Conflict In Sudan: A Quick & Simple Guide

Note from the author: Information included in this article may not be valid as the situation evolves.

War. It’s not a word people like to hear, as it often involves bloodshed between rival parties. Civil war is even more devastating, an inner fight that may tear a country apart. However, even though it’s not good news to hear, as onlookers, we can only watch as a deadly conflict plays out. And that’s what’s happening right now in Sudan.

The Republic of Sudan is in Northeastern Africa, bordered by seven other countries, including Egypt and Libya. It was once part of the British colonies, though Sudan gained independence in 1956. But since then, Sudan has had an unstable and rocky history. One example of this was South Sudan breaking away from Sudan in 2011. South Sudan decided to break away because Southern leaders accused the authorities in Khartoum (Sudan’s capital) of backing out of promises to create a federal government. Anyhow, Sudan and South Sudan parted ways and became two separate countries. However, Sudan’s problems persisted.

The country supposedly was to transition to a democratic government, but a military coup, unfortunately, interrupted that. Since then, a council of generals have taken control and run the country, led by two men: General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of the armed forces and effectively acting as the country’s “president,” and his deputy and leader of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, otherwise known as Hemedti. The two once were allies in the coup, but that alliance didn’t lay out what should happen after the coup succeeded. So that leads to a vicious power struggle between those two influential military figures.

To clarify, the Sudanese army and the paramilitary RSF are the ones who are fighting in Khartoum. And that leads to the question, how did two militaries, the paramilitary RSF and the Sudanese army, come to be in the first place?

To understand this, we have to look at the RSF’s roots. The RSF evolved from the Janjaweed militias, who fought 20 years prior in a conflict in the Darfur region, where they got used by the government of President Omar al-Bashir to help the army put down a rebellion. Since then, the RSF has served the primary purpose of fighting armed rebel groups throughout Sudan. However, it has become so powerful that the RSF is virtually parallel to the Sudanese military.

But only one regime and leader could remain in one country, and that’s how the conflict started. And sadly, since the conflict began, it is estimated more than 400 people have lost their lives, though the total gets believed to be much higher as fighting and shelling have made body recovery efforts harder. There have already been five ceasefire attempts, all of which got broken. Though in the precious hours a ceasefire held, multiple countries have rushed to evacuate citizens. Those countries include China, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, etc. Many countries have also rushed to evacuate embassy staff and diplomats from Sudan.

So we can see clearly from the response from other countries that they believe their citizens and diplomats could be in grave danger if they remain in Sudan. And it’s not just foreign citizens fearing for their lives, as Sudanese have also tried to escape the intensified fighting in their home country, crossing borders into nearby states to seek refuge. I hope that those who want to flee will successfully do so.

So that’s the end of this production from the New News Newsminute about the civil war happening in Sudan, and I hope that the conflict will end quickly. Thank you for reading, and subscribe to not miss out on the latest.