[MUSIC] Just over a month ago, Sudan reached a horrific milestone, 1,000 days of a brutal war that has nearly destroyed the third largest country in Africa. 1,000 days of staggering violence and unimaginable suffering. 1,000 days of total impunity for the perpetrators of a long list of atrocities and war crimes. And as we near the fourth year of the war, the fighting continues to expand. Hi, this is Holdra Fire, a podcast by the International Crisis. I'm Richard Outwood. On the 15th of April, the war in Sudan will enter its fourth year. We just heard UN under Secretary General Rosemary De Carlo talking about the war a couple of weeks ago. Today, we're going to talk about the latest battlefield developments. The war's continued, human toll. We'll talk about whether the belligerence, the Sudanese army, led by Abdel Fatal Warhan and the rapid support forces led by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalor or Hameti are any closer to a cease fire. We'll also talk about what impact the war in the Gulf might have, particularly as the warring parties arrow back as come under attack from Iran. As Sudan's war marks a grim, three-year anniversary, what hope is there for an end to fighting that has torn the country upon? So to talk about all this, I'm very happy to welcome back onto the show, Sherwick Wardemekil, who is crisis group Sudan expert and Alan Boswell, our horn of Africa director, Sherwick Alan, welcome back on. Thanks Richard. Great to be back. So, as the war is about to enter its fourth year, what does the fighting look like now? And I guess the big question, has it been affected yet by what's happening in the Gulf? We expected the war against Iran. What's happening in the Gropon general to affect Sudan in several ways? But so far, the impact has been limited. Overall, it hasn't significantly shifted the military or diplomatic balance, though it has had political repercussions and its economic ripple effects are more visible, and we expect them to get worse. Diplomatically, we expected that shared pressure might push Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE to narrow their differences and then line more closely on Sudan. But this hasn't really happened. On the military side, many within the SAF, Sudanese armed forces expected that the UAE support for the RSF might diminish as Abu Wab became more focused on Iran. But by their own accounts that hasn't happened, and the RSF allegedly continues to receive military support from the UAE. Politically, Sudan's relationship with Iran has shifted a bit. After the Sudanese war started, the head of the Sudanese army Abdel Fata Al-Burhan restored ties with Tehran in 2023. Iranian military support, especially Iranian drones were critical, especially in 2024 in the fight against the RSF. But according to SAF officials, they have declined an offer to host an Iranian naval base on the Red Sea. And this caution, when it comes to Iran, has been reflected again recently in their public messaging. At the start of the war, the army condemned Iranian attacks on Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. More recently, when Islamist factions like Al-Bara bin Malik expressed support for Iran, Burhan responded very quickly and making it clear that no group can speak on behalf of the army and warning that such statements would harm Sudan's foreign relations. So overall, the army is trying to strike a careful balance. They have been severed relations with Iran and have maintained political neutrality, avoiding friction with their key partners like the Gulf states, the Saudis and the Qataris particularly. So the most significant impact has been on the economy. The war in the Gulf has contributed to fuel shortages, driving up prices on almost everything and creating a cascading effect across the economy. Both sides, whether RSF or SAF, rely heavily on fast-moving pickup trucks to mobilize and redeploy forces. So fuel is critical to the war. But while shortages have been witnessed across the nation, they haven't yet shifted battlefield dynamics, which means that available resources are being prioritized for the war effort. But on ordinary citizens, the war has had a significant impact. Many Sudanese rely on businesses with Gulf countries and they also rely on remittances for family members working in the Gulf. So any disruption to those flows has immediate consequences for livelihoods in Sudan and for normal Sudanese civilians. Just one other thing to add on to that. If we do see the Houthis get involved and try to disrupt shipments along the Red Sea, that of course would have a major impact on Sudan, whose only sea access is the Red Sea. Both in terms of its imports, but also exports of oil, including oil from South Sudan, that it continues to benefit from. And so obviously a lot of shortages, as you say, of fuel. But there's also challenges across the Horn of Africa much of the world related to fertilizer. I think about 30% of the world's fertilizer, or at least the seaborn trade in fertilizer, went through the strait of Hormuz, which as listeners, I'm sure, no Iran has in effect shut down. How could that affect Sudan? Yeah, so I think we really need to zero in on just how devastating this could be for Sudan. And what's already the world's worst humanitarian crisis. So obviously Sudanese, their state has already collapsed. So food production is much lower than it used to be. And millions of Sudanese need help. So this is only going to raise food prices on them week and a harvest further and make it even harder and more costly to import food. But on top of that, Sudan