#87 What is the Sudanese Civil War?

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Your faithful writer,
Dr. Daniel Smith

Today’s newsletter is about one of the deadliest and least well-known conflicts currently taking place on Earth: the Sudanese Civil War.

While the world’s attention has been focused on the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Palestine wars, the Sudanese Civil War has triggered one of the worst humanitarian crises of the 21st century.

Since the war started:

• more than 10 million people have fled their homes — over 20% of the country’s population

• at least 2 million of those people left Sudan for neighboring countries like Chad, Ethiopia, Darfur, and South Sudan

• ~25 million Sudanese people (half of the country’s population) are in need of humanitarian aid, creating the “world's largest hunger crisis”

Key Facts:

• Sudan is the largest country in Africa

• The capital, Khartoum, sits at the base of the Nile River

• The country of 42 million features a population that is 52% black and 39% Arab

Tensions between Arabs and Blacks in Sudan: Arabs have dominated northern Sudan for centuries, and anti-Black sentiment is common among Sudan's Arab population.

Some have argued that the Sudan's Arab leadership has tried to institute a form of apartheid against the country's black population.

On top of systemic racism and racial conflict, Sudan has a history of civil wars.

The country experienced two civil wars between 1955-1972 and 1983-2005.

This means that Sudan has been in a civil war for more than half of the years since 1955.

About two million people died during the second Sudanese Civil War of 1983-2005, with one of the highest civilian death tolls of any war since World War II.

The Current Civil War: The key force in the ongoing civil war is the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an Arab militia that fought alongside the Sudanese military since 2013.

Now, the RSF is fighting the Sudanese military for control of the country.

The RSF emerged from nomadic Arab Janjaweed militias, which were accused of heinous war crimes during the 2003-2020 Darfur War.

An estimated 200,000 people were killed in the Darfur genocide between 2003-2005. Experts have said that the Janjaweed militias that would later form the RSF were responsible for many of the deaths.

The timeline in Sudan: On April 11 2019, the Sudanese military overthrew longtime President Omar al-Bashir after months of anti-government protests.

After the military took power, they formed a Transitional Military Council that would govern the country.

Civilian forces tried to push the Transitional Council to create a constitutional democracy, but the Sudanese military seized power in (another) coup in October 2021.

In April 2023, the RSF struck back against the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), officially triggering the current civil war.

The civil war stretches beyond Sudan.

In addition to the millions of refugees who’ve fled into neighboring countries, regional powers like the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been accused of supporting the RSF.

And some have argued that UAE support for the RSF makes them complicit in the massacres that the RSF has committed since the war began last year.

RSF leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemeti, is one of Sudan’s richest men.

He controls a company called Al Junaid, which had taken control of Sudanese’s gold industry by 2019.

Critics argue al Junaid was “likely using [revenues from gold mining] to fund” the RSF.

The UAE, which hired RSF mercenaries to fight its war in Yemen starting in 2016, has been accused of importing the gold mined in RSF-controlled Sudanese gold mines.

Sudan's top diplomat at the United Nations published a 78-page complaint against the United Arab Emirates for their support of the RSF.

The complaint shows that the UAE provided arms and military supplies to RSF forces provided medical treatment to wounded RSF fighters.

What’s next: The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. announced an additional $203M in humanitarian aid to Sudan last week while calling on other nations to help address “the world's worst humanitarian crisis.”

There are ongoing efforts to end the war through diplomacy, but continued fighting and escalations by both sides makes a lasting peace unlikely.

ART OF THE DAY

Thank you for reading. Please reply to this email if you have any thoughts or feedback.

Yours,
Dan