Sudan war: A simple guide to what is happening
Where is Sudan?
Sudan is in north-east Africa and is one of the largest countries on the continent, covering 1.9 million sq km (734,000 sq miles).It borders seven countries and the Red Sea. The River Nile also flows through it, making it a strategically important for foreign powers. The population of Sudan is predominantly Muslim and the country's official languages are Arabic and English.Even before the war started, Sudan was one of the poorest countries in the world - despite the fact that it is a gold-producing nation. Its 46 million people were living on an average annual income of $750 (£600) a head in 2022.The conflict has made things much worse. Last year, Sudan's finance minister said state revenues had shrunk by 80%.
What triggered the conflict?
The civil war is the latest episode in bouts of tension that followed the 2019 ousting of long-serving President Omar al-Bashir, who came to power in a coup in 1989.There were huge street protests calling for an end to his near-three decade rule and the army mounted a coup to get rid of him.But civilians continued to campaign for the introduction of democracy.A joint military-civilian government was then established but that was overthrown in another coup in October 2021. The coup was staged by the two men at the centre of the current conflict: Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of the armed forces and in effect the country's presidentAnd his deputy, RSF leader Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as "Hemedti".But then Gen Burhan and Gen Dagalo disagreed on the direction the country was going in and the proposed move towards civilian rule.The main sticking points were plans to incorporate the 100,000-strong RSF into the army, and who would then lead the new force.The suspicions were that both generals wanted to hang on to their positions of power, unwilling to lose wealth and influence.Shooting between the two sides began on 15 April 2023 following days of tension as members of the RSF were redeployed around the country in a move that the army saw as a threat.It is disputed who fired the first shot but the fighting swiftly escalated, with the RSF seizing much of Khartoum until the army regained control of it almost two years later in March 2025.The two generals fighting over Sudan's future
Who are the Rapid Support Forces?
The RSF was formed in 2013 and has its origins in the notorious Janjaweed militia that brutally fought rebels in Darfur, where they were accused of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the region's non-Arab population.Since then, Gen Dagalo has built a powerful force that has intervened in conflicts in Yemen and Libya. He also controls some of Sudan's gold mines, and allegedly smuggles the metal to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).The army accuses the UAE of backing the RSF, and carrying out drone strikes in Sudan. The oil-rich Gulf state denies the allegation. The army also accuses eastern Libyan strongman Gen Khalifa Haftar of supporting the RSF by helping it to smuggle weapons into Sudan, and sending fighters to bolster the RSF.In early June 2025, the RSF achieved a major victory when it took control of territory along Sudan's border with Libya and Egypt. The RSF also controls almost all of Darfur and much of neighbouring Kordofan. It has declared plans to form a rival government, raising fears that Sudan could split for a second time - South Sudan seceded in 2011, taking with it most of the country's oil fields.
What does the army control?
The military controls most of the north and the east. Its main backer is said to be Egypt, whose fortunes are intertwined with those of Sudan because they share a border and the waters of the River Nile.Gen Burhan has turned Port Sudan - which is on the Red Sea - into his headquarters, and that of his UN-recognised government. However, the city is not safe - the RSF launched a devastating drone strike there in March. This was retaliation after the RSF suffered one of its biggest setbacks, when it lost control of much of Khartoum - including the Republican Palace - to the army in March."Khartoum is free, it's done," Gun Burhan declared, as he triumphantly returned to the city, though not permanently.Some analysts say the conflict is in a strategic stalemate and the army still does not have total control of Khartoum, despite deploying newly acquired weapons from Egypt, Turkey, Qatar and Iran.The city is a burnt-out shell: government ministries, banks and towering office blocks stand blackened and burned.The tarmac at the international airport is a graveyard of smashed planes, its passport and check-in counters covered in ash. Hospitals and clinics have also been destroyed, hit by air strikes and artillery fire, sometimes with patients still inside.The army has also managed to win back near total control of the crucial state of Gezira. Losing it to the RSF in late 2023 had been a huge blow, forcing hundreds of thousands of civilians to flee its main city of Wad Madani, which had become a refuge for those who had escaped conflict in other parts of the country.El-Fasher is the last major urban centre in Darfur still held by the army and its allies. The RSF has laid siege to the city, causing hundreds of casualties, overwhelming hospitals and blocking food supplies.Month after month of blockade, bombardment and ground attacks have created famine among the residents, with the people of the displaced camp of Zamzam worst-hit.
