Sudan war comes full circle

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The war in Sudan has returned to where it first ignited two years ago: in a battle for downtown Khartoum.

After days of clashes, forces loyal to de facto president General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan retook the presidential palace on Friday from erstwhile allies in the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The army (SAF) has since gone on to seize other official buildings including the central bank — marking a potential turning point in the war.

The recapture of the presidential palace caps several months in which momentum in Sudan’s civil war swung decisively in the SAF’s favour. If the army can consolidate control of Khartoum it would allow Gen Burhan to install a transitional government and attempt to gain wider international recognition.

But it is also a moment of great peril both for Gen Burhan and for Sudan, as a victory for the RSF this weekend in the western region of Darfur underscored the risk of de facto partition.

“The symbolic value and political traction the army can get from regaining control of the capital is considerable,” said Suliman Baldo, a veteran conflict resolution expert who runs the Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker think-tank.

Soldiers have been celebrating in front of shattered windows and facades scorched by bomb blasts, testament to the terrible toll the fighting has taken on the capital.

“There is nothing for people to come back to except the walls of their houses,” Baldo said.

War broke out in 2023 in downtown Khartoum after a power struggle between the army and the RSF, whose leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemeti, has been accused of genocide by the US.

Before turning their guns on each other, the two sides had joined forces to overthrow the transitional government formed on the back of a street revolution that ended three decades of rule by Omar al-Bashir in 2019.

In the opening months of the war, the army suffered defeat after defeat, withdrawing eventually to Port Sudan on the Red Sea. But since last September it has retaken swaths of territory and most of the capital.

The momentum swung in the army’s favour thanks to an alliance with Islamist brigades that backed the former regime, the resupply of heavy weaponry, and infiltration of parts of the RSF, according to experts. Declining RSF morale has also been a factor.

“They were extremely successful in re-arming themselves, resupplying their air force with drones from Turkey, and Chinese and Russian fighter jets. At the same time the RSF has struggled to maintain supply lines from the Emiratis and through Chad and Libya,” said Cameron Hudson, an expert in the Horn of Africa and senior fellow in the Africa Program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

But the fight for Khartoum is not over. An RSF counter attack on Friday claimed the lives of a senior army spokesman and other soldiers at the palace, while resistance continues in parts of the city’s south.

Meanwhile, the RSF reportedly swept into a desert outpost in North Darfur, cutting off a supply line to army allies in the besieged city of El Fasher and underlining how far there is to go before Sudan is reunited.

“If the army regains control of all of Khartoum it is not necessarily good for Sudan’s future because they don’t care about Darfur,” said Nour Babiker, an exiled politician from the moderate opposition Sudanese Congress party.

He was alluding to concerns that the army, once in control of the capital, might be unwilling or unable to pursue the fight to provinces in the west. With Khartoum in hand, the incentive for the SAF to negotiate might also lessen, increasing the risk for the country to remain split.

This is also a moment of great danger for civilians. More than 12mn of Sudan’s 50mn population have been displaced by the war, and in some areas famine has taken root.

Atrocities have been committed by both sides. In recent months the SAF and its militia allies have been accused of ethnically targeted killings in recaptured areas. The RSF, which was born of the “Janjaweed” Arab militias accused of war crimes in earlier Darfur wars, have exacted a terrible toll as they have withdrawn.

“It is their pattern to exact retributions on populations as they retreat,” said Hudson.

Gen Burhan’s immediate challenge is to begin restoring order and services to a city that has been stripped bare and ensure the provision of food, water and other provisions as displaced residents begin to return.

Another dilemma is how to gain international backing needed for reconstruction while holding together all the disparate forces under his banner. Burhan’s recent victories have been buttressed by hardline Islamist supporters of the former regime, who retain backing among parts of the population.

But neither western governments, nor the SAF’s Egyptian and Saudi allies in the Middle East, want to see their return to government. Ostracising them, however, could provoke a powerful backlash.

“I don’t expect they will fall apart now because the war is not yet over,” said Baldo. “But it is only a matter of time.”

Cartography by Cleve Jones