On April 15, Sudan erupted into bloody conflict. A rivalry between the East African country’s top generals – army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commonly known as Hemedti – pitted its military against a state-sponsored militia known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). An internationally-backed plan to launch a new transition with civilian parties, brought tension, building for months between Sudan's army and the RSF to a head when both – collaborators on the October 2021 coup that toppled a civilian government – were required to relinquish power.
As the military uses jet fighters to bomb RSF in densely populated areas, and both factions engage in bloody street battles using guns and artillery fire, some 500 people caught in the crossfire have died and nearly 5,000 have been badly wounded. As many as 100,000 Sudanese have fled, triggering a massive refugee crisis in the making. With food and water supplies diminishing, millions more remained trapped in capital Khartoum, in need of dire humanitarian assistance.
To understand the conflict, The Express Tribune turned to prominent researchers and experts on the region. But as they call for immediate international attention to the crisis with a potential to grow far worse, they all condemned the inaction and double standards of the international community to hold the abuses and excesses of Sudan’s repressive rulers to account. Pessimistically, given the history of similar crises and the East African nation’s own history, for now neither of them sees an end in sight for ordinary Sudanese people’s plight.
War of attrition
Speaking to The Express Tribune, academic and researcher Eric Reeves said the military situation in Khartoum has turned into a brutal war of attrition between two very different military forces. “Hemedti’s Rapid Support Forces seem much better at urban warfare but have no air power and re-supply is critical if they are to continue to fight,” he assessed, noting that the RSF have committed countless atrocities, many gratuitous. “They have taken over civilian residences, health facilities and count on civilians serving as human shields. The RSF in general are despised by not only the SAF, but by the vast majority of the riverine Arab population,” the professor emeritus of English Language and Literature at Massachusetts’ Smith College pointed out.
“In contrast, General al-Burhan’s forces have been thoroughly underwhelming in their fighting on the ground, and thus continue to deploy heavy weapons (air power and artillery) in highly indiscriminate fashions,” he added.
According to Reeves, neither man seems concerned about the catastrophic humanitarian crisis that is brewing — and not just in Khartoum. “Catastrophic is not an exaggeration,” stressed the academic. “These two men hate one another, and I think it is highly unlikely that any truce or cease-fire will hold.”
Reeves believes the parties will participate in “negotiations,” but only to appease international demands. “The conflict seems like a fight to the death. Hemedti knows that he is a dead man if he does not prevail; al-Burhan knows he will lose all power if he cannot defeat the RSF.” At the same time, al-Bashir loyalists and Islamists are sensing they may have a chance for revival and are an unknown but possibly critical factor, he added. “It’s most likely they will side with the SAF/al-Burhan, but unclear.”
“Fighting in Darfur is extremely worrisome and could revive the terrible ethnically targeted violence that made the region the site of the 21st century’s first genocide,” cautioned Reeves, who has carried out research into the politics and human rights situation in Sudan. He believes that it is in Darfur – where he founded and oversaw a project in a North Darfur IDP camp, and from which he gets granular intel from the ground – that food shortages will be immensely destructive. “Indeed, children have already been reported as having died from malnutrition.”
Caught in crossfire
After almost three weeks into the fighting, the situation for civilians on the ground is devastating, said Laetitia Bader, the Horn of Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “There has been a lot of fighting in urban areas and particularly in the capital Khartoum, including in very heavily populated areas.”
According to Bader, what has been seen – and HRW has released a report on this – is the use of heavy explosive weaponry which has led to killings of civilians and massive damage to civilian infrastructure. “So, a lot of hospitals in the capital have had to shut down because they have been damaged as a result of the fighting.”
“Also, just because of the ongoing fighting, it is very difficult for civilians to move around,” added the HRW official who has investigated conflict related abuses in the region and previously worked with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Uganda. “It's been difficult for people to access healthcare facilities. And we're seeing, as a result of this, a very rapidly deteriorating humanitarian context as you can imagine.”
Bader pointed out that the water system has also been affected with some parts of the capital being completely cut off from water for days and days. “The electricity has also been affected. All this has a trickle-down impact on the ability of civilians to continue to survive in some of these areas.”
She also spoke of massive displacement in the country. “The UN is reporting about 300,000 people have been displaced internally already,” Bader shared. “And we're also talking about at least 100,000 people who have fled into neighboring countries, some facing very challenging realities at the border notably with Egypt.”
