the origins of the conflict in sudan
sudan’s conflict is, at its core, a brutal power struggle.
Sudan’s conflict is, at its core, a brutal power struggle.
but underneath, it’s about a country’s continued fight for Self-governance. The people want civilian rule, while military factions battle for control.
Centuries of division and oppression have led to this point, where the future of the nation hangs in the balance.
To understand what’s happening today, we need to unpack the history, the players, and what’s driving this violent fight for power
—and for the future of Sudan.
So, grab a coffee, and let’s get started.
Pre-independence Era
The area now known as Sudan, is a region with a fascinating and colorful history influenced by many different cultures and civilizations.
But we don't have much time, so here is a condensed version
By the early 19th century, Sudan was being invaded from the north by Egypt, who were then part of the Ottoman Empire.
Muhammad Ali, the Ottoman-Albanian ruler of Egypt, was determined to wipe out the last remnants of the Mamluks, Egypt's former rulers. After their defeat, the Mamluks had fled south, setting up the state of Dongola in what is now northern Sudan.
And he also wanted an army of African slaves, to replace the Turkish and Albanian soldiers in his army who just kept on revolting so he can one day achieve his big dream of overthrowing the Sultan and starting his own empire.
Muhammad Ali didn’t just stop with Dongola though; once his forces reached northern Sudan, he figured, why not take the rest? And with that mindset, he set out to conquer all of Sudan
This period is the beginning of what Sudanese people call “At-Turkiyyah" meaning Turkish Rule. Even though, it was more like Egyptian rule but they were Turkish speaking Egyptians because at the time Turkish was the language of the nobility since they were under the Ottoman Empire but like barley, another story for another day.
Life under the Albanian-Turkish-Egyptian rule for the Sudanese wasn't great, there was a lot of economic exploitation and a lot of slave trading.
In 1881, a man named Muhammad Ahmad declared himself to be the Mahdi, The Mahdi is a prophesied leader in Islam who will appear at the end of times to restore justice and peace in the world.
And with all that exploitation and slave trading, justice and peace were exactly what the people wanted to hear, so they rallied behind him and together they successfully overthrew the Egyptian-Ottoman administration, but turns out he wasn't the Mahdi and so the Mahdist state was short-lived.
In 1898, Egyptian forces were back, and this time, they finally weren't part of the Ottoman Empire,
they were vassals of the British Empire and a year later in Omdurman, they defeated the Mahdists. Sudan was now a joint British-Egyptian territory but then eventually just a colony of Britain.
A lot of the problems that modern Sudan faced and continues to face, stems from this period of foreign rule.
Post-independence Period
After gaining independence from the British in 1956, Sudan faced pressing challenges in bringing its diverse people together. Everything was a mess.
The country was immediately plunged into a civil war. The First Sudanese Civil War (1955-1972) was mainly a conflict between the northern government and southern rebels, who were quite disorganized and just kind of wanted more autonomy, not really independence. The war ended in 1972 with the signing of the Addis Ababa Agreement, but unfortunately, it didn't hold for long.
Because In 1983, the Second Sudanese Civil War broke out, again pitting the northern government against southern rebels, but this time led by the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). The rebels were more determined and organized but so was the government.
The conflict was extremely brutal and it lasted until 2005, when an agreement was signed, granting the South some autonomy and it also set the stage for a referendum on independence.
Which In 2011, was conducted and the south voted overwhelmingly to break up with Sudan, becoming the world's newest nation, South Sudan.
You would think now that they are separated. Everything would become more peaceful, right? Not really. The northern government, now officially the Republic of Sudan, continued to face conflicts, particularly in the region of... Darfur.
Darfur
Darfur is a region in western Sudan roughly the size of California, with a population of around 11 million people and just like California, it's a diverse place with a complex mix of over 36 ethnic groups. it was also the last region to be incorporated into the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan in 1917.
There are the indigenous African groups living there with the major ones being the Masalit, Zaghawa and notably the Fur, which the region gets its name from, Darfur, “land of the furs”.
The other significant group is the Nomadic Baggara Arabs who migrated down from Arabia in the 1300’s going all the way to Borno in Nigeria, meeting up with the nomadic cattle herding Fulani people, intermixing, and then settling in the Borno-Darfur Strech of the Sahel region but 90% of them live in Sudan and Chad now.