is the country most reliant on fertilizer inputs from the Persian Gulf. It was over 50% by the chart I saw by far more than any other country in the world, if that's accurate. Sudan is at a point right now where normally planting season is during rainy season, which is coming in the next few months. If they don't get that fertilizer, a harvest will be even worse than before, as it is, fertilizers will surely go up in price. This is all frankly just really devastating. And to add one more even worse news, it's that Sudanese agriculture is heavily irrigation dependent. As you might imagine, with agriculture zones basically centralized along the Nile rivers. Most of those irrigation also require fuel to pump that irrigation through generators or other means. And of course, now if there's fuel shortages and fuel costs go up, that will make agriculture even more difficult on top of all these other really atrocious factors. Could we talk a bit about what the fighting in Sudan actually looks like now? Are front lines still mostly in the quarterfans in the center of the country? Well, over the past year, the fighting has significantly shifted. On the south side, they've managed to consolidate control over the river in areas that were previously held by the RSF, places like Khartoum, Sanar, and Al-Jazeera. As for the RSF, after their defeat in Khartoum in May 2025, they reoriented their strategy and focused on consolidating positions in dark four and quarterfans, which is closer to their home base. And a major turning point was, you know, October 2025, when RSF took control of Al-Peshir, which had been the last major south stronghold in dark four. The takeover was followed by massive casualties and widespread abuses as RSF consolidated control. From there, the RSF pushed its wards. They captured remaining south positions in west quarterfans. By the end of 2025, they had taken Baba Nusah and shortly after that, they seized the Hegg-Lich oilfield border in South Sudan, which marked a significant expansion of the RSF control. Since then, the RSF has tried to take control of remaining areas in north quarterfans, capturing the strategic town of Barra, which is a gateway to their potential advanced towards Omdruhrman and Khartoum. In north Darfur, the RSF is trying to take control of areas under Darfur armed groups fighting alongside the army, particularly El-Tina, along the Sudanese Chas border, which has recently led to the involvement of Chadi forces in fighting against the RSF. The RSF and its allied forces, the Sudanese people's liberation army, SPL-M North, led by Abdulaziz Aghilu, are also advancing on Dalleng and Kadubli, which are two towns that are hosting the remaining army bases in South Quarterfans. The SPL-M North is also fighting alongside the RSF in Blunai State border in Ethiopia. In late March, they captured Kurmuk, which is a border town, along the Ethiopian border, and RSF alongside SPL-M North, they are advancing towards the Blunai State capital, damasi. RSF had tried to capture Bruno
in 2024, but their advance was awarded by the rainy season. This time around, they have allied with local armed groups that had been fighting against the Army for decades and SAF has also accused Ethiopia of allowing the RSF to operate across the border, launching attacks but also training their troops. So basically the RSF fighting in Northern Darfur still against after having captured fascia as you say, with all these massacres afterwards, but fighting still in Northern Darfur against some Darfurie groups aligned to the Army to the SAF, particularly around Al-Tina that he talked about, but also a lot of fighting in what has basically become the main front line in Kurdistan especially as you say around Dalingin, Kadugli, and now also in Blue Nile, which you know fighting that involves the RSF and this other formal rebel group that's now aligned to the RSF, the SBLM North, fighting the Army. I mean, so broadly speaking, it's fair to describe a sort of de facto partition, even if the front lines are unstable and pockets in different places are still being fought over. There's definitely a de facto partition with the RSF controlling most of Darfur and West Kordofan and SAF controlling Northern and Northeastern and Eastern parts of Sudan. Most of the fighting has been, in the past few months, been concentrated around the center of Sudan around Dalingin, Kadugli, but Blue Nile stayed bordering South Sudan in Ethiopia. So that has emerged as a new front line. And what do we make now of the RSF, the rapid support forces, how coherent is it under Hamethi's leadership? The RSF, I would say, is fairly coherent. They enter the war as a highly mobile paramilitary force capable of rivaling SAF in our combat. But then the RSF began consolidating influence by working with local leaders, community figures, and different allied militias. At the same time, the RSF tried to evolve politically since 2024. Hamethi visited a number of neighboring countries in an effort to gain external recognition and legitimacy. But the most critical shift within the RSF followed battle setbacks, particularly their defeat in Cartoum in 2025. Militaryly, the RSF started relying on drones and advanced communication technology to sort of compensate for its lack of air power. And this has allowed them to carry out precision strikes, target, soft supply routes, and target distance soft positions. The RSF, politically speaking, has also evolved somewhat. It formed the TASI school coalition, aimed at bringing together arm movements, civilian political actors, and local governance