Khartoum changes hands, heralding a new phase in Sudan’s civil war
It was not the heroic final stand their leader had perhaps envisioned. On March 15th Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo had called on his troops not to surrender or retreat. In the end they disobeyed. Within days of Mr Dagalo’s entreaties the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) ceded control of the presidential palace in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). By March 26th the central bank and international airport were back in the hands of the SAF, Sudan’s national army. Columns of bedraggled fighters could be seen retreating west across the last Nile bridge still in the RSF’s hands as General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the army chief and Sudan’s de facto president since a coup in 2019, returned to the capital for the first time in two years. Surrounded by cheering troops, he toured the palace and declared that at last Khartoum was “free”.
Nearly two years after being forced to fall back to Port Sudan on the coast, the SAF is now in charge in Khartoum again. Though it still faces resistance in areas south of the capital, and in the district of Ombdurman on the west bank of the river, the recapture of the city marks a turning point in a war that has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced 12m Sudanese and caused one of the world’s worst famines for decades. The question now is whether the SAF decides to halt the war or expand it.
Partly, that decision will depend on pressure from allies. The SAF has advanced on the battlefield in recent months largely thanks to the broad and diverse coalition it has assembled since the early months of the war, when it lost vast swathes of the country, including most of Khartoum, to the RSF, a descendant of the ethnically-Arab Janjaweed militia that terrorised Darfur for two decades. On its side today are foreign backers such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and neighbouring Egypt, which has reportedly provided air support. Looser associates include Russia, Turkey and Iran, which have sold the army weapons and drones. At least some of those countries might now press General Burhan, who has doggedly refused peace talks until now, to enter into negotiations with the RSF. To sweeten the deal, outsiders might now offer to recognise a SAF-led government in Khartoum and help pay the bill for the devastated city’s reconstruction.
Yet competing interests among the army’s domestic allies could scupper any such deal. The SAF has enlisted voluntary local defence units, composed of civilians enraged by the RSF’s looting and terrorising of populations under its control, and rebel movements from the western region of Darfur. It has also fought alongside jihadist brigades with links to the ousted Islamist government of Omar al-Bashir. Faced with the dilemma of whether to continue the fight westwards towards the RSF’s base in Darfur, or to consolidate its position in Khartoum, this shaky alliance could well splinter.
Prominent voices are urging it to push west. “Darfur is part of Sudan,” says Amjed Farid, an analyst and former government official. “The SAF should not surrender it to the RSF.” Many Darfuris themselves, not least the ethnic African groups who have suffered atrocities including possible genocide at the hands of the RSF, probably feel similarly. “More military bodies in Darfur will force the RSF to retreat,” says Yasin Muhajir, who was forced to flee his home in el-Fasher, the region’s besieged capital, last year.
Such a push could end badly. The army has made the biggest recent gains in its traditional strongholds in central Sudan. A ground offensive in Darfur would entail stretched supply lines and battles on the RSF’s home turf. As a commander during the first Darfur war in the 2000s, General Burhan got badly bogged down in the region. Even with the support of local allies his forces could easily find themselves in a quagmire again. “The Sudanese Armed Forces have never really won in Darfur,” says Kholood Khair of Confluence Advisory, a Sudanese think-tank.
Still, for now there is little talk of a ceasefire or negotiations, at least in public. Ominously, the SAF continues to bomb civilians: a strike on a market in Darfur on March 24th reportedly killed at least 54 people and injured dozens more. In Khartoum there are alarming reports of lawlessness. Gruesome videos have circulated in recent days appearing to show beheadings of suspected RSF collaborators by groups allied with the army.
There are equally few signs that the RSF, despite its defeat in Khartoum and its recent insistence that it wished to begin dialogue, is ready to sue for peace. In February it announced the formation of a parallel government in the areas under its control. Its chief foreign supporter, the United Arab Emirates, does not appear to have stopped sending it weapons. Almost all of Sudan’s immediate neighbours, except for Egypt and Eritrea, now fall within the Emiratis’ sphere of influence. This means the RSF should be able to continue resupplying itself. “I’d be surprised if the RSF is going to take this one lying down,” says Alex Rondos, a former EU special representative to the Horn of Africa.
In Khartoum and its surroundings the SAF’s victory should at least make it easier for aid agencies to deliver food and other emergency supplies. That could stave off famine, temporarily reducing the misery for Sudanese in these areas. “But does it actually bring the war closer to the end?” asks Payton Knopf, a former senior American diplomat. “Probably not.”■