Is there a genocide?
Many Darfuris believe the RSF and allied militias have waged a war aimed at transforming the ethnically mixed region into an Arab-ruled domain.In March 2024, the UN children's agency, Unicef, gave harrowing accounts of armed men raping and sexually assaulting children as young as one. Some children have tried to end their own lives as a result.In the same month, campaign group Human Rights Watch (HRW) said it was possible that the RSF and allied militias were carrying out a genocide in Darfur against the Massalit people and other non-Arab communities.Thousands had been killed in el-Geneina city in a campaign of ethnic cleansing with the "apparent objective of at least having them permanently leave the region", it said.HRW added that the widespread killings raised the possibility that the RSF and their allies had "the intent to destroy in whole or in part" the Massalit people.As this could constitute a genocide, it appealed to international bodies and governments to carry out an investigation.A subsequent investigation by a UN team fell short of concluding that a genocide was taking place. Instead, it found that that both the RSF and army had committed war crimes.However, the US determined in January this year that the RSF and allied militias have committed a genocide."The RSF and allied militias have systematically murdered men and boys - even infants - on an ethnic basis, and deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence," then-Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said. "Those same militias have targeted fleeing civilians, murdering innocent people escaping conflict, and prevented remaining civilians from accessing lifesaving supplies. Based on this information, I have now concluded that members of the RSF and allied militias have committed genocide in Sudan," he added.This led to the US imposing sanctions on Gen Dagalo, followed by similar measures against Gen Burhan.Sudan's government filed a case against the UAE in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing it of being complicit in the genocide by funding and arming the RSF.However, the ICJ refused to hear the case, saying that it had no jurisdiction over it. The UAE welcomed its ruling, with an official saying that the Gulf state "bears no responsibility for the conflict". The RSF also denies committing genocide, saying it was not involved in what it describes as a "tribal conflict" in Darfur. But the UN investigators said they had received testimony that RSF fighters taunted non-Arab women during sex attacks with racist slurs and saying they will force them to have "Arab babies".How do you define genocide?
Have there been attempts to end the conflict?
There have been several rounds of peace talks in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain - but they have failed.BBC deputy Africa editor Anne Soy says that both sides, especially the army, have shown an unwillingness to agree to a ceasefire.UN health chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has also lamented that there is less global interest in the conflict in Sudan, and other recent conflicts in Africa, compared to crises elsewhere in the world."I think race is in the play here," he told the BBC in September 2024. The International Crisis Group (ICG) think-tank has called diplomatic efforts to end the war "lacklustre", while Amnesty International has labelled the world's response "woefully inadequate".Humanitarian work has also been badly affected by the decision of the Trump administration to cut aid.Aid volunteers told the BBC that more than 1,100 - or almost 80% - of the emergency food kitchens have been forced to shut, fuelling the perception that Sudan's conflict is the "forgotten war" of the world.
More about Sudan's war from the BBC:
'I lost a baby and then rescued a child dodging air strikes'Sudan in danger of self-destructing as conflict and famine reignFrom prized artworks to bullet shells: how war devastated Sudan's museums
Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
42 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Has Trump taken leadership lessons from cold war-era Africa?
