The brutal Sudanese civil war is “grinding on with no resolution in sight” and outside actors – marshalled by the US – need to relaunch their efforts to broker a peace before the conflict spreads further or leads to partition, according to a new report from International Crisis Group (ICG).
The three-year conflict has triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with an estimated four million refugees sheltering from famine and atrocities in neighbouring countries. The total number of internally and externally diplaced is thought to amount to around 14 million. Estimates for the dead range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands.
Control of Sudan is divided between its army, which holds Khartoum and the east, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the west. Outside actors continue to fuel the devastating conflict – Egypt and Saudi Arabia back the army, while the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is the RSF’s “primary patron,” according to ICG. Outside support, it says, has led both parties to spurn mediation in the belief that they can win “by force of arms and attrition” and sparked an “escalation cycle inside Sudan.”
“Sudan’s spiralling conflict is the worst of all nightmares for Sudanese and is now contributing to instability far outside Sudan’s borders. Khartoum is the only world capital to be razed in recent years, and it remains virtually uninhabitable. The rest of the country faces the worst humanitarian conditions on the planet. Alarmingly, the squabbles among outside powers involved in the conflict only seem to get more bitter.”
Call for US leadership
Despite the failure of previous US-led peace efforts, ICG says Washington should redouble its efforts to seek a solution, given that “the risk of long-term partition is growing” and the conflict risks spilling further into neighbouring African and Middle Eastern countries. Spillover effects are already apparent in Chad, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Yemen, the report says.
“The US should use its political capital to try forging clearer agreement about Sudan’s “day after” among key outside players, especially Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE, and then work with them to push the conflict parties toward that off-ramp,” the report states.
“Simultaneously, other diplomatic tracks should try to complement these efforts – leaders in the Horn of Africa could, for example, try to suss out how to coax the belligerents toward silencing the guns on either a short- or long-term basis, while other states and multilateral bodies work in other formats to advance conversations about Sudan’s post-conflict political order.”
A high-level effort to bring about a “clearer modus vivendi between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi when it comes to their competition in the Red Sea basin and Horn of Africa would also be welcome,” the authors write.
The war in Sudan is just one facet of a Saudi-UAE geopolitical rivalry which has been playing out across the continent.
The authors say that high-level involvement from President Donald Trump or US secretary of state Marco Rubio may be essential to broker a peace deal, while facilitators might include major regional actors and European security partners. The US “will need to intensify its efforts and put more political capital on the line.”
While the authors acknowledge that Washington is an “is an imperfect choice to be at the helm of Sudan peace efforts”, they believe that its war in Iran “has not yet altered the big picture in Sudan” and that US relations in the Red Sea Basin and the Gulf will likely survive the war.
“For all the damage the US is doing to its own interests with the new Middle East war, it still leads efforts to broker peace in Sudan. But to succeed it will need to put sustained pressure, including via top-level engagement, on the Quad members who wield the most influence over the belligerents.”
The Quad is headed by the US, and includes Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.
War backers must compromise
A successful US brokered plan hinges on other Quad members acknowledging that “none of them will fully get their way on Sudan” and agreeing to work on a deal that could given them essential assurances.
“For Saudi Arabia and Egypt, that could mean, at minimum, a contained and curtailed RSF that does not threaten Khartoum or eastern Sudan – or retain the ability to split Sudan in two. This condition will probably require an Emirati commitment to hold the RSF to future deadlines for withdrawing, integrating, demobilising or expatriating its fighters.
“The UAE, meanwhile, would seek clear guarentees that the Sudanese army and security apparatus will distance itself from the Bashir-linked Sudanese Islamic Movement, including through rebalancing in the officer corps and the demobilisation of militias, while recognising that some Islamists will invariably retain influence.”
Agreement to back formation of a unity civilian government will also be essential, the authors state.
Slim hopes for Sudan
While ICG acknowledges the challenges of brokering peace, it says that “neither fatalism not distraction” is an excuse for allowing the “cruel and geopolitically important” war to be allowed to rage indefinitely.
“After three years of brutal war, it is sobering that the options for peacemaking in Sudan remain so limited – and so dependent on the diplomatic efforts of actors who have yet to deliver.
“If nothing else, perhaps the prospect of further instability in a region deeply unsettled by the new Middle East war will generate a new level of seriousness from the outside players most enmeshed in Sudan’s war to wind it down rather than escalate it. If not, the prospect of yet more tragic anniversaries looms over this war-ravaged country.”