Sudan’s parallel war on social media

The war in Sudan is increasingly being fought on the battlefield of social media, where competing factions trade fake news, doctored videos and triumphalist propaganda, hardening divisions in a country already fractured by years of conflict, analysts warn.

Since April 2023, a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan against his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who leads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, has thrust the country into what the United Nations describes as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Beam Reports, a Sudanese digital verification outlet, said it had published roughly 40 fact-checking investigations between May and July, more than half debunking claims related to the war.
Many involve “harmful narratives that appeared aimed at escalating tensions and prolonging the conflict”, said researcher Nihal Abdellatif.

The war has already killed tens of thousands of people, displaced nearly 12 million and created the world’s largest displacement and hunger crises.

All lying

For many Sudanese, trustworthy information has become elusive.

“Every day I check what’s happening on social media,” said Amar Salah Omar, a 34-year-old Sudanese refugee living in Paris. “We’re all looking for the truth, but it is very difficult. They are all lying and we have so little information.”

In early August, Sudan’s army-aligned state television reported that Emirati aircraft carrying Colombian mercenaries had been shot down near an airport controlled by the RSF.

The claim ricocheted across local and international media, though no evidence was provided.