Ever since Donald Trump returned to power, pundits have struggled to find apt analogies for his style of governance. Some liken his loyalty demands, patronage networks and intimidation tactics to the methods of a mafia don. Others cast him as a feudal overlord, operating a personality cult rooted in charisma and bound by oaths, rewards and threats rather than laws and institutions. A growing number of artists and AI creatives are depicting him as a Viking warrior. And of course, fierce debates continue over whether the moment has arrived for serious comparisons with fascist regimes. While some of these analogies may offer a degree of insight, they are fundamentally limited by their Eurocentrism – as if 21st-century US politics must still be interpreted solely through the lens of old-world history. If we truly want to understand what is unfolding, we must move beyond Scandinavian sagas and Sicilian crime lore. I've found it increasingly difficult not to see striking parallels between recent events in the US and the rise of cold war-era dictatorships in Africa. It began with Trump's renaming of the Gulf of Mexico and Denali, which recalled how Mobutu Sese Seko, on a personal whim, changed Congo into Zaire in 1971. Geographical renaming has been extensive in Africa because of its history of colonialism, but now the US has started changing names too. Trump's deployment of national guard troops and marines to Los Angeles after protests over immigration raids also echoed Mobutu's preferred method for dealing with civil unrest: presidential guards patrolling the streets to crush protests. The blunt use of military force to suppress domestic opposition is a tactic associated with figures such as Idi Amin in Uganda, Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe and Paul Biya in Cameroon – albeit with deadlier consequences. Trump's aggressive deportation of undocumented Latino workers also resembles Amin's 1972 expulsion of Uganda's Asian minority. Amin framed it as a way to return economic power to 'the ordinary Ugandan', but it led to financial ruin. The embrace of bizarre, theatrical economic measures that look great on television but wreak havoc in practice is another striking parallel. Trump's tariffs, announced with patriotic fanfare on 'liberation day', evoke Mugabe's grandiose land reforms of the 1980s, which hastened Zimbabwe's collapse. Anti-intellectualism, egomania and delusions of grandeur were hallmarks of dictatorships in Africa. Ivory Coast's Félix Houphouët-Boigny built a replica of St Peter's Basilica in his home town. Jean-Bédel Bokassa crowned himself 'emperor' of Central African Republic. 'Marshal' Mobutu ensured that Concorde could land in his native village. A similar extravaganza of ambition has reached the US, with Trump accepting a luxury Boeing 747 from Qatar and hoping his face will be carved into Mount Rushmore beside George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. The army parade in Washington on the day the US military turned 250 and Trump turned 79 was another moment of self-aggrandising narcissism. A populist personality cult and masculine pride often go hand in hand with deep paranoia and contempt. Trump's relentless war on academia and the free press fits squarely within this tradition. In Equatorial Guinea, President Francisco Macías Nguema outlawed the word 'intellectual' and prosecuted academics. Amin terrorised universities to the point of brain-drain. At first glance, viewing Trump as a westernised version of one of Africa's dictators may seem jarring. After all, his interest in the continent appears limited to its natural resources, not its political models. The trade tariffs and travel bans he recently unleashed have hit several African countries hard, and his cruel withdrawal of aid hardly suggests admiration for anything African. What's more, Trump has never set foot on African soil and reportedly dismissed the continent as a cluster of 'shithole countries'. Only when a raw materials deal is in sight does he spring into life, such as last week when a 'peace deal' between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda was signed at the White House. 'We're getting, for the United States, a lot of the mineral rights from the Congo as part of it,' Trump said. But once the comparison between Trump and a cold war dictator is made, it becomes hard to unsee. And it shouldn't surprise us. The postcolonial dictator was, to a significant degree, an American creation. Sooner or later, it had to come home. The US supported repressive regimes unconditionally during the cold war, viewing them as bulwarks against communism – not just in Africa, but in Asia and Latin America. Dictators such as Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, Suharto in Indonesia, Augusto Pinochet in Chile and Jorge Rafaél Videla in Argentina remained in power for decades thanks to US backing. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the US abruptly abandoned these allies and championed the gospel of democratisation. Though the 1990s were rich in rhetoric about human rights, good governance and the rule of law, on the ground the spectre of autocracy never vanished entirely. We're now witnessing a startling reversal. With the demise of USAID and its retreat from a role promoting global democracy, it's not only that the US has turned its back on democratising countries in Africa and elsewhere – but that it has begun to imitate some of the worst historical examples of authoritarian rule. Viewing Trump's regime through the lens of cold war-era autocracies in postcolonial states offers a framework that is both alarming and oddly reassuring. If there is one enduring lesson from the history of autocracy in Africa, it is this: things can turn ugly, fast. Cold war dictatorships were ruthless, bloody and often ended in chaos and state collapse. Yet their histories also show that when courts are neutered and legislatures reduced to rubber stamps, civil society, independent media and the moral force of religious and academic institutions can emerge as the last formidable strongholds against tyranny. After all, sooner or later, dictators die, whereas collective efforts remain. David Van Reybrouck is philosopher laureate for the Netherlands and Flanders. His books include Congo: The Epic History of a People and Revolusi: Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World
