On April 15, on the two-year anniversary of the start of the Sudanese Civil War, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (known as Hemedti), who serves as the leader of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), announced the launch of a parallel government for Sudan.
The RSF had been in talks with its regional supporters, most notably Kenya, since at least mid-February about operationalizing a new RSF-led government claiming sovereignty over territorial Sudan and the Sudanese people. The parallel government is being formed in direct opposition to Sudan’s current government, represented militarily by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and commanded by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan from the country’s wartime capital of Port Sudan, along the Red Sea coast.
The geographic importance of Sudan, which is nestled in the geopolitically tense Horn of Africa region and which has a 530-mile-long coastline running along the Red Sea, has attracted the interests and influence of both regional and global powers. Some of these outside players have sought to tilt the battlefield in favor of their chosen side, while others, fearing the potential consequences of the conflict proliferating across the wider region, have represented themselves as neutral mediators looking to end the war.
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Among the most notable regional players is Kenya, which has become one of the RSF’s most public supporters. In February, Kenyan President William Ruto hosted senior RSF leaders in Nairobi for talks about supporting their effort to establish a parallel government. In response, the al-Burhan-led Sudanese government recalled its ambassador to the country and announced a complete ban of all imports from Kenya, including tea, for which Sudan is among Kenya’s biggest markets. The tit-for-tat continued with the RSF extending its hand to its ally, and agreeing to support the safe transfer of Kenyan goods into the territorial parts of Sudan under its control — mostly the western region of Darfur as well as parts of the country’s south.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has also served as one of the RSF’s most committed allies, clandestinely supplying the paramilitary group with weapons through transport routes set up from Chad, to the west of Sudan. The UAE’s support for the RSF, which the United States has accused of committing genocide against the Masalit ethnic community in Darfur, has complicated the relations the Emirates has with some Western countries.
Citing concern over the UAE’s support for the genocidal activities of the RSF, US Senator Chris Van Hollen and Representative Sara Jacobs presented a Joint Resolution of Disapproval in the US Congress in January in which they outlined their disagreement with the US government’s decision to approve the sale of $1.2 billion of arms to the UAE. The two also presented a bill to halt all US defense sales to the UAE until the Gulf state ends its support for the RSF.
The UAE’s traditional ally, Saudi Arabia, finds itself on the other end of the conflict, having recently deepened its support for the SAF. The Saudis served as the leading international mediator over the past year, organizing diplomatic conferences in what was known as the Jeddah Process in an effort to end the war through a diplomatic arrangement between the two warring sides. But after months of failed peace talks, the Jeddah Process withered without an agreement, and with it so did Saudi Arabia’s mediation efforts.
In more recent months, the Saudi government has shifted its focus away from mediating an end to the conflict and has instead intensified its support for the SAF. Saudi Arabia, along with Qatar and Kuwait, issued a public rebuke in February of the Kenya-supported plan to establish the RSF’s parallel government, and at the end of March, al-Burhan traveled to Mecca to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. The two leaders engaged in discussions over the creation of a “coordination council” to improve bilateral ties between the two governments.
Egypt has also been among al-Burhan’s major allies and has supplied the SAF with military equipment. Egypt’s geographic proximity to its southern neighbor personalizes this conflict for the Egyptians, who have accepted 1.5 million Sudanese refugees since the war’s start. The Egyptians see their support for the country’s official government, rather than the breakaway paramilitary group, as aligning with their effort to return Sudan to relative calm. Sudan under RSF rule, in the eyes of the Egyptians, would be a more chaotic and dangerous place.
Other states, though, have tried to avoid placing their thumb on the civil war’s scale, and have instead played the role of neutral mediators. At the same moment that Hemedti announced the RSF’s parallel government, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt were meeting alongside humanitarian and intergovernmental bodies in London at the behest of the United Kingdom. In hosting these talks, the UK government was ostensibly aiming to get these countries to remove their military support for the belligerents in a war largely oxygenated by foreign weapons, while also looking to increase funding to help support the dramatically underfinanced humanitarian relief efforts. Although the talks advanced the humanitarian cause, with the UK government committing an additional $159 million, they failed to achieve a diplomatic breakthrough.
Under President Joe Biden, the United States had also sought to end the civil war through diplomatic engagement, with President Biden appointing former congressman Tom Perriello in February 2024 as special envoy to lead the US government’s diplomatic effort to end the war. The United States initially attached itself to the Jeddah Process, before opening a new diplomatic engagement effort hosted by the Swiss in Geneva. Disagreement over the talk’s parameters, however, led to both the RSF and SAF failing to show up for the scheduled negotiations.
Since President Trump’s inauguration in January, the United States has largely ignored the war.
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With the geopolitical puzzle growing more complicated and with mediation efforts sputtering, the battlefield has intensified. Over the past several months, the RSF has aggressively attacked El-Fasher, the capital city of North Darfur province and the only major city in the country’s Darfur region out of the paramilitary’s control. In their onslaught, the RSF has killed hundreds and displaced over 450,000.
With the geopolitical puzzle growing more complicated and with mediation efforts sputtering, the battlefield has intensified.
In mid-April, the group also stormed the Zamzam refugee camp in Darfur, shelling civilians and attacking the camp’s medical center. Over 400 people were killed in the multi-day onslaught, including nine medical staffers working for the Washington-based humanitarian non-profit Relief International.
Fighting around the capital has also increased in recent weeks, with the SAF wresting back control over portions of Khartoum from the RSF.
With the stakes of this civil war intensifying, and with regional players doubling down on their support for one of the two main belligerents, President Trump should refocus the US’s effort on leading a diplomatic effort to de-escalate tensions. Although ending the war outright seems unlikely given the current terrain, containing the conflict and limiting the role of outside actors could help avoid a cataclysmic regional conflict. Appointing a special envoy and committing diplomatic resources to lead mediation efforts is the very least the US government should do to try to contain the war in Sudan.
