The conflict in Sudan: causes, consequences and responses

The current war in Sudan can seem like a forgotten story despite the humanitarian crisis being arguably the largest in the world today. Front pages are often dominated by other devastating events in Gaza or Ukraine.

To try to understand the background of the current conflict, SOAS World spoke with Dr Nada Ali and Professor Lutz Oette from the School of Law, Gender and Media and the SOAS Centre for Human Rights Law. They bring into focus the sheer scale of the humanitarian crisis and human rights violations and discuss some of the work SOAS is undertaking on Sudan.

Background

The latest war can be viewed a counter-revolutionary war that followed the events of the December Revolution in Sudan which erupted in December 2018 and led to the fall of Omar al-Bashir in April 2019.

An interim joint civilian-military unity government was set up post al-Bashir, but in 2021 the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a militia that was established by the previous regime, and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), which is essentially dominated by other elements from the previous regime, staged a coup and jointly founded a military junta.

These military factions continued to halt the transition to democracy and took power away from the civilian wing of the transitional government after the ousting of the regime, but tensions grew between the two factions and in April 2023 war broke out between the SAF and RSF.

These two armies are fighting each other for power with assistance from different regional powers, however it can be difficult to tell not only who engages and for what purpose, but also who might benefit from different potential outcomes of the war.

It is possible that war and chaos in Sudan is desired by regimes that do not want to see a thriving democracy. This links the war with what is happening in the region since the so-called Arab Spring. In some ways, Sudan is at the meeting point of a lot of regional and geopolitical conflicts, so can be seen as a manifestation of these trends.

In areas such as the west of Sudan, there were already existing ethnic tensions, even prior to the Darfur War in 2003. These related to land tenure issues and the difference between nomadic tribes and tribes that settle. The Darfur conflict exacerbated these tensions and manifested in ethnic cleansing. The use of ethnicity as a tool of warfare is something that has been a recurring pattern in Sudan, but the racially aggravated - as opposed to racially motivated - attacks may come from political manipulation.

In terms of the broader picture and local reality, no matter how we understand or conceptualise the war and its causes, the reality is that locally it may look different and perhaps the elements of ethnic tension or fighting are more pronounced than from the perspective that looks at it as a wider political problem. It is however primarily a conflict about taking power away from Sudanese people and giving it to the military factions.

Humanitarian Crisis and Human Rights Violations

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) reports regularly on the scale of the humanitarian crisis.

Famine conditions and severe malnutrition are either affecting or will imminently affect around half of the population of Sudan with 25 million people in need of humanitarian assistance with food, water and medicine. Sudan now has the highest number of malnutrition cases in eastern Africa with 3.7 million children and 1 million pregnant breastfeeding women acutely malnourished.

There is also massive displacement both within Sudan and across borders – the largest displacement in the world right now. Around 11.7 million people have been forcibly displaced either internally or have fled to other countries. Conditions in camps in Sudan and the neighbouring countries are critical, aid is severely underfunded and is very difficult to access.

Since the conflict began in April 2023, around 60,000 people are estimated to have died in Khartoum, with 26,000 killed by violence.

Many of the local groups that are operating on the ground with food kitchens and distributing what they receive though Sudanese channels to provide the basics to people are themselves coming under attack by the warring parties.

In terms of human rights and international humanitarian law, there is evidence of serious violations across the whole spectrum. This is not only directly war related, but also in the torture of civil society activists and horrendous and grossly underreported gender-based violence against women.

As the SAF controls part of the country and the RSF controls other parts, there is almost a demarcation of territory between the two armies. The narrative on human rights tends to follow this demarcation, in the sense that depending on who is attacking where, there are reports of crimes and violations of international human rights law by the opposing party.

Previous conflicts in Sudan were mainly focused in the countryside. This conflict is more widely spread and started in the capital, so the infrastructure and institutions in the urban centres, which used to hold the countryside together are also destroyed, which will have a long-term effect. Basic services are often hardly functioning. Many properties have been looted and people have lost their belongings. This is a legacy that Sudan will have to grapple with even if there were a ceasefire now.

There have also been attacks on internally displaced people’s camps which hadn’t been seen as often before. When they did occur in Darfur there was a lot of international attention but today access is a major issue.

The Response of the International Community

The international community has not been galvanised as it was during the Darfur War in either media reporting, or international reaction. One problem is the paralysis of the UN Security Council. It has been difficult to issue resolutions for ceasefire because of the divergence of geopolitical interests.

Another difficulty is the nature of the conflict itself. Because the war is between what Sudanese people see as illegitimate forces, the international community has been reluctant to engage with the warring parties as that might legitimise the forces involved.