“At the same time, an important angle to underscore is that there has also been a massive evacuation of the international community, including many aid organisations and their international staff, which often, obviously, means that the ability for the international humanitarian community to respond to these needs right now is severely limited,” she added. “We've also seen humanitarian workers that have been attacked. Four humanitarian workers have been killed. Looting of aid, property warehouses, etc. So, it really is a devastating situation right now.”
Asked who is the gatekeeper for human rights in Sudan with humanitarian workers out, the HRW director said there are still many Sudanese civilians on the ground who are trying to report on this. “Now, doctors in particular, on a daily basis, are trying to account for civilian casualties, raising numbers and details on what's been happening in terms of attacks on hospitals, in terms of the massive shortage of basic medical equipment in hospitals,” she said, adding that doctors were incredibly vulnerable right now but also playing a vital role in ensuring that information is getting out.
“Additionally, there are localised resistance committee groups that are central to a lengthy history of social protests in Sudan. They are providing vital information on safe routes to move, where to access water and food, but they are also operating in an incredibly risky and dangerous environment,” Bader further shared, noting that with heavy fighting ongoing, particularly in the capital in the last few days, they themselves are facing this humanitarian disaster and very serious risks of abuse and harm.
Speaking about actions that have been taken in the absence of aid organizations to protect human rights, Bader acknowledged that very little had been done so far. “There obviously has been some public messaging. There have been UN Security Council meetings… there has been public messaging around the need to protect civilians. But I think these are actors that have repeatedly run amok and who don't care about basic norms and respect for civilian protection.”
Because of this, the HRW official stressed messaging and condemnation is not enough. “There needs to be much more and that's why there needs to be concrete actions taken against them to make clear that their actions are leading to consequences and that there is a common international position on that.”
She added that at the same time, there needs to be mechanisms established to collect information on what is happening. “Information is at this point coming out and it's critical, and all that leads down the line to accountability.”
Refugee crisis in the making
According to Bader, the long-term impact of the current crisis in Sudan will be devastating for Sudanese civilians first and foremost. “But also, there are a lot of refugee communities in Sudan. We spent a good part of the last three years documenting very serious abuses in the northern Ethiopia region, especially in the region of Tigray.”
“Thousands of Tigrayan had fled to Sudan, especially in the first month of the conflict there. They are now being caught up in the context of Sudan as well. So, you have civilians in the region facing the cycles of abuse and violence right now, having nowhere to find safe havens,” she added.
The HRW director said this where it is critical for responses to look at the bigger picture and to not always take a short-term perspective of what seems like the easiest way out of a situation now. “They need to deal and tackle the chronic cycles of abuse and impunity in the region.”
“We're speaking to people who have been displaced from their homes in Ethiopia and are now being displaced in Sudan. You know, where do they turn to and where do they flee right now,” she asked.
With neighboring countries dealing with a massive refugee influx, Bader said it is going to be critical both for them to be facilitating humanitarian access via their borders, but also to be making sure that humanitarian actors have access to the refugees arriving there. “It's also key for the international community to be stepping up with funding for these communities who are displaced right now.”
Prospects for peace
Talking about the possibility of peaceful resolution to the crisis in Sudan, the experts The Express Tribune spoke to have a damning assessment of the international community’s role.
“The international community has blundered badly time and again in negotiations, seeking to reconcile the “men with guns” while largely ignoring the democratic aspirations of the vast majority of the civilian population,” said Eric Reeves of Smith College. “No peace can come to Sudan so long as there are two generals and two armies in this beleaguered country, whose economy has been suffocated by military rule for over 30 years.”
He viewed talk of sanctions is mainly symbolic: “Hemedti, who has many connections to the UAE (which supports him) has stashed away a huge amount of money and gold with the UAE, which will always take him in if he flees,” he shared, adding that Al-Burhan too seems unlikely to feel threatened by sanctions, simply because the army controls too much of the country’s wealth, and in countless ways.
“At the moment, I see no end to the fighting for the foreseeable future and a vast, rapidly increasing humanitarian crisis will become the primary story (or should be).”
HRW’s Laetitia Bader said what's critical right now is that there needs to be a concerted international effort to make clear to the two warring generals and their forces that the cycles of serious abuse cannot continue with impunity. “There are no forces that suddenly start to abuse civilians. They have a long history of doing so whether it's the army, notably in Darfur or whether it's the rapid support forces, especially in Darfur, but also in Khartoum,” she noted. “They led one of the worst clamp down on protesters in 2019 there. They also conducted the coup together. So, they have a legacy of abuse.”
