Sudan as latest African orphan caught in crossfires (2) 

FOR SUDAN, APRIL 15, 2023 was another watershed that began the build-up to a repeat of disastrous events that defined the country 20 years earlier. In 2003, Darfur was in the news for the wrong reasons. From 2023, events leading up to Darfur for earlier similar reasons began to unfold. Hope began to give way to despair and uncertainty as two warlords took personal rivalry to the state level, dragging the entire country down with them. If it was not immediately clear in 2019 that power vacuum commenced as soon as Omar al-Bashir was ousted, the tell-tale signs of this became evident when the head of Sudanese army, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan threw out Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok from government, reinstating him a month later after public outcry. The refusal of the head of Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (“Hemedti”), to be subservient to al-Burhan or to let the paramilitary RSF be integrated into the main Sudanese army was another sign.

Sudanese people heaved a long sigh of relief seeing the 30-year despot al-Bashir toppled. The al-Burhan-led military officers that took power rode on popular acclaim and acceptance but failed woefully to manage the transition well. What was apparent was not the love of the Sudanese populace, but rather the love of power, as manifested by both al-Burhan and Dagalo in the handling of the aftermath of al-Bashir’s exit. Both feuding men appeared to have learnt nothing and were not ready to learn anything. For over three years, the adversarial and hostile relationships between the two men remained veneered as they were not ready to yield to popular demand of endlessly protesting Sudanese people for full-blown participatory governance in the form of democracy. The lid was finally blown off on April 15 when the all-out war broke out as the two parties – al-Burhan and Dagalo – were poised for the worse, unmindful of the ultimate price to be paid by ordinary Sudanese citizens and the whole nation.

The fighting, which started at the capital city of Khartoum, has extended westwards to the Darfur region, thus returning the latter into the 2003 experience. Sudan has continued to bleed since then, with 6.1 million Sudanese fleeing to other areas within the country and 1.5 million people seeking safety abroad. The sense or senselessness of Sudan’s current war and whatever justification for the hostility over the past one-and-a-half years is quite relevant. A report indicated that, as of September, 2024, at least 20,000 people had been killed and 33,000 others were injured. Another report projected that the compromised health, water crisis, food insecurity and nutrition situation – which is already dire – is expected to deteriorate further in 2025 due to on-going conflict. One part of Sudan that may finally cripple Sudan, if seriously affected by the war, is the Red Sea State and its capital, Port Sudan. Although the state has been indirectly impacted since the outbreak of the war, direct impact could deal a severe blow to Sudan in so many ways.

Since the cities of Khartoum and Omdurman have been divided between the two warring factions, and RSF forces have captured most of Khartoum’s government buildings, al-Burhan has relocated his government to Port Sudan which may ultimately be consumed if RSF forces gain ground in their offensive against the city. As a port city on the Red Sea in eastern Sudan, and the capital of Red Sea State, Port Sudan is Sudan’s main seaport and the source of 90 percent of the country’s international trade. Due to the armed conflicts in many places of the country, Sudan’s economy has reportedly shrunk by 40 percent last year and it was predicted to continue shrinking by about 28 percent in 2024, according to Finance Minister Gibril Ibrahim. In case Port Sudan gets embroiled in the on-going war, experiences of Yemen, Somaliland and Somalia would be worth remembering, for their local, regional and global impacts. On the local impact, Port Sudan is Sudan’s largest port and main commercial and trade hub housing critical oil export terminals. Any disruption of commercial activities there will have a ripple effect on the country in general as Sudan’s foreign trade transiting its eastern states is estimated at $11 billion yearly, which is equivalent to 30 percent of GDP at peace time, representing one of the state’s main sources of revenue and employment.

Yemen’s Houthi militia and pirates from Somalia have been causing significant disruption to global maritime trade in the past. And they still do now, attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea. While Yemen’s involvement is primarily political, in response to Israel’s military operations in Gaza, Somalia’s involvement stems largely from state failure, providing a groundswell of fertile environment for opportunistic sea pirates. Their impacts have been the same: interrupting trade traffic plying East Africa’s ports located on one of the world’s most important maritime passages, connecting the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. Since the deposition of al-Bashir in 2019, political violence and protests driven primarily by inter-communal rivalries and evolving power dynamics across Eastern Sudan have regularly disrupted trade and transport operations through and around ports in Sudan’s Red Sea state, including Port Sudan. By implication, disruptions along the Red Sea maritime corridor and the Suez Canal – a global strategic waterway – have annually affected approximately 14 percent of global maritime trade and 30 percent of global containerised trade that normally transits through the Red Sea. Such disruptions of critical supply chains cause wary firms to redirect their vessels. According to Hellenic Shipping News, “as a result of redirecting, ports in Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti and Somaliland have experienced reduction in the number of vessels docked.”

