Conflict Watchlist 2025 | Sudan

Foreign meddling and fragmentation fuel the war in Sudan

Posted: 12 December 2024

Twenty months of war have wreaked massive destruction in Sudan. ACLED records over 28,700 reported fatalities by the end of November 2024, including over 7,500 civilians killed in direct attacks. These numbers are assumed to be an underestimate of the war’s actual death toll, which some have put as high as 150,000.¹ This conflict has left over half of Sudan’s population in need of humanitarian aid, and over 30% of the population has been displaced.² Thus, Sudan ranks as the fourth-deadliest conflict in the world, according to the ACLED Conflict Index.

The conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), born out of a struggle for power between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan ‘Hemedti’ Dagalo, has precipitated a nationwide war. While much of the fighting has continued to ravage Sudan’s symbolic heart, Khartoum, in 2024 the conflict increasingly shifted toward neighboring al-Jazirah state — strategically important for its main roads linking several states — and the Darfur region, the RSF’s traditional base. Since September, the SAF has launched offensive operations to oust RSF troops from Khartoum, Sennar, and al-Jazirah states, coordinating their forces to besiege RSF positions. The SAF scored several successes, recapturing Sennar state’s capital, Sinja, and lifting a long-running siege on two military bases in Bahri, Khartoum. In Darfur, for its part, the RSF and its allied Arab militias continue to besiege the North Darfur state capital of El Fasher, the only Darfurian capital that has not fallen to the RSF. In September, the Darfur Joint Forces, an SAF-allied resistance force, opened a new front in North Darfur to stretch the RSF’s military and logistical capacity.

Beyond the fighting between the RSF and SAF, other groups — such as ethnic militias and alliances — have emerged as key parties to the conflict. These ethnic militias and armed groups joined the conflict to protect local communities from the violence engulfing Sudan, as the SAF proved unable to resist RSF advances. The Darfur Joint Forces, initially established as a collective neutral force, is the third-most active group in the conflict after the RSF and SAF. It was first deployed on 27 April 2023 to protect civilians in El Fasher, one week after the conflict erupted in Khartoum. However, since March 2024, various members of the Darfur Joint Forces have changed their neutral stance, with some backing the SAF, while others maintained their neutrality.

The RSF also seems to be suffering from internal disputes among its ranks. In August and September 2024, there were a high number of clashes among members of the RSF. Most notably, after the defection of senior RSF commander Abu Aqla Keikel in October 2024, the RSF sought revenge by targeting the population of al-Jazirah, and particularly Keikel’s ethnic group, the Shukriya. The retaliatory attack against the Shukriya in al-Jazirah killed hundreds of civilians and forced thousands to flee their homes, in one of the worst atrocities against civilians this year. These developments appear to show cracks in the RSF’s strategy of maintaining unity.

The threat from the sky, in the form of air and drone strikes, became a prominent feature of the conflict in 2024. The SAF has maintained aerial supremacy throughout the conflict, with its air force striking RSF positions across the country. In 2024, however, the RSF ramped up its use of combat drones, reaching well beyond active frontlines. Among these attacks was a drone strike that targeted a military parade attended by SAF Commander Burhan on 31 July in Red Sea state. There is evidence that the United Arab Emirates has supplied lethal weapons to the RSF — though it has officially denied such involvement — while Eritrea, Egypt, Russia, and Iran have provided military aid to the SAF.³ Foreign meddling has consequently contributed to conflict escalation. ACLED records an increase in SAF drone strikes following reports that Iran provided the SAF drones at the end of 2023.⁴ Likewise, the number of SAF airstrikes against the RSF in Darfur increased in August 2024 after the SAF received 15 new fighter jets supplied by Russia and Egypt.

What to watch for in 2025

The war in Sudan is at a crossroads. Although the SAF has arguably gained momentum in Khartoum, Sennar, and al-Jazirah states, prospects for peace are slim. Peace initiatives undertaken by the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the African Union have thus far achieved no meaningful outcome. Burhan puts the withdrawal of the RSF from all territories it controls as a precondition for coming back to the negotiation table, pointing to the Declaration of Principles for the Protection of Civilians that was signed in May 2023.⁵ Foreign meddling and constant arms transfers, in turn, fuel both parties’ belief that they could win the war.⁶ The SAF will continue its offensive campaigns in Khartoum, Sennar, and al-Jazirah to break the remaining RSF positions. In the west of the country, the RSF will likely push on El Fasher to seize full control of Darfur and remove other groups from the region.

