War In Sudan

"Canada has been involved in many peace initiatives, like Colombia and others. We are working to have a political process which will require a lot of support in capacity and expertise."

"This is a war of attrition. I don't see any outright victory for any side. There's no military solution."

Sudanese former prime minister Abdalla Hamdok

Zak Irfan 123 // Shutterstock

 

On a visit to Canada, Mr. Hamdok -- now a civilian, once the Sudanese prime minister toppled in a military coup in 2021 -- is engaged in discussions with Canadian politicians and federal officials, looking for a commitment that Canada is prepared to lend its diplomatic expertise to the Sudanese peace effort. This man is obviously feeling in dire straits for the future of his country but his choice of Ottawa and Canada as representative of a country capable of extending its 'diplomatic expertise' to aid in a ceasefire leading to peace in Sudan is quite naive. 

 

In the sense of what 'diplomatic expertise'? In the sense of a country aspiring to middle power status and repeatedly stumbling in the process, having any diplomatic or political clout to lend to such an enterprise.

What is happening in Sudan, is a matter for North Africa and the Middle East to be more acutely involved in, to strive toward peace. Islam is at war with itself in that extended geography, and always has been. The tendency to resort to conflict is not uniquely Middle Eastern or African, but it is a common enough occurrence aided by the traditional culture of tribal and sectarian hostility and power politics.

 

How a country such as Canada, far removed both geographically and ethnically, not to mention, culturally could be of any use other than as a cheerleader on the sidelines for reason and a desire to spare the populations concerned from any further threats of death, displacement, starvation and disease, all endemic to the violence of conflict, is beyond imagination. 

 

However, Mr. Hamdok, as a loyal patriotic Sudanese citizen has been travelling the globe to lobby for aid in peace efforts. He is also involved in a process of political unity led by civilians among important Sudanese groups and parties in a country where war rages in various areas -- where hundreds of thousands have been killed and some 13 million citizens were forced to flee from their homes and villages since 2023 when the Sudanese military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have waged a war of control. 

 

UNDP/Giles Clarke People displaced by conflict take shelter at a bus station in Gedaref, Sudan.

 

While over 30 million Sudanese are reliant on emergency food aid, countless ceasefire proposals have been discussed, rejected, and broken with both sides convinced they can win the war where cities have been captured and recaptured, and heavier episodes of dread drone strikes continue to threaten the population.  The war has recently spilled into Ethiopia, where the RSF accesses drone bases and weapon supplies. As for Ethiopia, it is beleaguered with Eritrean troops crossing into the north of the country, in its own escalating conflict. 

"This has the potential of engulfing Sudan."

"It's dangerous because this is the most fragile region in the continent. It's alarming."

"All the neighbouring countries are definitely involved. Already our house is on fire, and then you see neighbours' houses also going up in flames."

Abdalla Hamdok 

In his belief that the peace process in Sudan is the process of gaining momentum, Mr. Hamdok speaks of the emergence of the "Quintet" representing five international blocs involved in attempting to resolve the conflict. The African Union and the European Union, as well as an expanding 'non-aligned' coalition of Sudanese civilian groups and political parties making up its membershipm with the inclusion of Sumoud, Mr. Hamdok's own group.

 

The Sumoud group has received $2.5 million from Canada since 2024, according to a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada. Whether Canada has diplomatic involvement in Sudan sufficient to exercise much influence over the peace process is questioned by independent analysts. One the war began in Sudan, Canada closed its Khartoum embassy, and currently relies upon its Ethiopian embassy to cover Sudan. Furthermore Canada has no formal affiliation with the Quintet. 

 

A Canadian based group, the Sudan Solidarity Collective comprised of diaspora Sudanese, argues that Mr. Hamdok's coalition should not be viewed as the sole representative of the Sudanese people in view of its alleged links to the United Arab Emirates, reported to supply weapons to the RSF. Which seems peculiar in the extreme, since the UAE uses a conciliatory approach generally as a peaceful nation for which conflict is anathema and tolerance for differences in human relations a byword. The RSF is, in fact, comprised of former Arab Janjaweed, known for their cruel massacres in the Darfurian Black farming community.   

"Canada cannot be helpful in terms of the peace process without meaningfully joining the Quintet and appointing a special envoy for Sudan or the Horn of Africa."

"[Canada should push for an expansion of Mr. Hamdok's civilian alliance, which is weak in its representation of youth groups and women]."

"It is still too narrow [to be effective in its representation]." 

Khalid Mustafa Medani, chair, African Studies Program, McGill University 

A Sudanese Armed Forces soldier walking on the Shambat bridge that once connected Omdurman with the Khartoum neighborhood of Bahri on the opposite bank of the River Nile on April 27, 2025. Giles Clarke/Avaaz via Getty Images

  

"Only three or four of us in the leadership are living in the United Arab Emirates. The bulk of our leaders are in Egypt."