Regionally, conflicts have hampered exports and caused sluggish developments as well as poor governance in neighbouring countries. Egypt has been particularly hard hit as a result of its reliance on revenues from ships passing through the Suez Canal. The revenues accruing to Egypt in 2022 to 2023 fiscal year from Suez Canal amounted to $9.4 billion, according to Reuters, a news agency. That was before the Sudan war broke out. The impact of civil unrest on Port Sudan will therefore have wider regional effects. According to a 2022 report from S&P Global, a consulting firm, even before the full outbreak of the on-going war, Port Sudan had cost up to $65 million daily to the Sudanese economy, with over 900 containers stuck at the port. Tribal consideration has undoubtedly sustained the Sudan crisis, particularly as the country has been effectively split between the east and west and the military in de facto control is supported by East Sudan’s Beja tribal group. While that could explain in part the relative tenacity of the military’s operational base from Port Sudan, it is not a guarantee of continued dominance or ultimate victory in the civil war.  

The impact of Sudan’s war on neighbouring countries is considerable as Port Sudan serves as a commercial sea gateway for neighbouring landlocked countries, particularly South Sudan, Chad and the Central African Republic. In essence, any renewed blockades are likely to exacerbate already acute shortages of key goods and commodities, and disrupt exports, particularly for those neighbouring countries. For emphasis, the S&P Global’s report, obviously emanating from the October 2021 statement from the Sudanese National Chamber of Importers, made clear that the one month disruption at Port Sudan had cost up to $65 million daily to the Sudanese economy, with over 900 containers stuck at the port, with highway blockades resulting in the halting of around 3,000 trucks, causing losses of up to $2 million daily. If Sudan’s war could affect those countries – Egypt, South Sudan, Chad and Central African Republic so directly, it makes a lot of sense to treat the war in the context of regional and global political, humanitarian and economic implications.

In 2023, the population of Sudan was 50,042,791. This over 50 million population has been through social, political and economic stress for over three decades at a stretch, made worse since last year as the war broke out. In 2023, sub-Saharan Africa – which includes all countries south of the Sahara desert – recorded a total population of approximately 1.24 billion inhabitants. By contrast, the population of Gaza, before the war that started in 2023, was approximately 2.23 million residents in the small territory – often referred to as Gaza Strip. In 2023, the population of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, to which Gaza belongs, was 500,787,313, up from 493,279,469 in 2022. According to estimates by the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, the population of Ukraine (excluding Crimea) on May 1, 2021 was 41,442,615. Sudan straddles MENA and sub-Saharan Africa and is an important country in East Africa, as well as a strong member of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). In January 2024, the government of the war-ravaged Sudan said it has suspended its membership in the East African regional bloc upon accusations that IGAD has invited Dagalo’s RSF to a summit as it tried to broker talks between the country’s warring parties.

The weaknesses of regional, continental and global bodies in mediating in Sudan’s war and wars anywhere else have been brought to the fore when Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan are juxtaposed in the context of international affairs. They also broadly expose the bias and priorities that influence the level of attention, funding and publicity given to wars where they break out. While the war in Gaza, just across the Red Sea up north, has gained so much global attention, coverage and sympathy, the same cannot be said of the war in Sudan. Moreover, the war in Ukraine, which has become the rallying cry of the European Union and the United States in particular, has gulped billions of dollars in support received by Ukraine since February 2022. Yet, Sudan, despite all the aforementioned areas of strategic importance and relevance, has been ignored by IGAD, African Union (AU), European Union (EU), Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) and United Nations (UN). While Ukraine is literally everyone’s child, Sudan is treated as an orphan. Even in Africa, South Africa – one of the most vociferous defenders of Gaza against Israel in MENA – appears dumb in matters of Sudan that is within the same sub-Saharan Africa.

The contrasts between the three countries currently undergoing wars – whether of external invasion or internal implosion – are products of the presence or absence of publicity. While Ukraine and Gaza wars have received global appeal as a result of wider and persistent media coverage, Sudan’s war has become a forgotten war. This is happening as the humanitarian crisis keeps growing, destruction of lives, properties and public infrastructure is on the increase, access to consumer goods or public utilities and financial services restricted and power vacuum has complicated the war with no clear commander-in-chief right now. It is therefore understandable why Darfur is helpless now as deaths, displacement, diseases, prevail and those who managed to flee westward into Chad have constituted refugee crises for Chad that is grappling with its own internal security challenges as the war shows no signs of ending soon.

The clear disconnect within the global system of governance, economy and trade has become evident as the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has pointed out that security threats in the Red Sea have caused a significant redirection of ship arrivals and transits culminating in far-reaching global trade and transport repercussions. According to UNCTAD, “ships across all shipping segments on the Asia-Europe and Asia-Atlantic trade lanes have diverted their initial trajectory and started sailing around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. As a result, ships are now travelling longer distances and facing higher operational costs. The rerouting of vessels is creating pressure on the supply side. The 12 days in additional sailing time for a vessel going from Shanghai to Rotterdam are driving up costs and extending delays.” If instances such as these do not elicit any concern for Sudan, it is doubtful if any other sentiment will. The end to the Sudan war may therefore not be anywhere in sight.

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