BBC News
5 hours ago
- BBC News
Wimbledon tennis champion Arthur Ashe and South Africa: 'The first free black man I'd ever seen'
Fifty years ago Arthur Ashe pulled off an amazing feat, upsetting the odds and becoming the first black man to win the Wimbledon Men's final when he beat fellow American Jimmy Connors - but it was not something he wanted to define his fight to break down barriers around racial discrimination was closer to his heart - and apartheid South Africa became one of his battle grounds."I don't want to be remembered in the final analysis for having won Wimbledon... I take applause for having done it, but it's not the most important thing in my life - not even close," he said in a BBC interview a year before his death in his Centre Court victory on 5 July 1975 was hailed as one of those spine-tingling sporting moments that stopped everyone in their tracks, whether a tennis fan or not, and it is being commemorated with a special display at the Wimbledon was already in his 30s, tall, serene and with a quiet and even-tempered demeanour. Connors, 10 years younger and the defending champion, was an aggressive player and often described as "brattish".Ashe's achievements and the skills and courage he displayed on the court were certainly matched by his actions off it. In the early 1970s, South Africa repeatedly refused to issue a visa for him to travel to the country alongside other US white-minority government there had legalised an extreme system of racial segregation, known as apartheid - or apartness - in authorities said the decision to bar him was based on his "general antagonism" and outspoken remarks about South in 1973, the government relented and granted Ashe a visa to play in the South African Open, which was one of the top tournaments in the world at the was Ashe's first visit to South Africa, and although he stipulated he would only play on condition that the stadium be open to both black and white spectators, it sparked anger among anti-apartheid activists in the US and strong opposition from sections of the black community in South journalist and tennis historian Richard Evans, who became a life-long friend of Ashe, was a member of the press corps on that South Africa says that Ashe was "painfully aware" of the criticism and the accusation that he was in some way giving legitimacy to the South African government - but he was determined to see for himself how people lived there."He felt that he was always being asked about South Africa, but he'd never been. He said: 'How can I comment on a place I don't know? I need to see it and make a judgment. And until I go, I can't do that.'"Evans recalls that during the tour, the South African writer and poet Don Mattera had organised for Ashe to meet a group of black journalists, but the atmosphere was tense and hostile."As I passed someone," Evans told the BBC, "I heard someone say: 'Uncle Tom'" - a slur used to disparage a black person considered servile towards white people."And then one or two very vociferous journalists stood up and said: 'Arthur, go home. We don't want you here. You're just making it easier for the government to be able to show that they allow someone like you in.'" But not all black South Africans were so vehemently opposed to Ashe's presence in the South African author and academic Mark Mathabane grew up in the Alexandra township - popularly known as Alex - in the north of Johannesburg. Such townships were set up under apartheid on the outskirts of cities for non-white people to first became aware of Ashe as a boy while accompanying his grandmother to her gardening job at a British family's mansion in a whites-only lady of the house gifted him a September 1968 edition of Life magazine from her collection, and there, on the front cover, was a bespectacled Arthur Ashe at the was mesmerised by the image and its cover line "The Icy Elegance of Arthur Ashe" - and he set out to emulate Ashe went on the 1973 tour, Mathabane had only one mission - to meet Ashe, or at least get close to opportunity came when Ashe took time off from competing to hold a tennis clinic in Soweto, a southern Johannesburg township. The 13-year-old Mathabane made the train journey to get there and join scores of other black - and mostly young - people who had turned out to see the tennis star, who they had given the nickname "Sipho"."He may have been honorary white to white people, but to us black people he was Sipho. It's a Zulu word for gift," Mathabane, now aged 64, told the BBC."You know, a gift from God, from the ancestors, meaning that this is very priceless, take care of it. Sipho is here, Sipho from America is here." The excitement generated at the Soweto clinic was not just contained to that township but had spread across the country, he rural reservations to shebeens or speakeasies (bars) - wherever black people gathered, they were talking about Ashe's visit."For me, he was literally the first free black man I'd ever seen," said the 1973 tour, Ashe went back to South Africa a few more times. In early 1976 he helped to establish the Arthur Ashe Soweto Tennis Centre (AASTC) for budding players in the not long after it opened, the centre was vandalised in the student-led uprisings against the apartheid regime that broke out in June of that remained neglected and in disrepair for several years before undergoing a major refurbishment in 2007, and was reopened by Ashe's widow Jeanne complex now has 16 courts, and hosts a library and skills development centre. The ambition is to produce a tennis star and Grand Slam champion from the township - and legends such as Serena and Venus Williams have since run clinics Mothobi Seseli and Masodi Xaba, who were once both South African national junior champions and now sit on the AASTC board, the