structures. And through TASI, the RSF sought to transform itself into a broader political and military umbrella than just an armed group. But the RSF is still the dominant actor within that coalition. There's also ongoing competition among members over roles and positions within the parallel TASI's administration, which is officially based in Niala. At the same time, TASI has yet to receive formal recognition from any external state or international actor. So show it to this civilian government that the RSF has appointed, as you say TASI's. But for all the RSF aspires to represent a wider swath of Sudanese, in reality, it is still right a movement rooted in Dalfour and the Arab population of Dalfour and sort of reviled even by most non-Arab's in Dalfour and certainly by riverine Sudanese, those who live along the Nile Harland. Yes, if RSF is taken independent of its TASI's coalition, it's still regarded as very much rooted in Dalfour, not just Dalfour, but also Dalfoury ARPs in particular. But when you're looking at TASI's coalition in general, there are representatives from across Sudan, particularly across Dalfour, across ethnic lines. There are many non-Arab representatives of political and political leaders. But as you mentioned, Richard, RSF or even TASI's is significantly opposed within the referring communities. So we can say that their political capital is still in western Sudan. Yeah, I would just say my take on what the RSF has tried to do. Their political project has been a failure quite frankly. I think the atrocities they committed in Al Fasha'er, slaughtering thousands of mostly Black Dalfoury, who they were otherwise trying to form a political coalition with this has made the reputation even worse and was already rock bottom. And those figures they have managed to bring to their coalition is probably because these figures are getting arms from them. They're getting other forms of power through them. But this alliance with the RS have really cost these figures political support in their own constituencies. The main group, the Espem North, which did sign up with the RSF has obviously received a lot of material support. But this alliance with the RSF has caused it all sorts of internal political problems as well because the RSF's just so deeply unpopular with many Sudanese. And I also think they formed this government with an idea that it would somehow delegitimize their opponents under Berhan and the army. But I think it's actually done the opposite. They formed a government, they haven't put it on the ground and no one has recognized it. So they've only sort of proven their own isolation diplomatically and it's had no major effect on the ground either. The new government hasn't really been operational. So if that's the RSF, then what about the army, the staff and the degree of control that army chief Abdul Fattal Burhan has over? What has also traditionally been quite a fractious coalition? When comes to SAF, they have come a long way since their early setbacks in cartoon. After losing ground at the start of the war, they have managed to regroup and re-assert control in key central areas. Strategically, SAF has maintained a more centralized common structure and they do continue to rely on conventional military tactics, especially superior air power and the defense of its bases. Berhan asked the head of the army has managed to stay at the top and many, even though at different times have wanted to replace him. They have recognized him as the person that can bring different sides within the SAF coalitions together. At the same time, their alliances have been central, SAF has relied heavily on armed groups, different community militias and other local forces to hold territory but also push back RSF advances. But SAF has tried to bring different allied armed groups under unified command with mixed results. Some functions have been open to integration but others continue to operate semi-independently and efforts to integrate them have created tensions. So alongside external war with the RSF SAF is also managing internal dynamics within its own coalition. Just quickly to add, the Sudanese army has really been the survivor of this war in a sense. The early months of the war, you had them lose pretty much all of Khartoum to the RSF, a huge embarrassment for an institution that actually predates the independent Sudanese state. It was a humiliation to lose Khartoum to the RSF and then they just kept losing battle after battle. You had Berhan actually hold up in Khartoum for many months before he managed to flee to safety. It was a common discussion among diplomats working on this, a sort of question about when SAF would implode amid all these pressures among all of its factionalism about SAF being too reliant on all these different militias that they were using to fight back against the RSF. I think one thing we should say for sure is that SAF has managed to regroup and it is definitely the dominant actor. And what is the core of the Sudanese state now? It has been working quite hard to centralize foreign relations and to make sure that at least it holds the balance of power of Isavie. These other militias, Darfurie, Bee, Islamist, but SAF has really turned the denerative of the war, I think, in its favor. And Alan, that owes a lot to those foreign relations you talked about to the outside support that SAF is getting? For sure. And I'm not trying to paint a picture of a functional SAF, but on both sides of this war have been heavily reliant. And you could say even dependent on their outside backers, RSF, of course, has been extremely