According to Bader, there really haven't been any international repercussions for this complete lack of respect for basic international norms and the rights of Sudanese. “So, what needs to happen now is a very strong concerted, robust action to make clear that's not acceptable anymore.”
“We are calling at the level of the Human Rights Council for there to be a mechanism established to preserve evidence of serious violations,” she added.
Professor Ashok Swain of the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University lamented that there is no singular "International Community" to speak of at present; rather, it is highly divided. “In the case of Sudan, individual actors are playing their respective roles. Egypt wields a certain degree of influence over Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, while the UAE exerts a similar level of influence over Hemedti,” he pointed out. “However, it remains unclear how actively these actors are engaged or how invested they are in their preferred outcome on the ground.”
Swain noted that the United States, with Saudi Arabia's assistance, is attempting to broker a ceasefire and reduce tensions between the warring parties. “While the Saudis are leading the mediation efforts, the US is providing support. [But] unfortunately, there is currently no unified African or international voice or coordinated effort to resolve the crisis,” he said.
Bader agreed that the international community’s actions have been disappointing for many years now. “If anything, I think it's important to go back to what has been a very meek, mild response to the coup itself that these two leaders conducted together in 2021,” she said. “Yes, there were economic repercussions, especially around possibilities of development assistance, but very little else. These two generals continue to be treated and given the same standing perceived as part of the political elite and treated as such, there really hasn't been any effort whatsoever to hamper their ability to continue to commit crimes.”
The HRW senior official said there has been a sort of wishful thinking on the part of the international community around believing or claiming to believe that the only option and the only future for the country is with the very military leaders who have continued to destabilise, and this has led to both insecurity and massive abuses. “It is a complacency in that regard. I think what needs to happen much more is really putting the weight behind the words and, you know, making and supporting what many Sudanese have been calling for throughout this period, since the coup.”
“Even before that, Sudanese from all walks of life have repeatedly said that the cycles of impunity, the fact that same players keep getting away with serious crimes, is not going to lead to a better future for the country. And I think that messaging has been heard but has not been in any way, seriously taken on board. Now it's time for the international community to really back that messaging with actions,” she stressed.
No end in sight
According to Ashok Swain, the uncertainty in Sudan is unlikely to end soon. He said that while there was hope for a democratic process following the ousting of Omar al-Bashir and the success of the mass movement, two generals came together and seized power, and the interim administration was unable to make significant progress or perhaps was not allowed to do so.
“It seems improbable that one party will emerge as the winner and gain absolute control over power. They may reach an uneasy truce, but political instability will persist unless one party gains absolute power over the other, which appears less likely to happen unless some accidental event occurs,” he assessed. According to him, the reason for this is that these actors have varying levels of support from external actors, and even within their own countries, they have different power structures. “Moreover, the international community is divided. As a result, it is unlikely for one party to completely overpower the other. The persistent political instability will hinder economic development, making it difficult for Sudan to attract international investment. Therefore, the country's political and economic stability looks weak.”
Talking about what steps can be taken to resolve the crisis and restore stability in Sudan, Swain said it would be necessary for both warring generals to return to the barracks and relinquish their power, allowing democracy to take root. “However, given the current situation, this is unlikely to happen. Neither of the two generals appear interested in doing so, and the international community remains divided.”
“Hemedti has strong support from Russia and may also gain support from China, but neither country is expected to promote the democratic process. In addition, when the US conducts its business through the Saudis, it is unlikely that the democratic process will gain support,” the Uppsala University professor pointed out. “The only way for stability to return is if one of the generals loses power, dies, or a truce is reached where they end up sharing power or dividing the area of influence. Sudan is destined to be politically unstable for some time to come.”
For HRW’s Bader, at the heart of this conflict is impunity is cycles of violence and abuses which the generals and others have gotten away with. “But we're also saying that at the level of the Security Council and globally, there needs to be an arms embargo in place,” she said, stressing that there has been a massive proliferation of arms in Sudan, notably Darfur in the last year alone. “It is critical that countries that have been selling arms to these two warring parties, stop doing so now. And also, for there to be targeted sanctions against these individuals and their entities and their businesses. So, they are not able to continue to fund this abusive conflict,” she added.