A Grim New Phase in Sudan’s War as Rebel Militias Open New Fronts

The Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group is making major territorial gains in long-running civil war, forcing some rebel groups to pick up arms and unite.

A fighter from the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces sits in an armed vehicle in the city of Nyala, in south Darfur, on May 3, 2015. Ashraf Shazly/AFP/Getty Images

There has been a new grim twist in the protracted civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF)—after two rebel groups decided to join the army to fight the RSF.

Last week’s move by the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudanese Liberation Movement (SLM) came after the RSF made major gains in the rebel groups’ support base in Darfur.

The two movements, along with other factions supporting the army, have charged the RSF of committing crimes against humanity and “numerous” violations and transgressions.

“In response to the RSF’s threat to Sudan’s unity and their repeated assaults on cities, villages, and defenseless civilians—resulting in fatalities and displacement, coupled with the present danger to humanitarian and commercial convoys through attempts to sever supply routes to various areas—we renounce any neutrality,” they stated during a press conference held in Port Sudan.

JEM and the SLM took up arms in Darfur in 2003, accusing the government of marginalizing the region’s black African communities.

The government then mobilized Arab militias against them, leading to what has been described as the 21st Century’s first genocide. These militias have since transformed into the RSF, which has been fighting the army for control of the country since April.

In 2020, JEM and the SLM rebel leaders signed a peace deal and have since been closer to the Sudanese military than would once have seemed possible.

Seven months of fighting for absolute power between General Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan, who heads the SAF, and Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo (known as Hemedti), the leader of the RSF, have seen at least 10,000 people killed and nearly 12,000 others injured.

More than 4.8 million others have been displaced internally while at least 1.3 million others have fled the country as refugees.

Since clashes erupted in Sudan, the number of people estimated to need humanitarian assistance across the country in 2023 has jumped from 15.8 million to 24.7 million.

Of these, 6 million are on the verge of famine, with 40 percent of pregnant women and breast-feeding mothers already near to starving.

Eric Reeves, Sudan researcher and analyst who is currently a Fellow at the Rift Valley Institute, says the situation throughout Sudan is catastrophic, with “massive destruction, death”, and what may be the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.

“Many millions desperately need food, clean water, and medicine; and convoys leaving Port Sudan are only infrequently able to move beyond the town of Kosti,” Mr. Reeves told The Epoch Times.

He added that rebel groups that formerly provided escorts for humanitarian vehicles in need of protection from the RSF have largely moved back to Darfur to fight the RSF, especially in El Fasher.

“Famine looms larger and larger, especially in Darfur. The destruction in Khartoum, one of the great cities on the African continent, is unfathomable—and yet neither al-Burhan/SAF nor Hemedti/RSF show any signs of caring about the destruction or the civilian casualties,” he said.

Sudanese Army soldiers near armored vehicles stationed on a street in southern Khartoum, on May 6, 2023, amid ongoing fighting against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. AFP via Getty Images

RSF are better fighters with more extensive combat experience gained from Yemen and Libya, in addition to Sudan.

Although more heavily armed with jets, tanks, and helicopters, the SAF is considered a corrupt military institution short of actual combat experience.

RSF are mostly from the West of the country, both men and leaders, while SAF has traditionally had the division of leaders from the Northern Nile Valley of the country (a tradition that dates to the British colonial period) and foot soldiers from other parts of the country.

That so much of the fighting involved raiding where the RSF excels and that much of the war took place in the urban sprawl of Khartoum where it could hit and run and hide, were also military advantages for the force.

Little wonder why the RSF has since gained control of most of Darfur, including the country’s second biggest city, Nyala, and seems to be gaining control of Khartoum, where the remaining civilians are besieged.

The SAF controls the main import hub of Port Sudan and is struggling to block the flow of aid workers and supplies to RSF-controlled territory.

Observers have expressed divergent opinions on the significance of the two Darfuri rebel groups’ entry into the Sudanese civil war.

Smoke billows over buildings in Khartoum on May 1, 2023, as deadly clashes between rival generals' forces entered a third week. AFP via Getty Images

“If these rebels were actually to fight, it would create major problems for RSF and hurt their chances to advance elsewhere in Sudan but it would also create even further chaos and displacement in Darfur as RSF would respond by attacking rebel held IDP camps—such as ZamZam, which is a stronghold of the the SLM-Minawi faction,” Alberto Miguel Fernandez, a former U.S. ambassador currently serving as vice president of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), told The Epoch Times.

Mr. Fernandez said that there would be further flows of Zaghawa and Fur refugees into Chad and warned that a war between the JEM/SLM (who are mostly Zaghawa) and RSF (mostly Arab) could draw in the Chadian military which is controlled by ethnic Zaghawa.

“But chaos in Darfur could lead not only to the obvious JEM/SLM vs. RSF confrontation, but also chaotic, confused confrontation between tribes and sub-groups in either or both coalitions, both of whom are fractious and have localized issues and conflicts.”

However, Khalid Mustafa Medani—associate professor of political science and Islamic studies, and chair of the African studies program at the Montreal-based McGill University—has described the two rebel groups’ strength as “very low” since they have neither the organizational capacity, nor the popularity nor legitimacy in Darfur itself.

