A ‘tinderbox’ with no easy off-ramps: What the Sudan conflict means for the world

Escalating conflict in Sudan is likely to spill over into the wider region and rest of the world, analysts have suggested, as governments and international bodies hope a fresh cease-fire will enable Sudanese citizens and foreign nationals to flee the country.

Fighting erupted 10 days ago as the result of a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by President Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo (known as Hemedti).

The two warring factions had been sharing power in Khartoum since a military coup in 2021, which dissolved a civilian-led transitional government put in place following the fall of dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019. Burhan and Hemedti’s divergent economic and political visions were never reconciled, and the tension between their respective forces began escalating early this month.

A U.S.-brokered 72-hour cease-fire took effect on Monday night, which international bodies and governments hope will allow civilians to leave the country, with the International Rescue Committee estimating that up to 15,000 refugees have already crossed west into neighboring Chad.

However, the RSF alleged Tuesday morning that the SAF had already violated the cease-fire.

“We reiterate our complete commitment to the 72-hour truce that aims to open up humanitarian corridors. However, the Sudanese army has violated the ceasefire by continuing to attack Khartoum by planes, which is a clear breach of the ceasefire agreement,” the RSF said in a statement.

“We urge the Sudanese army to respect the ceasefire and its conditions to alleviate the suffering of innocent civilians. We also call on the international community to intervene and put pressure on the Sudanese army to abide by the terms of the ceasefire.”

Several previous truces over the last 10 days have quickly dissipated, and hundreds of people have lost their lives since fighting began, in what the United Nations has already characterized as a humanitarian catastrophe in the vast, sprawling northeast African country.

The World Health Organization’s representative in Sudan, Nima Saeed Abid, confirmed in a media briefing Tuesday that the WHO had confirmed 459 dead and 4,072 injured in the fighting so far, though he said the true toll is likely to be higher.

Sharath Srinivasan, co-director of the Centre of Governance and Human Rights at the University of Cambridge, told CNBC Tuesday that international involvement in this cease-fire may boost its chances of success.

“What is really distinct about this ceasefire is that it seems to have had some international, U.S. leadership on brokering it, so one might think that it has some other influence and heft behind it,” Srinivasan said.

He added that 72 hours is “a long time if it holds” as it will allow crucial humanitarian aid into Sudan, and potentially open the door to negotiations between the two military leaders.

A ‘tinderbox’ for regional tensions

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned at a U.N. Security Council meeting in New York on Monday that there is a risk of a “catastrophic conflagration” of the conflict that could consume the region and beyond if a solution is not found soon.

Sudan’s size and location at the juncture of the Indian Ocean, the Horn of Africa, North Africa and the Arab world give it a particular geostrategic importance, said Srinivasan, author of “When Peace Kills Politics: International Intervention and Unending Wars in the Sudans.”

Sudan has land borders with Egypt, Libya, Chad, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea, and sits across the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia.

“Egypt has long-standing ties to Sudan and especially to the armed forces. One side of this conflict at the moment — the Rapid Support Forces themselves — have close ties to a number of actors, especially [Field Marshal Khalifa] Haftar in Libya, but via Haftar also again to the UAE and other actors in the region,” Srinivasan explained.

Haftar, commander of the Libyan National Army, reportedly provided support to the RSF in the build-up to the breakout of conflict on April 15, but denies any involvement. The Libyan warlord has long been backed by the UAE, which supplied exclusive military and political support to his Libyan Arab Armed Forces in 2014 in an effort to counter Islamist militants and political opponents in eastern Libya, according to the Atlantic Council.

These relationships increase the likelihood of Sudan becoming “enmeshed within broader political fissures” and make it more difficult for a resolution to be found imminently, according to Benjamin Hunter, Africa analyst at global risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft.

Notorious Russian mercenary force Wagner Group has been linked to various commercial and military operations in Sudan. Its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin claims no member of the military contractor has been present in the country for more than two years, though Wagner is well-known to be active in the ongoing civil war in the Central African Republic and across a broader Sahel region beset by insecurity.

However, Moscow’s interest in Sudan is long-standing. Former President Bashir signed a number of deals with the Kremlin in 2017 that included permission for a Russian naval base at Port Sudan, on the Red Sea, along with concessions on gold mining for a Russian company the U.S. Treasury alleges is a front for Wagner activities.

