Who is with whom

The civil war in Sudan and its international relevance. Meanwhile, the population and the refugees are paying the price.

Sudan, as well as for its gold mines, is strategically important because it controls access to the Suez Canal, therefore one of the most prosperous trade routes. A mosaic of alliances, sometimes unprecedented and contradictory, has therefore formed around the two contenders

Let's try to put some order into the chaos that has broken out in Sudan. There is a very violent conflict between two warlords, with whom, however, international and local powers have lined up, fueling a potentially explosive tension for the north and the Horn of Africa.

This is one of the most unstable areas on the planet. Sudan is contested by two generals: the army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, president of the Transitional Sovereign Military Council, and his counterpart and vice president of the same Council, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemetti, one of the five richest men of the country, head of the rapid intervention forces, Arabs who in the 2000s raided, raped the population of Darfur putting the region on fire with the name of Janjaweed, the devils. The two built their careers in the shadow of dictator and fellow general Omar al-Ba-shir, who had risen to power in an Islamist-backed coup in 1989, was convicted by the International Criminal Court and was overthrown by the 2019 his former dolphins.

The army controls various economic and commercial activities while the rapid support forces, the Hemetti paramilitaries, in addition to taking EU money for border control, sell mercenaries in Libya, Yemen and Chad and control the gold mines of Darfur which is extracted and brought to Russia by the Russian mercenaries of Wagner, the first supporters of Hemetti who would command one hundred thousand men. For some time al-Burhan and Dagalo had, at the request of the international community, merged into a single army and handed over political and economic power to a civilian government to complete the transition to democracy. Obviously, the two have no intention of abdicating and have engaged in a fight with no holds barred on the skin of the civilian population.

Sudan, as well as for its gold mines, is strategically important because it controls access to the Suez Canal, therefore one of the most prosperous trade routes. A mosaic of alliances, sometimes unprecedented and contradictory, has therefore formed around the two contenders.

In addition to the Russians, Dagalo's supporters are the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, to support whom Dagalo has also sent a contingent of his men to Yemen in recent years. And China, whose penetration into Africa began here. For example, oil bought by the Chinese departs from Port Sudan on the Red Sea, many commercial and economic activities in the capital built on the two Niles (white and blue) are controlled by Beijing. Finally, the rais of eastern Libya, General Haftar, sided with Dagalo. With the provisional president are the USA and Israel, who were negotiating to normalize relations and cancel the concessions made by Sudan without American approval. But Bashir's Islamists, once friends of Bin Laden enough to host him, are also fighting with the president.

And there is Egypt, which with al-Burhan had built an alliance against Ethiopia in the name of the common hostility towards the great dam on the Nile built by Addis Ababa to increase the energy supply, even if it risks putting irrigation crisis in the fields of the other two countries. Egypt in Libya stands with Haftar, the Russians of Wagner and the Emirates. Here the picture is reversed. Did you get a headache? Then know that Italy, as Africa Express revealed in August, has trained former janjaweed to be border guards and stop migrants heading to Libya, i.e. Putin's allies. While on the side of the Sudanese, who wanted democracy and development and are fleeing en masse from the war, and on the side of the refugees – stranded in the country in flames – obviously no one took sides.

Paolo Lambruschi

NP Maggio 2023