“They did not initially take a side with the Sudanese Armed Forces because they were hedging their bets—waiting to see who would be the winner.

“But given the inroads that the Rapid Support Forces have made throughout Darfur, the two factions realized that if they didn’t stand with the army with the RSF taking over Darfur, they would be kicked out of any future political position as well as Darfur,” Mr. Medani told The Epoch Times.

Consequently, unless the two rebel groups receive “substantive support” from the Sudanese Armed Forces, Mr. Medani points out, their involvement will not affect the balance of war in Darfur.

Kholood Khair, Sudanese political analyst and the director of Confluence Advisory, a think tank based in Khartoum, agrees that JEM and SLM lack the might to tilt the balance militarily in favor of the regular Sudanese army.

However, she is concerned about the devastation the involvement of different actors can cause in the war.”

JEM and SLM have not been politically neutral even before the war started—they have been militarily neutral,” Ms. Khair told The Epoch Times.

“This war has now gone from one interface of fighting to several interfaces of fighting which means that we can see this proliferation take roots not just potentially in Al Fasher. The RSF had been reportedly trying very hard to pay off JEM and the SLM so that they would stand by, while the RSF took over El Fasher,” she said.

Criticisms on US Approach on Sudan

The same day the two Darfuri militia groups joined the war in Sudan, two U.S. lawmakers faulted the Biden administration’s diplomatic strategy in the country for “wrongly empowering” the belligerent parties who have consistently broken their promises.

Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and U.S. Representative Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the war is an “unrelenting horror” that further proves the United States needs to change its strategy on Sudan.

“This diplomacy has not stopped the atrocities ... As the United States claims success in Jeddah, more innocent Sudanese perish,” they wrote.

Retired U.S. diplomat of the Middle East Media Research Institute, Mr. Fernandez, said the United States’ attempt to follow a minimalist strategy aimed at “managing” the crisis since the Oct. 25, 2021, military coup against the transitional government of Dr. Abdalla Hamdok, has been a failure.

This, he asserts, can be seen as “cynicism” and “incompetence” by the Biden administration—or an actual belief that Sudan “is just not that important to an American administration facing multiple crises.”

Smoke rises in Omdurman near Halfaya Bridge, during clashes between the Paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the army as seen from Khartoum, Sudan, on April 15, 2023. Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters

“If Sudan was not so significant to the Biden administration in 2021 when there was peace elsewhere, how can it be now with wars in Ukraine and Gaza and the possibility of war over Taiwan? And how different—for the Americans—is Sudan [from] the instability and conflict we are seeing across the Sahel, from Mali to the Red Sea?”

Talking about United States’ new approach on Sudan, Mr. Fernandez suggests “deeper intervention” by Washington to punish those countries that support RSF and SAF, especially Arab regimes.

“But the problem is that the United States needs those Arab countries for other things—they need their help in the oil market, in the Ukraine War, in the difficult relationship with Iran, on Palestine, on Russia, on China.

“You can pressure the UAE or Saudi Arabia or Egypt on some things, but not on everything,” he lamented.

“So it all comes back to how important is the bloody conflict in Sudan for the Americans within the spectrum of all the other conflicts and crises and relationships the Americans are dealing with.

“Where does Sudan rank in the hierarchy of conflict, given that both sides have terrible human rights records? Not very highly is the unfortunate answer.”

International Community Shares Blame

But Mr. Reeves of the Rift Valley Institute and Mr. Medani of the Montreal-based McGill University say the international community bears much of the blame in the escalating conflict in Sudan.

Mr. Reeves accuses the international community of failing to provide protection for either civilians under assault, or the convoys for millions in desperate need of humanitarian assistance.

“Talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, have proved fruitless, and neither Burhan nor Hemedti can be trusted to abide by any agreement signed; the African Union has proved [hopelessly] inadequate to the crisis, as it did with the ... United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) force deployed in 2007 to halt genocide in Darfur,” he told The Epoch Times.

He further warns that continuous violence risks reducing Sudan from a “coherent state” to a “collection of fiefdoms,” dominated by warlords recruiting fighters along ethnic lines.

“All this is obscured by the fixation in the news world on Gaza, which for its part displaced Ukraine as the central foreign policy story.”

Mr. Medani sees no end in sight to the conflict unless the international community—including the United States, Saudi Arabia, African regional blocs (the AU and  Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)—put more pressure on the warring parties in the form of wide-scale arms embargo and targeted sanctions which will force the generals to the negotiation table.

“Both General al-Burhan of SAF and Hemedti of RSF are currently in the zero-sum game where they feel that they have to win the military battle to get as many concessions as possible and of course to dominate the country politically and economically,” he told The Epoch Times.

“So far, the negotiations have been limited to just the two military leaders. The negotiations have to include the civilian opposition.”

Analysts fear a Libya/Somalia scenario may be Sudan’s last bus stop should the international community fail to act, and fast.

Mr. Reeves believes the collapse of the Sudanese state could create another “Somalia” but that this time, in the vast and very center of Africa.

While Mr. Fernandez is apprehensive that the division of Sudan into two parts, as it happened in Libya, would be a “tragedy.”

“Even worse than a Libyan scenario would be a Somali [or Sierra Leone or Liberia] scenario, where you have chaos within each sphere of influence and breakdown within each faction.”