centre goes beyond feel that fundamentally it is about instilling a work ethic that embraces a range of life skills and self-belief."We're building young leaders," Ms Xaba, a successful businesswoman, told the Seseli, an entrepreneur born and raised in Soweto, agrees that this would be Ashe's vision too: "When I think about what his legacy is, it is believing that we can, at the smallest of scales, move the dial in very big ways."Ashe was initially inclined to challenge apartheid through conversations and participation, believing that by being visible and winning matches in the country he could undermine the very foundation of the his experience within South Africa, and international pressure from the anti-apartheid movement, persuaded him that isolation rather than engagement would be the most effective way to bring about change in South became a powerful advocate and supporter of an international sporting boycott of South Africa, speaking before the United Nations and the US 1983, at a joint press conference set up by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and UN, he spoke about the aims of the Artists and Athletes Against Apartheid, which he had just co-founded with the American singer Harry Belafonte. The organisation lobbied for sanctions against the South African government, and at its height had more than 500 joined many protests and rallies, and when he was arrested outside the South African embassy in Washington DC in 1985, it drew more international attention to the cause and helped to amplify global condemnation of the South African was the captain of the US Davis Cup team at the time, and always felt that the arrest cost him his used his platform to confront social injustice wherever he saw it, not just in Africa and South Africa, but also in the US and was also an educator on many issues, and specifically HIV/Aids, which he succumbed to, after contracting the disease from a blood transfusion during heart surgery in the early he had a particular affinity with South Africa's black population living under a repressive said that he identified with them because of his upbringing in racially segregated Richmond in the US state of wonder then that Ashe was one of the key figures that South African anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela was keen to meet on a trip to New York, inviting him to a historic townhall gathering in 1990 shortly after his release from 27 years in pair met on a few occasions, however Ashe did not live to see Mandela become president of South Africa following the 1994 election, which brought in democratic rule and the dismantling of like Ashe, Mandela was able to use sport to push for change - by helping unify South Africa - notably during the 1995 Rugby World Cup when he famously wore the Springbok jersey, once a hated symbol of apartheid. To celebrate this year's anniversary of Ashe's victory, the Wimbledon Championships have an installation in the International Tennis Centre tunnel and a new museum display about him. They are also taking a trailblazer workshop on the road to mark his Wimbledon title was the third of his Grand Slam crowns, having previously won the US and Australian to many people like Mathabane - who in 1978 became the first black South African to earn a tennis scholarship to a US university - Arthur Ashe's legacy was his activism, not his tennis."He was literally helping to liberate my mind from those mental chains of self-doubt, of believing the big lie about your inferiority and the fact that you're doomed to repeat the work of your parents as a drudge," he said."So that was the magic - because he was showing me possibilities." You may also be interested in: 'I'm not afraid of dying': The pioneering tennis champion who told the world he had AidsArthur Ashe's 1976 interview: 'Fighting the myth''Growing up black' made Arthur Ashe crave control Go to for more news from the African us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica
The Independent
8 hours ago
- The Independent
Judge briefly blocks immigrants' deportation to South Sudan after Supreme Court cleared the way
A federal judge on Friday briefly halted deportations of eight immigrants to war-torn South Sudan, sending the case to another judge, in Boston, the day after the Supreme Court greenlighted their removal. District Judge Randolph Moss sent the case north from Washington after an extraordinary Fourth of July hearing on Friday afternoon. He concluded that the judge best equipped to deal with the issues was Brian Murphy, the one whose rulings led to the initial halt of the Trump administration's effort to begin deportations to the eastern African country. He extended his order halting the deportation until 4:30 p.m. Eastern time, but it was unclear whether Murphy would act on the federal holiday to further limit the removal. Moss said new claims by the immigrants' lawyers deserved a hearing. The administration has been trying to deport the immigrants for weeks. None are from South Sudan, which is enmeshed in civil war and where the U.S government advises no one should travel before making their own funeral arrangements. The government flew them to the U.S. Naval Base at Djibouti but couldn't move them further because Murphy had ruled no immigrant could be sent to a new country without a chance to have a court hearing. The Supreme Court vacated that decision last month, then Thursday night issued a new order clarifying that that meant the immigrants could be moved to South Sudan. Lawyers for the immigrants, who hail from Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Vietnam and other countries, filed an emergency request to halt their removal later that night. The case was assigned to Moss, who briefly barred the administration from moving the immigrants from Djibouti to South Sudan until his afternoon hearing concluded. He slightly extended that bar after he sent the case to Murphy. The administration has said it expected to fly the immigrants to South Sudan sometime Friday. The temporary stay was first reported by legal journalist Chris Geidner.