It's important to know that unlike in South Sudan, everyone is Muslim in Darfur and there's been a lot of intermixing between everyone.
Up until the 1980’s, things were alright, i guess. You see, unlike California, Darfur was and still is poor and back then, it had no economic nor strategic value, so nobody really cared about it. Everyone there was kind of equally marginalized by those god damn elites all the way in Cairo or London or after independence, Khartoum.
Everyone kind of minded their own business, stayed in their own areas. Most of the Africans farmed, most of the Arabs herded animals like cattle and camels. Occasionally things would be tense whenever the Arabs raided the African areas, but they would just steal some stuff and leave, then they would start negotiating, things when go back to normal, then the Arabs raid again, and repeat.
But then there was this problem that just kept getting worse, messing up this whole system they had going on, Climate Change. Oh, and Gaddafi.
As you can see from this map, Darfur is a very dry place. The Sahara keeps expanding so instead of leaving whenever they raided, the Arabs started staying in the traditional African areas of Darfur particularly Jebel Marra, since it was the greenest place in all of Darfur.
Also, Gaddafi wanted to overthrow the government of Chad next door so he hired both Chadian and some Sudanese Baggara Arabs to help him do that, they failed and when climate change also came for the pasture for their animals, they packed up and moved to Darfur, taking their weapons with them, forming militias alongside their Sudanese brethren who were also on the move due to the same reasons and together, they started doing more and more hostile land takeovers where other people already lived.
Some of the Africans like the Fur in response, started forming their own militias to protect themselves resulting in small scale clashes between the two here and there.
And that's how it kind of went for years. The tension between the Arabs and the Africans, kept simmering and simmering.
In 1989, Omar Al-Bashir came to power through the classic military coup. It was the height of the Second Sudanese Civil war and the SPLA, remember them, they started doing some incursions into Darfur, attacking some army bases, and telling the locals “Come on guys, you see how brutal these Arabs are, they are taking your land, you have to rebel, join us, rise up against the government!” and they did.
This spooked Al-Bashir, and you see, the army was busy fighting in South Sudan, they couldn't dedicate too much men and attention so they started officially arming and financing the Arab Tribal militias to help them fight the Darfur-based rebel groups and in even in some cases, the SPLA. Soon enough the different Arab Tribal militias linked up and formed the infamous “Janjaweed”, Which means, translated to English, The Devil on horseback.
By 2003, the conflict there was full scale, and the Janjaweed, they particularly for some reason really loved going out of their way to target innocent civilians.
They did a lot of genociding and war crimes. Their tactics included scorched earth campaigns, mass rape, mass killings, and other bad human rights abuses,
As the conflict in Darfur kind of died down, President Omar al-Bashir wanted to formalize and make the Janjaweed official. So, in 2017, the Rapid Support Forces or the RSF was officially formed. This new force was tasked with counter-insurgency operations across Sudan and to protect the Al-Bashir government at all costs, he didn't want to be Coup'd, as he was growing increasingly paranoid of the army.
The man he picked to lead the RSF was a Baggara Arab, former Janjaweed commander, a man named Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, or more commonly known as Hemedti.
And Hemedti and the RSF, they quickly became one of the most powerful entities in the country.
Recent Developments
In December 2018, widespread protests erupted across Sudan. The economy was terrible, life was tough, and the people were growing tired of President Omar al-Bashir's three-decade autocratic rule. The protests evolved into a national movement demanding political change and political change did happen because a few months later al-Bashir was ousted by the military and ironically along with the military, Hemedti and the RSF also played a key role in the removal.
But this also did not bring peace to Sudan, this however marked the beginning of a new turbulent period.
A Transitional Military Council (TMC) took power, but protests continued, demanding civilian rule. In August 2019, a power-sharing agreement was reached between the TMC and civilian opposition leaders, establishing a Sovereign Council to oversee a three-year transition to democratic elections. The council, comprising both military and civilian members, appointed a civilian, Abdalla Hamdok as Prime Minister.
The sovereign Council also included 5 civilian members and 5 military members, the important thing to note, is that Hemedti and another key player in our story, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan were 2 of the 5 people part of the military membership of the Sovereign Council
Despite these steps towards democracy, Sudan remained tense and In October 2021, the military overthrew the very transitional government it helped set up.
