Two years on, Sudan’s war seems further than ever from resolution. Can US involvement help peace efforts?

Two years on, the war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis and wrought terrible destruction: the capital, Khartoum, and other major cities and towns lie in ruins; an estimated 150,000 people had been killed as of January 2025; famine is spreading; and more than 12.7 million people have fled their homes, 3.8 million of them to neighboring countries.

The warring sides and their allies have committed unspeakable atrocities. They have attacked scores of hospitals and markets, blocked the delivery of aid to the displaced hungry, and carried out beheadings, public executions, and rapes. International media reported the discovery of mass graves north of Khartoum, next to an apparent RSF torture center. Activists say tens of thousands are missing.

In recent weeks, the SAF has made major battlefield gains, retaking Khartoum, including the symbolic presidential palace and the airport, and areas in Gezira state that it lost last year. As The Guardian observed, the routing of the RSF has brought jubilation and relief but also sadness at the scale of looting and destruction.

However, the army’s gains do not mean peace is on the horizon. The RSF’s commander, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, vowed his forces would return to Khartoum “more powerful,” while the SAF’s commander, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, said “the joy of victory will not be complete until the last rebel is eliminated in the last corner of Sudan’s land.” Fighting continues in neighboring Omdurman and in the capital of North Darfur, where SAF-aligned joint forces are defending their last holdout in that region, as well as in other active hotspots.

Recipe for a protracted conflict

If the outlook was grim on the war’s first anniversary, it is now worse. As it becomes more protracted, the conflict is pushing the country further into fragmented and militarized rule and away from hopes of a civilian-led democracy.

Since the war started in April 2023, a host of external actors have been fueling the conflict by supplying weapons and providing support to the warring parties. Aside from the United Arab Emirates’ well-known support for the RSF, the European Council on Foreign Relations counts Chad, Egypt, Iran, Kenya, Libya, Russia, Somalia, and Turkey among those who “have facilitated the flow of weaponry into Sudan as part of their respective — and often clashing — strategic goals in the country, which include geostrategic and business interests.”

The warring sides and their network of self-interested supporters have profited from the violence. They are benefiting from a gold rush now estimated to be worth billions of dollars and unregulated trade in other commodities like livestock, gum Arabic, and sesame. The wartime economy has also expanded smuggling routes to Egypt, especially for gold, fuel, and humans, while the RSF and other groups have resorted to kidnapping for ransom.

Meanwhile, the two belligerents are consolidating power in areas they control — the SAF in the north and east and the RSF in the west and south, with two other rebel groups holding areas in Darfur and Kordofan. In February, a group of civilian and military figures including, notably, the head of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) in Southern Kordofan, announced a “Peace and Unity Government” in areas under RSF control. Their stated goal is to provide essential services to residents and forge a “New Sudan” — invoking the vision of late southern rebel leader, Dr. John Garang — based on the rule of law, a just peace, and stability.

The rhetoric might not convince many Sudanese, who see the move as a ploy to burnish the international reputation of the RSF and acquire military jets from abroad. Burhan countered the move by announcing far-reaching amendments to the 2019 Constitutional Charter, giving the SAF absolute control and abolishing a committee to investigate the killing of protesters by security forces on June 3, 2019. He announced plans to form a civilian technocratic government to boost the military’s legitimacy as a governing entity, which some say could help ease conditions in SAF-held areas.

However, neither of the proposed technocratic governments actually enables civilian rule; each would be beholden to its respective patron. Far from inching toward any sort of peace talks, the specter of parallel governments under the two main belligerents suggests a long-term division with simmering conflict — a Libya scenario, as many have warned. Gulf states, except for the UAE, opposed the plan, as did the African Union (AU), United Nations, and European Union. Even the United States  expressed its concern about the impact of a parallel Sudanese government in a State Department post on X.

It is not clear whether the worst-case scenario will materialize or if the warring sides can be pressured into peace talks sooner. In any case, the playing field for Sudanese civilian groups seeking to influence the future of their country has become a minefield of slander and polarization. Activists who were once critical of the SAF now support it, while others warn the army has always been the problem and will never allow civilians to rule. The main pro-democracy alliance, Taqaddum, broke up when some members joined the RSF-backed government. Renamed Somoud, the alliance might now claim greater neutrality but will need time and support to win popular legitimacy.

Continued war in Sudan is not in the US interest

As expected, human rights and humanitarian concerns do not figure in any significant way into President Donald Trump’s mercurial and transactional approach to foreign policy. The decision, in February, to suspend assistance from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to Sudan, despite a waiver for humanitarian aid, has harmed Sudanese people and exacerbated the effects of the wartime famine. This sends the message Washington does not care about the suffering in Sudan.