"As refugees, we cannot pick and choose where to live."

"The UAE is not imposing anything on us."

Abdalla Hamdok 

Sudan : An Abandoned Crisis

International Rescue Committee

 

"Even before the war in Sudan erupted in April 2023, the country was already experiencing a severe humanitarian crisis that left 15.8 million people in need of aid. Now, three years of war have drastically worsened these conditions, displacing approximately 14 million people and leaving 33.7 million people—two-thirds of the population—in need of humanitarian support."

"The country’s food system has been pushed to the brink, with millions of families now surviving on just one meal a day, or less."

"Sudan is the largest humanitarian crisis in the world in terms of number of people who need humanitarian aid. It is also the largest and fastest displacement crisis."
International Rescue Committee 

 

As Sudan marks three years of war, MSF teams continue to treat people whose lives have been devastated by the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

A lack of basic services and constrained humanitarian access are compounding people's suffering.

The warring parties must protect civilians and be held accountable for their violations, and the international community must use diplomatic pressure to prevent further crimes. 

Medicins Sans Frontieres  

Patient Saidal Altaher, 2 months old, being treated for malnutrition at the pediatric hospital stabilization center in Port Sudan on Wednesday.  Bernat Armangue / AP

 

Described as the world's largest humanitarian challenge in terms of displacement and hunger, Sudan is suffering a crisis of abandonment with the world's attention turning to the Middle East and the standoff in Iran, and its blockade of the Hormuz Strait. In Sudan, 13 million people have been forced by the threat and violence of a bloody conflict to flee their homes, becoming internally displaced. Food and medicines are scarce and diseases like cholera are running rampant. 

 

The number of  dead from the conflict stands at 59,000 with 6,000 having perished over three days alone, as the RSF (paramilitary Rapid Support Forces) bulled their way through the Darfur outpost of el-Fasher in October, an offensive that the UN considers alike "the defining characteristics of genocide". Black Darfurians once again in the rifle sights of the horsed Arab Janjaweed as they were in the early 2000s.

 

Severe acute malnutrition is set to afflict 800,000 people in parts of Sudan, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. Two of every three Sudanese require assistance, according to the United Nations. Health facilities have been impacted to the point where only 63 percent remain fully or partially functional to deal with the conflict's wounded and emerging disease outbreaks. 

 

Denise Brown, the UN's top official in Sudan, criticizing the international community for its failure to press for the end to the conflict, stating: "A plea from me: Please don't call this the forgotten crisis. I'm referring to this as an abandoned crisis", she corrected. 

 

People fleeing conflict in Sudan's Darfur risked being hit by drone strikes   Reuters

 

Following the deposed dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019, a power struggle emerged between the Sudanese military under General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and RSF commander General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who was initially Burhan's deputy at the ruling sovereign council of Sudan. Sudanese "have become powerless and are subjected to foreign dictates", claimed a Sudanese journalist and researcher.

 

Germany undertook to host a  conference in Berlin, welcoming governments, UN agencies and aid groups to take part, with a goal to rally donors to assist in funding strained humanitarian responses and to "promote an immediate ceasefire", according to the German Development Ministry. For its troubles, the Khartoum government condemned the conference as an 'unacceptable' interference on Sudan's internal affairs. 

 

The Sudanese military has control over the country's north, east and central regions, its oil refineries and pipelines, and Red Sea ports. The RSF and its allies control Darfur and the region at the border with South Sudan. Regions that both include oilfields and gold mines. Egypt supports the Sudan military, and the United Arab Emirates has been accused by the UN of providing arms to the RSF, which it emphatically denies. 

 

In the three years of conflict, widespread atrocities are known to have occurred;  rampant sexual violence in gang rapes and mass killings, among them. According to the WHO, hospitals, ambulances and medical workers have been attacked, claiming over 2,000 have been killed.  Most atrocities have been placed at the feet of the RSF and the Janjaweed, notorious for atrocities committed in the early 2000s against Black Sudanese farming communities. 

 

Sudanese army soldiers sitting atop a parked tank after their capture of a base used by the RSF, after the rival paramilitary group evacuated from the Salha area of Omdurman, the twin city of Sudan's capital, in May 2025.  Ebrahim Hamid / AFP via Getty Images

 

 

 

Sudan in Extremis

"[The] DNA of the conflict in Darfur of 20 years ago is still present in the fighting today, but this war is more ferocious."

"The atrocities that were committed in this war, it is unlike anything that Sudan has seen before."

"[The RSF has been] systematically destroying civilian dwellings [in areas that have a significant population of Zaghawa, an ethnic minority in Darfur]."

"This represents the first specific evidence of potentially ethnically motivated alleged targeting inside El Fasher by RSF."

