- Sudan is ‘an excellent case of the waning influence of multilateralism in security issues and the somewhat disengagement of Western countries in Africa,’ Sennesael tells Anadolu

- ‘Sudan is the world’s largest displacement crisis … and it’s barely breaking the headlines,’ says British-Sudanese activist Mohanad Elbalal

ISTANBUL

Nearly 500 days of violence and conflict have left Sudan in the grip of a humanitarian crisis many say is one of the largest in the world.

Almost 52,000 people have been killed or wounded and tens of millions displaced since April 2023, when a battle for power erupted between Sudan’s army led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) headed by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.

The magnitude of the crisis is apparent from the repeated warnings by aid groups and even the UN, which has gone as far as to say that Sudan is now at a “cataclysmic breaking point.”

Despite the scale and severity of the Sudan war, analysts point out that it has not received the kind of global attention as other conflicts, particularly from the West.

“The conflict in Sudan is very high in intensity but is not as geopolitically important as Ukraine or Gaza for the West,” said Francois Sennesael, an academic and expert on African affairs.

“Ukraine is of vital interest for the security of Europe – Sudan is not ... This alone explains why Ukraine receives all the West’s attention, and not Sudan. This reasoning is similar looking at Israel.”

Various other factors for this lack of attention to Sudan include the UN’s waning influence in global affairs and a growing unwillingness of Western countries to directly intervene in the internal affairs of other nations, he said.

Sudan has been “forgotten” mostly by Western media, and there is also the element of “fatigue of Western populations towards Africa and its intractable conflicts, and, quite importantly, the regionalization of security issues,” he said.

Western populations are not pushing their governments to act on Sudan, while this conflict is also “not high on the agenda of left-wing parties, which was the case in 2004 during the Darfur crisis, because Gaza is their top priority,” he added.

When it comes to Sudan, he believes Western countries “are not willing to start an interventionist adventure.”

“The West is pursuing an approach already seen in South Sudan or Ethiopia, which consists of attempting to quickly get power-sharing agreements signed between warring elites and ‘leave,’ unwilling to commit soldiers or money to maintain peace in Africa,” Sennesael, a doctoral candidate at the University of Oxford, told Anadolu.

“Nobody is mentioning any intention to create a new peacekeeping mission for Sudan … Sudan is actually an excellent case of the waning influence of multilateralism in security issues and the somewhat disengagement of Western countries in Africa.”

Western governments are “cautiously engaged” and “trying to ‘fix’ Sudan without getting their feet on the ground,” he said.

“Gulf countries, but also Egypt and Türkiye, have shown a willingness – supported by some Western countries – to be the new ‘guardians’ of the region in terms of peace and security,” said Sennesael.

“Their approach has, however, not been very vigorous, and they seem unsure of what their role should be. They seem unable to put their regional differences and personal interests aside to speak with one voice ... despite a common vital interest to maintain Sudan afloat.”

Massive human suffering ‘barely breaking the headlines’

British-Sudanese commentator and activist Mohanad Elbalal also believes that Sudan’s humanitarian crisis remains “very low on the on the global conscience.”

“Sudan is the world’s largest displacement crisis. The toll of human suffering is massive and it’s barely breaking the headlines,” he told Anadolu.

The Sudanese people want to see “greater global awareness of what actually is happening in Sudan” and particularly the humanitarian aid situation, as very little aid is arriving, he said.

“Yes, there are other conflict areas … around the world which have significant or massive human suffering, such as Gaza, but Sudan is a country of 50 million people and we have over 10 million people displaced,” he said.

“I think that needs global attention from the political side, but primarily from the humanitarian side because there needs to be more aid coming into Sudan.”

‘Shaky’ peace talks

A new round of US-sponsored negotiations that began in Geneva on July 14 are continuing this week.

Although the Sudanese army is not participating, there are delegations from the RSF, UN, African Union, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, US and Switzerland, according to US Special Envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello.

However, both Elbalal and Sennesael pointed out that previous rounds of talks led by Saudi Arabia and the US have largely been unfruitful.

Elbalal said the likelihood of an agreement in Geneva is “extremely low” because “you can’t have a negotiation when only one party shows up.”

“Even if a cease-fire is achieved, without strict measures to ensure that the terms of the cease-fire are met, it’s rather pointless,” he said.

Citing past examples closer to the start of the war, he said when the RSF is not fighting the army, “they turned to looting and targeting civilians.”

When it comes to humanitarian aid, a lot of the time, it is “simply too dangerous … to cross into RSF areas,” he said.

“So, cease-fires are not a solution in itself, because if a truce is achieved, it doesn’t bring any betterment in the humanitarian situation,” he added.

Sennesael also believes that the current peace push in Switzerland “seems somewhat shaky, especially because the Burhan camp refused to come.”

“It takes two to tango, so I am not very sure any peace dance will start in the next few weeks,” he said.

“Of course, the RSF promised to increase humanitarian access, something peace negotiators were proud of, but … RSF has constantly broken their promises,” he added.

An uncertain future

What Sudan is experiencing at the moment is “the most complex situation” since its independence, according to Sennesael.

“Sudan is split into two, and the closest it resembles to is Libya – two governments claiming sovereignty, and none of them able to actually control their entire territory,” he said.

“The power struggle between two generals has reopened historical fault lines across the whole country, engulfing all different groups … into a deadly civil war where each group wants to take advantage of the ongoing violence to settle score with its neighbor – at the local, regional, and national level.”

He warned that there could be potentially be a future scenario “where local conflicts will ignite national violence, and national violence will fuel conflicts across multiple regions across Sudan.”

Elbalal emphasized that settling the issue of control of the capital Khartoum is essential for any sort of stability.

“The situation is unstable … Unless the RSF is forced out of the capital, there will be no serious negotiations by either party, from the government side or from the RSF,” he said.