dependent on the UAE's backing throughout this war. SAF has been dependent on outside backers, but has lacked a single patron in the way that RSF had. So it's also had to do much more in courting more backers. So it's been able to get yes Egyptian support throughout this war, but I'd say increasing levels of it. It's brought Saudi Arabia from being a more neutral actor to now more directly supporting it. Turkey wasn't very involved early on in the war and is now very active in supporting the Sunnis Army. Now a lot of this is not to do with the Sunnis Army, being very skilled diplomats, it's had to do with these countries getting involved for their own security reasons and often frankly just to counter the UAE and what the RSF is doing. But nonetheless, yes, that's a huge component. This has now become a regional war and the outside actors are the ones who have the
material means to escalate it. And we talked a moment ago about how unpopular the RSF are outside their sort of limited base. But traditionally the SAF too, I mean the military leaders have also been unpopular most Sudanese from at least from what we talked about before. Don't want Borhan as leader of the country, don't want military rule, had been as angry with the military leadership as with they are with Hameti for driving their country into destruction during the war, the army shelt civilian areas. But given how particularly in the Nile heartlands, given how disliked the RSF are, is the sense that the SAF are a better bet and you know I realize how to generalize, but is that sense growing among Sudanese? So I just want to caveat by saying that obviously it's difficult to say within any sort of scientific certainty, public polling is not exactly something that is going on in Sudan amid this war. But I think we can say a few things on this. First of all there are a few constants in Sudanese politics that are not going to change. One of those is that there is historically intense resentment and animosity from the peripheral parts of Sudan towards the political center, cartoon if you will. And that represents a sort of baseline that the RSF is playing off of to have some political support. Yes, it was in the political center at the start of this war, but it is from one of these marginalized areas and has tried to form this broader coalition, which show it mentioned amid these periphery. And it will always have something of a political coalition, despite the atrocities it has also committed. Now on the other side, Sudanese have historically been very resistant to army rule. And there has been a constant cycle in Sudan's history of military takeovers, in revolutions, knocking them out, short-lived sort of parliamentary, unstable democratic periods. And the army has never really managed to develop the political legitimacy would take to cement something that is more like army rule that we have seen in other cases. Now the Sudanese army has gained legitimacy and more popularity as its fortunes in the war have at least gotten better than they were. I mean, yes, the Sudanese army was at a very low point when it had lost cartoon, obviously retaking cartoon has boosted its fortunes. But I would say a lot of Sudanese do support the army in the war against the RSF, but that doesn't mean they are any more pleased with the prospect of the army sort of overstaying its welcome as political leaders of Sudan when this war ends. I think a lot of non-Sutanese regional actors sort of think in a situation like this with a country that's been so destroyed, the army looks like realistically a safer pair of hands. But the flip side of that is that an army that fails to gain enough political legitimacy will also probably never really be up to rule Sudan and Sudanese politics is notoriously fachious and actually very hard for a lot of the regional actors to fully wrap their heads around. Just before we come to the diplomacy and sort of some of the peace efforts to the degree that exists, could we talk a little bit about the risks of spillover? We've talked a lot on the show before about South Sudan. We've done whole recent previous episodes on that that listeners can check out. But we talked earlier about fighting on the Chadian border and also getting closer to a blue Nile to Ethiopia. Do you want to talk a little bit about those dangers? So, Shoeit earlier was talking about how most of the fighting in Darfur now is concentrated on the border with Chad and then the new front on this war is concentrated on the Sudan Ethiopia border and then the court of hand fighting is very close to the South Sudan border and is very much tied up with that. So, the three main fronts, they're all related to dangerous spillover and cross border effects with Chad, South Sudan and Ethiopia. We've talked a lot about the South Sudan angle. I'll just say on the Chad angle, we have an interesting dynamic where a Chad still seems very much aligned with RSF not officially, but in terms of what they're allowing to pass through and in terms of the president of Chad's close relationship with the UAE. But you have seen increasingly Chadians Agawa who are from the same ethnic group as the president embedded in the security apparatus of Chad. You have seen increasingly Zagawa on the Chadian sides getting involved in fighting RSF alongside the Sudanese Agawa in North Darfur. So, you're seeing a complex dynamic occur in Chad that could be quite dangerous. I mean, basically, President Mahmoud Debby is seemingly allowing the UAE to funnel weapons to the RSF through Chad. The RSF is using those weapons to kill Zagawa in Darfur