The resolution of previous conflicts in the Horn of Africa benefitted from the intervention by regional actors, but it is uncertain what action bodies such as the African Union will be able to take through its Peace and Security Council in respect of Sudan. There have been multiple attempts at mediation, but so far nothing substantial has been agreed.

One of the problems going back to the coup in 2021 was the diplomatic failure of the international community who focussed on what could be called ‘practitioners of violence’ instead of giving a firmer backing for the civilian forces in how the transition to democracy was structured.

In terms of policy responses, there have been selective sanctions, but until recently not necessarily against any of the main culprits. There is a mismatch in terms of the response and the magnitude of the conflict. It is misaligned and doesn’t capture the sheer scale of the crisis.

Although the conflict in Sudan predated the Gaza conflict, because of the high amount of attention given to Gaza, it has been difficult to draw attention to Sudan, even with the devastating humanitarian conditions. This, along with the war in Ukraine and other conflicts across the world, such as in Yemen and Myanmar, means there is an overall sense of fatigue.

The story in Sudan isn’t simple and there is little attempt to understand it more broadly in the public domain. The framing of the conflict as a counter-revolutionary war isn’t necessarily how it is portrayed in the media, but it can be understood in this context of violent forces who have fallen out fighting each other and against the civilian population. Unfortunately, this very complexity has a knock-on effect on policy. International action in some ways follows what the media reports, and if the issue is complicated, the international community is sometimes happier disregarding it.

SOAS work around Sudan

The work of Professor Lutz Oette and Dr Nada Ali from SOAS School of Law, Gender and Media is deeply concerned with Sudan.

Professor Oette has undertaken work on Sudanese human rights since 2001, when he worked with the organisation REDRESS seeking reparations for victims of torture. In Khartoum and other parts of Sudan, he worked with Sudanese colleagues to implement a Criminal Law Reform project.

He continues to work closely with Sudanese academics and civil society actors, much of this work through SOAS, including giving evidence about the Khartoum Process (political cooperation amongst the countries along the migration route between the Horn of Africa and Europe), and most recently publishing (through the SOAS Centre for Human Rights Law jointly with REDRESS) a series of reports on human rights in Sudan working closely with Dr Mohamed Abdelsalam Babiker from the University of Khartoum. This detailed legal analysis of the violations in the war was published within the first six months of the war. He has ongoing engagement with the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan.

Professor Oette is also working with a group of students, including from Sudan, framing humanitarian assistance as a robust human right, not only in Sudan, but in other countries.

Dr Ali’s engagement with legal matters in Sudan is informed by interest in internal politics. Her PhD research concerned the International Criminal Court at the time of the indictment of Omar al-Bashir in 2008-9.

She was subsequently involved in research connected with the construction of a large-scale hydropower project in Sudan – the Merowe Dam – and the violations and marginalisation of communities that lived in the area of the construction.

Dr Ali co-organised a research seminar series at SOAS between 2022 and 2023 looking at the dynamics of the December Revolution and the likelihood that it would lead to radical political transformation in the country. It looked at areas of influence and included panels on history, human rights, constitutionalism and journalism. The last panel of the series was held after the outbreak of the war and was concerned with understanding the dynamics underlying the current conflict.

This exploration will continue in further workshops, bringing together academics and experts from across these fields.

SOAS holds many events on Sudan and has a high level of engagement with the Sudanese community and is a focal point for research and activities on Sudan. It acts as the home for the Society for the Study of the Sudans UK (SSSUK) who hold an annual event at SOAS and provide briefings for the UK government and humanitarian organisations. It is a forum which looks at Sudan and South Sudan not just politically, but culturally and socially.

Humanitarian Action for Sudan

Recently, SOAS President Zeinab Badawi has led on the creation of the Humanitarian Action for Sudan (HAS) group.

The focus of HAS is the lack of concerted and effective international effort to address the crisis in Sudan and the lack of adequate humanitarian assistance. Current representation or lobbying on behalf of civilians in Sudan has not seemed effective or representative of the Sudanese people’s perspective on the war. HAS aims to be representative, non-partisan and not to allow the focus on humanitarian aid be derailed by politics.

Through HAS, SOAS will become a focus for a series of events (the first took place in December 2024) in which evidence is taken from key experts to agree on actions both to raise public awareness of the crisis in Sudan, and to push for concerted engagement and fundraising to facilitate humanitarian assistance.

Zeinab Badawi is leading this work with the support of SOAS Vice-Chancellor Adam Habib and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Knowledge Exchange) Laura Hammond.

Alumni can find out more about the work of the SOAS Centre for Human Rights Law, including detailed reports on the crisis in Sudan. Further information on the UK response to Sudan, including mention of HAS can be found in Hansard.