What is Happening in Sudan and What Implications Does It Have for the Region?

 by James Curwood

If you have looked at any newspapers or online news in the last couple of days you will have almost certainly seen the stories about the current situation in Sudan. In the past week the rings of gunfire and the deafening sounds of explosions have been heard all across the capital city of Khartoum destroying homes and key infrastructure such as the airport and government offices and already cost hundreds of lives and will continue to cost more in the coming weeks if no solution to end the bloodshed is found. The fighting began as Sudan was attempting to transition to a democracy after being subjected to 25 years of harsh dictatorship under Omar al-Bashir, who was heavily involved in corruption across Sudan and was only deposed in 2019 when two key military leaders launched a coup against him along with populist protests and finally ended the 25 year dictatorship. The two military leaders who worked together to oust al-Bashir in 2019 are the leaders of the two sides fighting against each other in Sudan today. One of the two former allies, General Abdel Fattah Burhan, acted as the de facto head of state after the 2019 coup and is in control of the national armed forces. His former ally turned adversary General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo is in charge of a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Force (RSF) who have intervened in conflicts in Yemen and Libya and are separate from the national army. Relations between these two generals have been deteriorating for a while as both of them jockeyed for power using their military groups as threats to one another. However both generals made an agreement last September that would seem to end this competition. As the Rapid Support Force and the army would return to their barracks and the RSF would become part of the army, being brought under army leadership and therefore under the leadership of Burhan. 

However as time drew closer to the proposed agreement it was becoming less and less likely to happen as alliances seemed to be shifting as General Dagalo getting cold feet and supposedly pulling out. This is because if the Rapid Support Force was absorbed into the army this would leave all potential military power with Dagalo’s main rival Burhan as he would control both of the fighting forces in Sudan. Therefore firmly cementing him as the leader of Sudan as no one could challenge his leadership as he had a monopoly on the military and fighting forces. This obviously worried General Dagalo who was trying to attain the presidency of Burhan as giving away his main bargaining chip and strength of the RSF would end the challenge for the presidency as he could not launch any attempts at overthrowing Burhan and gaining power and wealth. This of course led to the reluctance of Dagalo to give up his pride and joy of the RSF and pulled out of the December agreement and subsequently plunged Sudan into civil war as Dagalo tried to attain the presidency on the 15th of April.

This conflict has big implications for the Eastern African region and the world as a whole. The main area of implication it can have is with the situation between Egypt and Ethiopia and the worsening ties between them. The situation between Ethiopia and Egypt is a long and complicated story but put simply, Egypt and its 100 million citizens rely heavily on the flow of the Nile for infrastructure, agriculture, energy and sustaining society. The issue comes with Ethiopia building one of the largest dams in the world called the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam across the Nile. Once built the dam would take 4-7 years to fill to be able produce electricity, in this time the flow downstream through Sudan and Ethiopia would be greatly reduced, severely impacting both the countries in terms of reducing the amount of energy they produce with their dams and impacting food production and the two countries have bitterly politically fought over this manner and Egypt even threatening to go to war with Ethiopia if they fill up the dam to slowly. This ties into the Sudan conflict as Egypt has close ties to the Sudanese government as they both vehemently disagree about the building and the filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance dam and Cario has also reached out to both sides to press for a ceasefire. This is because the overall outcome of the fighting could impact Sudan and Egypt's thinking on how they deal with the Ethiopian dam situation and shift their policy to a more aggressive approach as Egypt will see the vulnerability and instability that is happening all across the region in Yemen and Eritrea and Ethiopia. They will be scared that if they do not act now and the Nile dries up a substantial amount to that it heavily affects the lives of Egyptians they might be the next country to fall into fighting like Sudan has done which would have further implications on the world stage. However this is all ‘what if’ but the situation in Sudan is not getting any better two weeks after the start of the conflict as a temporary ceasefire has broken down with air strikes bombarding the city and there is currently very little hope on the horizon for a peaceful and swift solution to this fighting.