Vladimir Zhagora
Vladimir is a valued Science for Peace Board member who brings a unique perspective to discussions based on his role as a Senior Political Affairs Officer, UNHQ, Department of Political Affairs.
It would not be an overstatement to claim that global economic, political, security and humanitarian environment is replete with numerous complex crises. We witness enormous sufferings of the people in different parts of the world, with the war in Ukraine and the situation in Gaza drawing most of the public attention. That leaves other serious conflicts in shadow.
The conflict in Sudan that has acquired the dimensions and the intensity of a massive national crises, in fact, of a civil war, is one of them. It started in early 2019 and evolved through various stages. The removal of President Bashir from power and his imprisonment in April 2019 marked its first stage. This historic development led to the establishment of the Sovereign Council, an eleven-member military-civilian body that assumed supreme powers during post-Bashir transition. Two generals, the commander of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commonly known as Hemedti, became chair and vice-chair of the Council. They assumed real powers, while the civilian government led by Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdoc was tasked with the responsibilities of running the country.
In October 2021, the two generals conspired and removed the Prime Minister from power. Soon, they established, as it appeared, an unmanageable structure of state governance. The power-sharing agreement they concocted led to a brief period of competition for primacy, with the two generals unavoidably reaching a hot stage of power struggle. A brief period of tense co-existence of the two power entities, the SAF and the SRF, ended in April 2023 in a major explosion of indiscriminate armed violence between them. The fight was about power and control over the resources of the country. At some point, it degenerated into a chaotic war of all against all entangling into its vicious web various regional armed groups, first from Darfur and later South Kordofan.
By now, the consequences of the armed struggle between the SAF and the RSF and their proxies created arguably the most massive modern humanitarian crisis in the world. To provide the most striking statistics, Sudan, a country of about 52 million people in 2019, now counts at least 9 million internally displaced people (IDPs). Almost 3.5 million fled Sudan for neighbouring countries. 24,5 million people - more than half of its current population - are food insecure. Truly alarming reports of massive malnourishment and famine of the people in Northern Darfur and eastern Nuba Mountains are a daily news. Healthcare services in the vast spaces of Sudan are non-existent and the civilians are paying the highest price. Shelling, airstrikes and raids on purely civilian targets have continued unabated for almost two years. Across the country, women, girls continue to suffer conflict-related sexual violence. Thousands of young boys under the age of 15 are forcibly recruited and used in combat. Anything reminiscent of education in the conflict areas is virtually nonexistent.
UN and its humanitarian partners from the global NGO community report heavily constrained access to those in need, as a daily reality. The warring parties totally ignore the international humanitarian law and target the humanitarian convoys as the source of food supplies and medications. Dozens of the humanitarian workers have been wounded and killed in the attacks on the emergency assistance stockpiles, hospitals, distribution centres and refugee camps. Narrowing of already tight humanitarian space, affecting crossline and cross-border relief operations, have continued to worsen since April 2023.
There are no reliable statistics of the civilian casualties, as government institutions in over half of the Sudan's territory are non-existent. However, the United Nations humanitarian agencies and their NGO partners assessed that, in 2025, close to 21 million people in Sudan and up to 5 million others - primarily refugees in neighbouring countries - would need direct support in food, medicine, other types of succour. This would require more than 6 billion US dollars in donor support, a staggering amount of money, given the recent news about the United States’ opposition to multilateral assistance. The volatile and unpredictable security situation on the ground underlies and regenerates the major humanitarian crisis.
The territory of Sudan is effectively the war zone. Federal government was forced by the SRF to abandon the capital, the city of Khartoum, and relocate to Port Sudan on the Red Sea. The diplomatic corps moved with them. As of today, the SAF and its allies are controlling the North and East of the country, while the RSF holds its grip over Western Sudan and large swathes in the South and the Central Nile areas. Khartoum is a war theatre until now. The RSF is mostly in control, but the SAF gradually expands its military presence there. Late last year, the SAF was able to dislodge the RSF from the Sennar state and retook the city of Sinjah, its capital. With the recent takeover of Wad Medani and much of the territory of Jezira State - a critically significant agricultural area south-east of Khartoum - by the SAF, the intensification of the fight over control of Khartoum is anticipated.
Yet another dimension of the conflict in Sudan is the turmoil it creates in the strategic neighbourhood of the Horn of Africa. This and the immediately adjacent areas are currently burdened with an array of major security challenges. Somalia, Yemen, Eritrea, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Tchad are the countries whose internal stability is fragile and bilateral relations are often tense. The spillover from the Sudan civil war produces a disastrous impact on them.
The economy of South Sudan is particularly vulnerable, as its budget almost entirely depends on the oil exports. A year ago, its only oil export pipeline which was running across neighbouring Sudan from oil-fields in the Unity State in South Sudan to Port Sudan in the North, was damaged, as a result of hostilities. It is not fixed until today, thus cutting off about 75 per cent of the hard currency revenues of a nation which has been struggling with internal instability and economic challenges since its independence 14 years ago.