and Chadians Agawa, which again, this group, as you say, dominates the ruling elite and Chad are fighting the RSF. So, really, some quite complicated elite politics for Debby. Yeah, that's right. And then the deteriorating relations between the Sudanese Army and Ethiopia is perhaps the most worrying new dynamic. It's widely understood that the RSF would not have been able, really, to help open up this new front near the Ethiopian border with Sudan. If it wasn't able to do some supplies and movement through Ethiopia, there is a big Reuters report that the UAE has built a large training camp that the RSF would plan to use up there near that new front. What we can say for sure is that the Sudanese Army has been worried and angry for months saying that Ethiopia, despite its official stance of neutrality, has been throwing its weight ever more behind the RSF and the Sudanese Army obviously accuses the UAE, which is the most important ally to two prime minister Abbi. They accuse the UAE of being the one really pushing this agenda. I'll say that the pictures looks a bit different from the Ethiopia side, and I think it's very important to understand that perspective too, which is from Ethiopia's perspective, they have two main regional adversaries, Egypt, which, as listeners will know, is locked in this long-standing dispute with Ethiopia over the use of Nile waters and the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dan, and then Eritrea, which relations have been going south. They're both Egypt and Eritrea are closely involved in supporting the Sudanese Army, and Ethiopia also believes that Eritrea, the Sudanese Army, they also have links to opposition groups within Ethiopia. This has made Addis Ababa feel increasingly under pressure, Egypt and Eritrea are basically very involved now in Sudan. Ethiopians don't admit that they are helping RSF, but there is a sense within Ethiopia that they need to do something to start to defend their own interests. That's a very negative dynamic where we could see cross-border proxy escalation that would make this region even more volatile than it already is. Let's come then to the diplomacy. So, US envoy Masaboulos had been leading efforts with the circle Qad to get a ceasefire. The Qad is the US, first of all Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, who are obviously tied down with the Gulf War, and Egypt, which is also involved in some of the Iran diplomacy. So is the Qad process continuing at all? So, the Qad diplomacy has continued at a certain level. That means that Abulos has been continuing to push a giraffe humanitarian troops proposal, which has been shared and agreed on in a way among the Qad members and then shared, and then the US is sending it to both the RSF and staff and trying to get them to agree to this. Some US officials say the RSF has put in writing a conditional agreement to the latest troops proposal, although I should say the RSF tells us that's not true. Clearly though, the major hang up all along has been the willingness of the Sudanese army to sit down and negotiate with the RSF without some other preconditions. That's a big RSF withdrawal. So, you do have Bulos continuing at his own level to push this troops proposal. It's just that we don't really see high-level pressure on Berhan from his Arab allies that it might take to get Berhan to actually say yes. So, you have some mediation going on, but not really the high-level regional diplomacy that we expect would be necessary to actually push these two parties to ending the war. And beyond the immediate ceasefire, if you think of the way the two parties want the war to end, what they would want to get out of Abraudah deal, again, I realize it seems a long way off, but what would be the main sticking points if the word genuine talks, so the extent that we know them, is it still basically about the respective roles, the sort of power and control over resources they would each have or not have in Sudan's future? Well, SAF and RSF demands have evolved over time in response to battle-filled realities and external pressure, but their core positions have remained largely consistent. SAF has from the start insisted that the RSF must withdraw from major urban areas and regroup in designated locations. SAF also insists the RSF be disarmed, like Alam mentioned earlier, and partially integrated into the army. SAF's broader demand is that it be recognized as the only legitimate national army and military authority in Sudan. In terms of sequencing, SAF has also been confirmed that security arrangements should be in place before the political process could resume. And beyond the military question, SAF has pushed for the preservation of existing state institutions, including the intelligence services, while they have rejected any form of purge. So unlike SAF, the RSF argues that comprehensive security sector reform and the formation of a new national army rather than integration of the RSF into existing sub-structures. It includes