Trump has so far not mentioned Sudan publicly. Secretary of State Marco Rubio did in January, when he reproached the UAE for “openly supporting” the RSF as it carries out a “real genocide.” And in the US Congress, Reps. Gregory Meeks and Sarah Jacobs recently re-introduced a bill to sanction those who fuel Sudan’s conflict, violate the arms embargo, or block aid, and to bolster the role of the US; but it may not pass without higher-level endorsement.

Yet if the enormity of humanitarian disaster in Sudan — the massive displacement, spreading famine, and mounting record of human rights abuses and genocide — is not reason enough for US leaders to act, a number of geopolitical and security interests should compel them to do so, in keeping with Rubio’s pledge to make the United States “safer, stronger, and more prosperous.”

Sudan’s war is destabilizing an important region in the greater Horn of Africa and Red Sea. The region is already volatile: Somalia is fighting terrorist groups al-Shabaab and the Islamic State; Ethiopia is sliding toward war with Eritrea; and Yemeni Houthi attacks on global shipping passing through the Red Sea have caused billions of dollars in losses and damages and killed multiple sailors. Neighboring South Sudan is on the brink of a war that could merge with Sudan’s.

Sudan has become a hub for trafficking in weapons, in violation of the UN arms embargo, and people, while both sides attract fighters from across the region and beyond. The RSF lures foreign mercenaries from as far away as Colombia, while the SAF has relied on Tigrayan fighters from neighboring Ethiopia. The SAF accused the RSF early in the war of drawing fighters from the restive Sahel region, where armed Islamists are gaining ground, and the RSF’s reliance on the Russian paramilitary organization Wagner Group to secure mining operations is well known.

US competitors are circling the region. Russia seeks to expand its foothold on the Red Sea coast to build a naval base in Port Sudan. Iran, which has sold weapons to Sudan in the past, has renewed its alliance with the SAF, signing deals in mining, banking, and livestock. China, a major investor in Sudan’s infrastructure and oil operations for years, is said to be seeking stronger ties.

And finally, there is the risk of war-torn Sudan eventually hosting terrorists again — a concern that animated US action on the country in the past. As former US Rep. Frank Wolf pointed out, Sudan’s former President Omar al-Bashir harbored Osama bin Laden, Carlos the Jackal, Joseph Kony, and fighters from Hamas and Hizbullah. If left alone, Sudan under the influence of Islamists and their brigades could return to pariah status.

Can Trump be helpful on Sudan?

Many observers today are reluctant to urge US involvement, pointing to Trump’s outlandish proposal for resettling residents of Gaza in Somalia and Sudan and his fixation on the Abraham Accords, which remain unfinished business in Khartoum. Others suggest Trump could use his leverage with the leaders in the Gulf and Egypt to end the war and win a peace prize. But would he use such leverage responsibly, or could that effort make things worse?

In the goal of ending Sudan’s war, the US and its allies would ideally back an international effort to stop the fighting, prevent others from actively fueling the war, and set a framework for political talks that includes civilian actors. Such an approach would entail coordinated pressure to achieve a cease-fire, a political process involving civic actors, and a way to monitor compliance with all parties’ promises to deliver humanitarian aid and respect human rights.

Under former President Joe Biden, the US took some steps in this direction by co-hosting talks with Saudi Arabia, eventually appointing a special envoy, and imposing sanctions on commanders, including the leaders of both the SAF and the RSF. The US also made an official determination that the RSF had committed genocide in West Darfur in 2023, funded important efforts to monitor and document violations by all sides, and provided significant humanitarian aid.

If the Trump administration decides to take up the baton, it should be aware that all past successful efforts to end conflict in the country have involved serious work and concerted cooperation from dozens of governments. So far, mediation attempts, such as the US-Saudi-led talks and follow-on Geneva-based negotiations, efforts by the AU, and others have failed — in part because they did not include the right actors and because mediators did not have a coherent, coordinated approach.

A London conference, set to be co-hosted by the United Kingdom, France, and Germany on the war’s second anniversary, could galvanize international actors, but additional pressure will certainly need to be applied on those supplying or enabling the conflict’s belligerents as well as on the warring sides and their allies themselves. The US could help by pressing its allies in the Gulf — including the UAE — and Egypt to cooperate in good faith with the internationally agreed approach and to stop fueling the conflict. Ultimately, there is no shortcut on the path to a sustainable peace in Sudan. It is a process unto itself and will not be advanced if Sudan is treated as a side-show to US-Israeli aspirations like the Abraham Accords. After all, those agreements will not be useful if Sudan is mired in conflict, criminality, and extremism.

 

Jehanne Henry is a human rights lawyer and researcher with a particular focus on Sudan and South Sudan and is an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Institute.

Photo by Luis Tato/AFP via Getty Images