Wagner allegedly deployed to Sudan in December 2017 to provide a range of political and military assistance to Bashir in exchange for these concessions to that company, M Invest.

Hemedti’s partnership with Wagner in Sudan’s gold sector is reported to have translated into arms provisions from Wagner planes based in Libya.

“This relationship is likely to deepen over the coming six months and will further entrench Wagner’s growing network across the Sahel region, where it has deployed mercenaries and become a player in the extractive sector,” Verisk Maplecroft’s Hunter suggested.

“Closer ties with Wagner, potentially involving the deployment of more Russian mercenaries alongside the RSF, risks Sudan’s conflict becoming tied up in competition between western countries and Russia.”

However, Srinivasan argued that Moscow’s involvement is “easy to exaggerate” and that “first and foremost, this is about the actors on the ground” and their various geostrategic rivalries.

“So in that sense, this conflict matters greatly because it is bringing to the fore a range of complex contestations over resources, over security, over influence that has bedeviled the region for some time, so Sudan in a sense is a tinderbox for a wider set of regional dynamics.”

He explained that relations between Khartoum and Gulf powers Saudi Arabia and the UAE thawed in the mid-2010s after a period of tension under Bashir. Ties were then deepened by the RSF and Sudanese army’s provision of troops alongside Emirati forces to the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen.

“In that sense, there was a relationship that built around security interests but then as a result also around other things like gold production, like access to agriculture etc.,” Srinivasan said.

“The UAE just announced late last year that it was investing heavily in Port Sudan, and again this was a sign that it was seeing strategic importance in this very contested Indian Ocean world of getting a foothold in Sudan, so there’s these economic, security, geostrategic interests that have sort of intermixed over the last 10 years and really speak to why both countries have an interest.”

What happens next?

Despite the three-day cease-fire currently in place, neither leader has yet signaled a willingness to begin negotiations to end the conflict, which analysts believe will quickly engulf the country’s infrastructure and draw in surrounding nations.

“The RSF is likely to target oil infrastructure linking South Sudan with Khartoum and the export terminal at Port Sudan,” Verisk Maplecroft’s Hunter suggested.

“Revenue from pipeline transit fees is controlled by the SAF and Hemedti’s forces will seek to cut this off in the event of an extended war.”

Damage to this oil infrastructure would disrupt the oil exports of Chinese, Indian and Malaysian companies in South Sudan that depend entirely on Sudan for access to the global market, Hunter said.

Though South Sudan’s relatively low output means impact to global oil markets will be limited, 90% of the country’s economy is centered around oil exports. Hunter suggested this would compel President Salva Kiir’s administration, itself facing domestic challenges from various armed groups, to support the SAF in the event that Hemedti does attack Sudan’s oil infrastructure.

Verisk Maplecroft also expects Chad to be drawn in on the side of the SAF, and Hunter suggested the conflict is also likely to prevent a resolution to the dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), with both sides already aligned with opposing sides of the Sudanese conflict.

“Egypt is a staunch backer of the SAF and has reportedly deployed airstrikes against RSF positions, while Hemedti has, since 2021, cultivated a closer relationship with Addis Ababa,” Hunter said.

“However, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has not yet provided any direct military support for the RSF and remains unlikely to do so because it would effectively pull Egypt and Ethiopia into a proxy conflict.”

‘No easy off-ramps’

The fact that this is a contest over who is the “dominant security actor” for the state “doesn’t bode very well at all” for hopes of an imminent resolution, Srinivasan said, adding that there is a “great worry” that the two sides may look to involve other domestic armed groups and rebel movements in the conflict.

But he suggested that there is a “glimmer of hope” in that both parties rely not just on international support, but also on the support of big business in Sudan.

“In a sense, what’s devastating this country is that conflict and war and violence has come to Khartoum which has never seen this kind of violence for over a hundred years, rather civil war has always engulfed the regions and peripheries of Sudan,” he said.

“What that means is the big business interests, the more dominant political economy actors in the country, are much more affected by this conflict and violence, and they may weigh in on both of these actors in different ways, especially the Sudan Armed Forces, to try to restrain them and get them to pull back.”

However, he suggested that there are “no easy off-ramps” for negotiation or mediation at this early stage, other than to shore up the cease-fire and open up the possibility for regional and international actors to come to the table with warring forces on the ground.