However, with the war dragging on indefinitely, the risk of an increasingly fragmented conflict environment in 2025 increases. Several armed groups, often seeking foreign backing, are positioning themselves to fill power vacuums across the country and establish themselves as security providers. Popular Resistance Forces — armed militias consisting of civilians in arms — have emerged in several regions with support from the SAF, opening the door for the proliferation of armed groups and small arms.⁷ Eritrea instead opened its borders and established training camps for SAF-allied forces in the east, bolstering its influence along the Red Sea coast.⁸ These moves have raised fears that ethnic conflicts in the region may reignite.

The RSF’s decentralized and horizontally organized structure, which builds on existing communal social networks, could also lead to fragmentation and exacerbate violence. Its networked structure does not always guarantee a coherent chain of command, as the level of coordination between mid-level ethnic militia commanders is low. Local agendas and ethnic affiliations often collide with the RSF’s national goals, with alliances frequently driven by pragmatic local power politics and security interests. Moreover, the RSF’s governance in areas under its control is inconsistent and often lacks functional institutions.⁹ This absence of effective governance structures could lead to instability and a power vacuum that could be exploited by ambitious RSF commanders and allied militia leaders, many of whom are motivated by direct economic gains — the RSF controls the Jebel Amer gold mines in Darfur and smuggles the gold to the UAE to be sold to the world market.¹⁰

The involvement of Islamist Omar al-Bashir loyalists who reject the idea of secular government and control key positions in the SAF¹¹ also plays a great role in the conflict and drives foreign countries’ support to the armed factions. This situation has prompted the UAE to back the RSF as a means to counter the Islamist agenda in Sudan. The UAE’s fight against Islamist groups extends to the Horn of Africa and the Libya-Sahel regions: It supports non-state armed forces or states combating Islamist groups like al-Shabaab and the Islamic State by increasing their military capacity or providing training and weapons.¹² In Sudan, the UAE, which supports the RSF, is reportedly the most heavily invested foreign player in the conflict.¹³ Besides countering the Islamist movement, the RSF serves the UAE’s interests by supplying combatants for battles against the Houthis in Yemen and aiding Libyan National Army General Khalifa Haftar in Libya, thereby allowing the RSF to expand its operations along the borders with Libya and the Central African Republic.¹⁴ Thus, the UAE’s assistance to the RSF aims to shape Sudan’s political landscape and influence the broader region to curb Islamist movements and protect the UAE’s agricultural products in Sudan to address its food security. The UAE wants to link its farm investments in Sudan with its Abu Amama port on the Red Sea, where it has so far invested over 6 billion US dollars.¹⁵ Many experts agree that the UAE’s continued support of the RSF is sustaining the conflict.¹⁶ This unwavering backing will likely prolong the conflict, adversely impacting peace negotiations.

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Sudan ranks eighth in the latest edition of our Conflict Index. To find out more, read our December 2024 Conflict Index results.

Nohad Eltayeb and Ali Mahmoud Ali contributed to this report.

Jalale Getachew Birru

Dr.des. Jalale Getachew Birru is ACLED’s East Africa Senior Analysis Coordinator. In this capacity, she conducts and coordinates the analysis products of ACLED’s Horn of Africa and Ethiopia Peace Observatory (EPO). She also serves as the main point of contact for partnerships and external engagement for the Horn Africa and EPO projects. She is an expert in conflict and peacebuilding with over eight years of experience in non-profit, government, and research institutions. Before joining ACLED, she worked as a public prosecutor, attaché, peacebuilding officer and researcher. Jalale started her career as a public prosecutor in her home country, Ethiopia. She holds L.L.B from Haramaya University, Ethiopia, and a Master of Public Policy (M.P.P) and a Doctor of Social Science (Dr.rer.pol) from the University of Erfurt, Germany. She is an expert in conflict, peacebuilding, democratization, and elections in post-conflict countries.