neutral withdrawals, meaning that SAP and RSF forces would pull back from urban areas into agreed zones, including SAP withdrawal from Cartoum. Politically, the RSF has taken a hard line on the exclusion of Islamic actors, and they have called for the disbandment of militias linked to the former regime, but also different Islamic militias. Also, the exclusion from any political process that follows a ceasefire agreement. This includes anyone associated with the National Congress party and the Islamic movement. These are major allies on the south side. While this core disagrements remain significant, ultimately, this negotiation thing to break down for a combination of prisons, including ongoing battle of the dynamics, the influence of armed allies on both sides, whether it is Islamist actors on the south side and the armed groups on the RSF side, but also external backers, also a player-significant role in shaping positions and add another layer of complexity to the whole mediation process. Just to say Richard, it's not only that the two sides have diametrically opposed positions on how this word ends. The other major challenge is that the Sudanese army has essentially listed preconditions to any sort of truce or talks and the idea is that humanitarian truce within lead to talks. The biggest precondition of all has been this absolute demand that the RSF fully withdraw from all of its positions and assemble in specific areas and later disarm. Now in the US-led talks over humanitarian truce, the US has tried to select a few different areas such as Al-Fasha and North Darfur, some areas in the court of fans, where RSF could do some withdrawals and create a demilitarization zone, for instance, as a way to meet this Saff demand at least somewhat along the way. One key challenge has been that many Sudanese just don't trust that the RSF will follow through on any such precondition. If we come to the respective backers of both sides, represented on the court, broadly speaking, Egypt, to some degree Saudi on the Saff side, the Emirates on the RSF side, are their positions largely the same as those of the belligerents that they back or is there, you think, more space to compromise within the court? So our main take on this is that the position between Saff and RSF are currently so far apart and they both are very confident in their ability to continue fighting this war. So we see it really requiring more outside pressure on these two to really get them to narrow these positions, or even get them into peace talks themselves. Now, yes, you could say that, for instance, Egypt and Saudi Arabia's positions largely map onto Saffs and the UAE's positions largely map on to the RSFs, but I'll boil down their sort of day after disagreements, if you will, to three main, especially sticky issues. One is the role of the army after this war ends. Now the Quad Road map, which came out, treated both parties as two warring parties and said there'd be a civilian-led government. But the position of Saudi Arabia and Egypt is that you cannot really expect the Sudanese army to just disappear as an authoritative force in Sudan. And then on the flip side, there's the question about the future of the RSF. Does the RSF remain, essentially its own standing force? Is it forced to integrate into the army? And I would say the position of Egypt and Saudi Arabia is that if you don't integrate the RSF into the army, then you have this unbridled RSF and probably a partitioned Sudan whereas the UAE, of course, has this deep distrust, even enmity to the Sudanese army and you could imagine their reluctance to force the RSF to integrate unless there are serious reforms on the army side. And then the third bucket here is the "Islamist Forces" in Sudan. And this is one where there's quite a bit of alignment among the Quad countries. They all fear the resurgence of the Omar al-Bashir regime behind the scenes, both in mobilizing militias and as a political force backing the Sudanese army, but they disagree on exactly what to do about it. The UAE has a very absolute disposition. The Sudanese army is too embedded with these "Islamist Forces" and that you need a major crackdown on them. Egypt and Saudi Arabia don't like the resurgence of these "Islamist Forces" but think that practically speaking, these forces are very powerful in Sudan and that practically speaking, you probably need to be more realistic. Excluding the "Islamist" means. So those are the three main areas where they are frankly still quiet at odds and because they disagree on these behind the scenes, I think it's really prevented a more united push to just end this war. And so there's the sort of outside in question and certainly is our position that you need a consensus on the Quad. The warring parties can then be sort of pushed to adopt. But beyond that there's also the sort of sequencing question, right? And do you think the ceasefire that Bulloce is pushing for is feasible without some clarity on the bigger disputes or does especially the SAF need a better sense of the future before it agrees to stop fighting? I think this is a war that will be very difficult to end without there being more clarity both among regional actors and with the parties themselves about what comes after. The force is pushing for a truce because the attempts to get direct peace talks have failed. So now they're pushing for a truce first to then lead to talks. But it's running up into the same problem, which is the parties don't want to agree to a truce, until they have some idea about what they're actually going to be negotiating over once that truce kicks in. So I think what's going to be needed is some sort of basic understanding, starting with the among the outsiders, not because you would have to do it among the outsiders, but because it just looks like a quicker route. So I think first of all, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE are the most affected and involved in this war. They all need to recognize that they're not going to get what they want. The UAE bet big against the Sudanese army. I'm not sure that bet is really going to pay off. Egypt and Saudi Arabia would love for a solution to the RSF problem. I'm