"I’m sure Sudan will come out of this. I just hope that these dark days will be short, this war will end soon, and that the world will help us."

Omer Ismail, acting foreign minister, Sudan’s transitional government before the military coup

The year-long civil war in Sudan has been overshadowed by the conflict in Gaza and the war in Ukraine. | Photo Credit: Joao Daniel Pereira/Atlantico/ZUMA/picture alliance

"I’ve been really grappling with this question basically since I started working on Sudan issues in 1997."

"Like so many things in life, the answer is a mix of things. One factor is the complexity of the situation, where neither side is obviously 'good or evil'. [Another may be a deeply ingrained, potentially even subconscious, racism or Eurocentrism where outsiders incorrectly perceive the fighting as somehow 'uncivilized' or 'typical'."

Roman Deckert, Geneva-based independent expert on Sudan

 

Army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan cheers with soldiers in Khartoum last month. Sudan's Armed Forces via AFP - Getty Images

The current war in Sudan began with a disagreement between the country's army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and Lieutenant General Mohamed Hamdan, leader of the Rapid Support Forces -- formerly the Janjaweed, armed Islamist horsemen involved with the massacre of non-Arab Darfurian farmers during the previous government of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, condemned by the International Court of Justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity -- in a power play. Since the initial phase of the conflict, other armed forces backing the Sudanese military have joined the conflict.

 

Now, corpses lie in the streets, and much of Khartoum, the capital, has become a rubble graveyard. Hospitals and homes have been smashed to rubble by artillery shells that soar over the Nile River. Death is so much a part of people's lives now that residents hesitate to venture too far from home -- even where security is scarce there too -- leading them to bury their dead outside the front doors of their homes. 

 

One of the largest cities in Africa, Khartoum is now reduced to a battleground as two generals' fight for power brought the nation to civil war, and Khartoum became ground zero for a humanitarian catastrophe. An estimated 150,000 people have been killed in the space of a year. Nine million people fled their homes, comprising the globe's largest displacement crisis, (rivalling that of Syria), according to the United Nations. Officials warn an oncoming famine could kill hundreds of thousands of children in coming months.

 

Foreign countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Iran and Russia all play a role in the chaos in a volatile mix of outside interests providing endless weapons or fighters to the conflict that began in April of 2023 with a standoff between the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces when gunfire burst on the streets of the Sudanese capital. Rivals, they ruled together after seizing power in 2021 before falling out over military merging.

 

The conflict appears stale-mated with the war metastasizing into a free-for-all that has devastated the country, with another genocide threatening Darfur after the war crimes committed two decades earlier. Disparate armed groups have entered the conflict even as the Sudanese state collapses, threatening the stability of a fragile region. Expert onlookers feel it to be a matter of time before Chad, Eritrea or South Sudan, as neighbours of Sudan, become involuntarily involved.

 

Sudanese refugees at their makeshift shelters at a relocation camp near Adre, Chad. Over 600,000 new refugees have crossed the border from Darfur into Chad. Dan Kitwood / Getty Images

Khartoum state's nine million residents have seen half flee the conflict. Most of the capital's bank branches have been looted, thousands of vehicles have been stolen as street-by-street looting becomes commonplace, mostly committed by the R.S.F. Few hospitals are now operating; in them starving infants approach death. Famine is underway in parts of Darfur and Khartoum with over 220,000 children expected to perish in coming months in a conflict where both sides use hunger as a weapon.

 

While Rapid Support Force fighters loot aid trucks and warehouses, the Sudanese army withholds visas, travel permits and permission to cross front lines. "One of the most horrific situations on Earth is on a trajectory to get far, far worse", commented the U.S. envoy for Sudan. Since the fall, rebels from Darfur, ethnic militias, Islamists and thousands of women and men have been recruited to join the military.

 

While the United Arab Emirates is supplying weaponry to the R.S.F. in anticipation of building a port on the Red Sea, Egypt has backed the military. The army has turned to Iran for a supply of drones and other weapons. Russia too is involved, offering assistance to both sides. Wagner mercenaries last year supplied the R.S.F. with antiaircraft missiles. Russians trained fighters to shoot down Sudanese warplanes. More latterly Sudan prepared to allow Russian naval access to its ports in exchange for arms and ammunition.

 

International concerns are that the war could spill beyond Sudan's borders, risking sucking in Ethiopia, the second-most populous country in Africa which Sudanese officials accuse of backing the R.S.F. Ethiopia's traditional foe, Eritrea, sides with the Sudanese military. "It's sheer madness. The people of Sudan demand it [a United Nations peacekeeping force]. Enough is enough", former economy minister Ibrahim Elbadawi, protested from Cairo.

 

Fighters of the Sudan Liberation Movement, which supports army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, in the southeastern Al Qadarif state in March. AFP via Getty Images