This coup was carried out by the aforementioned General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan who named himself the new President, He then dissolved the civilian government, arrested Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, and declared a state of emergency. Hemedti was also supportive of the coup and was made Vice President.
Who is General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan? Well, all you need to know is he’s an army man through and through. He was born in North Sudan and basically joined the army right after school, cut his teeth fighting in Darfur, where he ended up controlling the section of the army stationed there.
Back to our story,
The coup led to renewed widespread protests across Sudan, with demonstrators demanding the restoration of civilian rule.
The protesters were met with violent crackdowns by security forces and the RSF along with internet blackouts, and mass arrests.
After months of widespread protests demanding a return to civilian rule, a final political framework for the transition back to democracy was set to be signed.
On the surface, it seemed like Sudan was finally back on the right path. But tensions simmered beneath, especially between army chief Al-Burhan and RSF leader Hemedti.
By this time, the RSF was estimated to number between 75,000 and 100,000 men, compared with the SAF who had 120,000 to 200,000 troops. The RSF may have less men but these guys were battle hardened, When Saudi Arabia and the UAE invaded Yemen in 2015, They contracted RSF fighters to do the actual fighting on the ground and in 2019 when Khalifa Haftar’s army in Libya needed reinforcements during their failed offensive for Tripoli, He turned to the RSF to bolster his forces.
Back in Khartoum, however, having basically 2 armies under 2 different command structures didn't make sense, so Al-Burhan, who also didn't like the amount of power Hemedti had and considered himself the number 1 guy in Sudan, wanted to dissolve the paramilitary group and integrate them into the regular army within 2 years.
Hemedti didn't like that. He feared losing the power and wealth he'd gained so quickly; He wanted to delay the integration by 10 years. So, he accused Al-Burhan of attempting to restore the old regime under Omar Al Bashir and trying to push him out of the picture.
This power struggle between the two, ended up delaying the signing of the transition agreement and eventually leading to the outbreak of war.
The War
in mid-April of 2023. Following days of tension, the RSF, who were usually deployed out in the rural areas of the country, started to move into key areas around the capital Khartoum. The Sudanese Armed Forces, who I will call the SAF from now on, saw it as a threat. No one is exactly sure who fired the first shot, but it didn't matter, everything just escalated from there, not just in Khartoum but all over the country.
The RSF who are agile and quick with their pickup trucks and motorcycles, I mean it's in their name, Rapid Support Forces, quickly over ran the SAF and took over key installations in Khartoum and across the Nile in the neighboring city of Omdurman. They even laid siege to the Presidential Palace, while Al-Burhan was in the building who was said to have personally picked up an AK and shot back before making a quick escape with some of his men to Port Sudan on the Red Sea which has now become the DeFacto capital because of the fighting in Khartoum. The military responded with airstrikes and heavy artillery, to little effect as most of the capital region eventually fell to the RSF.
Since the conflict began, according to the U.N., nearly 10.7 million people have been internally displaced and upwards of 14,000 people have been killed, giving rise to the worst displacement crisis in the world and the largest in African history.
Across Sudan, escalating violence and a deepening humanitarian crisis have affected more than half of the country's population. Food security is also deteriorating rapidly, leading to what is being described as the “world’s largest hunger crisis.”
Nearly 1.4 million Sudanese have fled to unstable regions in Chad, Ethiopia, Libya, and South Sudan, overwhelming refugee camps that are often ill-equipped to manage such large numbers. Additionally, another half a million have escaped to Egypt, which is dealing with its own severe economic crisis.
The Bulk of the fighting was in the area around the capital Khartoum, the regions of Darfur, and Kordofan.
Recently however, the RSF have started a new offense on the states of El Gezira and Sennar. Which are considered to be the breadbasket of Sudan, displacing over 850,000 people, disrupting farming activities, and exacerbating an already dire food crisis in the country.
In Darfur, the RSF and its allied militias have been involved in ethnically motivated attacks on indigenous African communities, echoing the atrocities from the early 2000s as the region may be heading towards another genocide.
The ongoing conflict in Sudan is rapidly evolving, but this article will focus specifically on the historical origins of the crisis. In future installments, I plan to delve deeper into the current war, featuring insights from experts and exclusive interviews with individuals on the ground, which I will share exclusively here on Substack—free of charge for the time being. To stay informed and receive notifications about new content as it becomes available, I encourage you to subscribe.