not sure they're fully going to get that. But I do think they could each perhaps list something like a red line and try to get the others to agree for Saudi Arabia that could be telling the Emirates that they need at least contained and curtailed RSF. They do not want the partition of Sudan and they'll need some sort of Emirati commitment that they will make sure the RSF follows through on whatever withdrawals and whatever integration and demobilization commitments are made as well. The Saudis can also reassure the SAF that this is something they're confident can move forward. Then you'd expect the Emirates, for instance, to want the Saudis and Egyptians to work more hand in glove specifically on countering the Islamists, perhaps doing some specific purges or rebalancing of the office of the Corps within the Sudanese army. I still think this civilian government, which is part of the Quad Road map, is an essential component. One of the only ways of really trying to reunite this country, at least on paper in the short term. Secondly, the army is going to remain quite influential and the Emirates will want there to be some other form of government that they can also engage with. I think you could see something like landing zone like that, the Emirates commit to reigning in the RSF, the Saudis and Egyptians commit more clearly to countering the Islamists and commit that yes, they will support this broader civilian government as well. Then then putting real muscle behind getting the parties themselves to actually agree to this with some of these guarantees as well. Alan, what do you make of the talk? There is some talk of Bullos pushing for a ceasefire by the 15th of April anniversary of the war and this meeting in Berlin. Yeah, it looks like Bullos is trying to get a humanitarian truce in place, especially ahead of this April 15th conference in Berlin on Sudan. Now the odds of him getting that truce are not good for the reasons we discuss, but even if he does, I just want to say in practice, everything else still holds, which is a truce will still only set these two party up for negotiations. So for that truce to prove durable, it's still going to require more of this diplomacy to narrow the differences among the outside actors ad between the belligerence for even a temporary truce to manage to hold and to solve the thing. And just then maybe to end, we're three years in, although, you know, Alan, you've outlined what a sort of diplomatic way to end the war would look like. It's also true, I think that neither the outside powers nor the warring parties themselves look remotely close to that. You know, even if they are very tied up with the Gulf War, there's not a real sign of calculations yet changing on Sudan. And the toll on Sudan itself, you know, a country that suffered plenty of wars before, but always in its peripheries, a cartoon again, now back under the control of the army, but torn apart so many people displaced the world's largest humanitarian crisis. So an enormous amount of suffering. So what's your sense? Where's it going to go from here? Yeah, I mean, I sketched out there a potential path out of this war, but that's not a path, as you note, that I think we are currently on or that we would be on soon. The one argument we would make is that diplomacy should be more focused on trying to bridge these endgame questions, because otherwise we fear that essentially these efforts to end this horrendous war have essentially been spinning the wheels rather than really moving us towards a solution.
Sadly, the one glimmer of hope you can find that eventually this sort of diplomacy might come is just how catastrophic this war really is. For Sudanese, as we've discussed, it has collapsed their country. It's the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. Tens of millions of Sudanese now require assistance, and most of them are not getting that assistance. But largely, Sudanese have been scattered. Our tomb is basically uninhabitable still, and most of Sudan's professional and middle and creative class have all been dispersed. This is not a calamity that Sudan will recover from soon. But this is a war that I think you can say now is outgrowing Sudan. This is a war that has regionalized, it is spreading. It's our assessment to that the recent flare-up in Yemen, in which led to a major rupture between the Saudis and the Miradis actually stemmed from their dispute in Sudan to start with. This is a war that is not just causing spillover effects in Ethiopia and South Sudan and Chad. This is a war which is also crossing the Red Sea and causing inter-Golf tensions. There's no sign that anyone yet is willing to back down. But I think, frankly, it is destabilizing this region too much, and I don't just mean the Horn of Africa. I mean the Red Sea and even going over into the Gulf. It's just proving too destabilizing, and I think that's the reason that eventually these outside-middle powers will need to sit down and actually talk about it in a more constructive manner. Now whether or not that happens before the spyles even more out of control or we see another war in the Horn of Africa on the backs of this, I think that's a very big question and it's a very scary one. Alan, show it. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for your time. Hold your fire is a production of the International Crisis Pomerature Outward. Thanks to our producers, Kevin Murphy, Martin Dixon Murphy, Hi, Gershaw, and thanks to Zézéver, to all of you who are listening, please do get in touch with
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