the social fault lines in Sudan, pitting the politically dominant riverain elite, which Burhan identifies with, against the periphery outsiders of the Sudanese establishment that Dagalo embodies. Notably, the current violence differs from previous conflicts because the fighting has primarily dominated the heartlands of Sudan and not the periphery areas.[12] This might prove advantageous to the RSF, which made several agreements with armed groups in its Darfur stronghold, to focus on fighting in the heartlands. And technically, fighting might herald the collapse of the October 2020 Juba Peace Agreement (JPA) between the government and militia groups and rebels. There is an elevated risk that some groups might reactivate unilaterally or by allaying with the warring parties. The threat remains credible, moreover, considering historical patterns highlighting fluid relations between armed groups, with frequent alignments and realignments recorded. Additionally, there are concerns that hold-out armed groups might use the current crisis to resume attacks, including the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) Abdelaziz al-Hilu, the largest Sudanese rebel which controls significant territory in the Nuba Mountains.

Regional Implications

The descent into violent conflict in Sudan will almost certainly create an arch of insecurity connecting the conflict-prone Central Africa and the Horn of Africa regions. There have been reports of Arab militias from Central African Republic (CAR), Chad and Mali deploying to join the fight and conducting attacks in Southern Darfur State via Western and Northern Bahr el Ghazal states in South Sudan.[13] The country has several disputed border regions that often turn into violent flashpoints periodically. Thus, the proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) and limited government control may encourage armed communal groups with localized cross-border and ethnically motivated grievances to stage attacks in neighbouring states. Considering historical trends during conflicts in Sudan, the instability might trigger cross-border insecurity, particularly at the border areas with the CAR and Chad, including Abyei and Al-Fashaga areas, which South Sudan and Ethiopia claim from Sudan, respectively. In addition, the lingering hydro-conflict over Ethiopia’s construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) along the Nile River risks becoming intertwined with the Sudan Conflict. The dam has strained relations between Sudan and Egypt, the downstream states, which see the dam as an existential threat to their water security. Consequently, this might explain Egypt’s support of the military, which it considers a more stable, cohesive, and friendly military bureaucratic entity that Cairo can ally with against Ethiopia.

Conclusion

We may say in conclusion that the convergence of internal political dynamics in Sudan, combined with regional security concerns, and international interests in the country, will most certainly determine the longevity of the current crisis. The risk of this happening remains dependent on whether international partners offer political, financial, and military support to the two belligerents to further their interests, instead of using their leverage to plot a political settlement approach. Undeniably, if left unresolved, Sudan risks descending into a theatre of proxy war as different states will support a side who they perceive will best advance their interests, a scenario that is likely to undermine regional security in an area that is highly prone to cross-border activities by armed groups.