A common problem for all neighbours of Sudan is the influx of refugees from Sudan. In case of Tchad, this is particularly acute. Since the colonial borders that divide the African countries did not take into consideration the actual settlement patterns of the living population, many of ethnic groups were arbitrarily divided. The African tribes of Zaghawa and Masseleit, as well as the Arab tribes of Rizeigat and the Messiriya and some smaller tribes and families, live and seasonally migrate on both sides of the Tchad-Sudan 1403 kilometers-long border. They ignored the formal territorial divisions and continued to practice many traditional social tribal patterns. One of them, firmly imbedded into the conscience and the habits of these people, was the assistance to their brethren and sisters during hard times. The moral and techniques of human survival are largely reliant on a communal arrangement and responsibility.
Since April 2023, almost a million of the people of Darfur crossed the border into Tchad and are currently supported by their kinsmen, as well as by the international community in the refugee camps inside Tchad. This part of Sahel is not an agriculturally buoyant territory and is not densely populated. Its food resources are scarce around the year and sharing them with others requires self-sacrifice. It cannot be sustainable for a long period of time, even on the basis of tribal support. Famine is an inevitable consequence of such limitations, largely imposed by the situation of civil war.
To summarize, the civil war in Sudan is a conflict which has a serious destabilizing impact on the population of the Sudan, as well as on the peace and stability in the region. As long as it continues, it will affect many, as it does today. There must be a solution found to it, as soon as possible. However, overall, neither party seems to be able to achieve a definitive military victory in the near future.
The crisis of statehood in Sudan, systemic and structural in its scope and nature, remains as intractable as it has been since the beginning of the liberation war of the people of South Sudan, in mid-1950s. It eventually led to its secession, in July 2011, as a result of the negotiated settlement and the internationally supervised referendum. Since then, the rump Sudan continued to demonstrate many signs of profound political ailments, as a governable and peaceful state. The situation, as we see it now, proves that the lasting settlement of the conflict in Sudan will continue to be hard to achieve.
Aware of this conundrum, neighbouring countries and some external actors with strategic long-term interests in the region deployed some effort aimed at mediating in the internal conflict in Sudan. In May 2023, the United States supported the initiative of Saudi Arabia to broker a ceasefire. The Jedda Declaration negotiated at the time was a document centred on humanitarian and human rights aspects of the conflict. The warring parties violated it in a matter of weeks. After another inconclusive session of talks, held in January 2024, the process effectively stopped. Disappointed with the behaviour of the belligerents, the outgoing administration of President Biden imposed sanctions on both military forces and their leaders.
Also in January 2024, the intelligence services of Egypt and the UAE, who lean in their political and military support on the SAF and the RSF respectively, convened a meeting between the second-in-charge representatives of the two forces. The meeting, which was supposed to be highly confidential, took place in Manama, Bahrain. But, when the whereabouts of the event were leaked to the media, General Burhan recalled his representative.
Being disappointed with the behaviour of the parties at the talks in Jedda, Washington appointed, in early 2024, a special envoy tasked with a focused attention to a negotiated settlement to the conflict. However, the parties proved their notoriety as intransigent players. The meeting between the two leaders initiated by the special envoy and co-hosted, in August 2024, by Switzerland and Saudi Arabia in Geneva did not materialize. Although their main supporters - Egypt and the UAE - were present at this meeting as observers, the two protagonists, General Burhan and General Dagalo, failed to show.
The humanitarian disaster and the regional security threats caused by the civil strife in Sudan activated the efforts of the African Union and the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development - the traditional mediators in the turbulent neighbour's politics. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons, including inter-African contradictions and competition among its leaders, the efforts of the AU and the IGAD did not yield any tangible results.
In December 2024, Ankara - another regional actor with extended and active engagement in intra-Sudanese affairs - launched a new mediation effort. Its offer was more specific. In view of the well-known apprehension between the Islamist Generals of Sudan and the ruling family of the UAE, Turkey attempted to resolve their specific disagreements through negotiations. Turkey believed that removing this obstacle first would open the way for a comprehensive settlement of the crisis in Sudan. No news has been reported yet about the progress on the projected political track.
What then can be done to stop the conflict in Sudan. Given the humanitarian imperatives, the urgent task is to stop violence. Facilitating a cessation of hostilities, be it temporary, local, or religious, is an unquestionable priority. Under similar circumstances in many other conflicts, ceasefires produced critical space for addressing humanitarian emergency, for building mutual trust and for launching political talks.
In the case of Sudan, with the spread-out and complex deployment of the belligerents on the ground, a configuration of a ceasefire would be the most difficult parameter to agree on. It can be sustained and adhered to only on the basis of well-coordinated and consistent external pressure. In its turn, the achievement of political concurrence of the external actors aimed at peace would require a joint mediation effort of all the stake-holders, of whom many have allied with one of the two belligerent parties since the start of the civil war in April 2023. To reconcile those competing interests of the external mediators would be a sine-qua-non for the success of the mediation efforts.
No matter how challenging, this goal could be advanced by the involvement of the countries with a "clean record" of engagement in the Sudanese affairs. Alongside Norway, Switzerland and perhaps the EU, Canada can be one of such players.
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