Case Study Sudan

A civil war between two major rival factions of the military government of Sudan, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) under Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and its allies (collectively the Janjaweed coalition) under the Janjaweed leader Hemedti, began during Ramadan on 15 April 2023.Three minor (neutral) factions have participated in the fighting: Darfur Joint Protection Force, SLM (al-Nur) under Abdul Wahid al-Nur, and SPLM-N under Abdelaziz al-Hilu. Fighting has been concentrated around the capital city of Khartoum (largest and initial battle of the war) and the Darfur region. As of 8 September 2024, at least 20,000 people had been killed and 33,000 others were injured. As of 5 July 2024, over 7.7 million were internally displaced and more than 2.1 million others had fled the country as refugees,and many civilians in Darfur have been reported dead as part of the Masalit massacres.


Sudan is in north-east Africa and is one of the largest countries on the continent, covering 1.9 million sq km (734,000 sq miles). The population of Sudan is predominantly Muslim and the country's official languages are Arabic and English.

Even before the war started, Sudan was one the poorest countries in the world. Its 46 million people were in 2022 living on an average annual income of $750 (£600) a head.


After the 2021 coup, a council of generals ran Sudan, led by the two military men at the centre of this dispute:

They disagreed on the direction the country was going in and the proposed move towards civilian rule.

The main sticking points were plans to include the 100,000-strong RSF into the army, and who would then lead the new force.

The suspicions were that both generals wanted to hang on to their positions of power, unwilling to lose wealth and influence.


September 2024 , the World Health Organisation announced that Sudan is facing severe starvation. Famine has been reported in some of the most affected areas, including the western region of Darfur. Among Sudan's 47 million people, 12 million are displaced within the country, 2 million have fled to other countries, up to 150,000 have lost their lives, and nearly 25 million people—almost half the population—need urgent help. Since the civil war started in 2023 between the Rapid Support Forces, led by Hemedti, and the military government, led by al-Burhan, Sudan has lacked a stable government and cannot provide its citizens with basic needs. This situation calls for more support from international organisations such as the UN, and the challenges will likely extend into neighbouring countries. Currently, over 500,000 Sudanese refugees have sought safety in South Sudan, Egypt, and Chad.

Like other conflicts in the region, external actors, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Israel, have played a key role in exacerbating the ongoing crisis in Sudan. Although they shared a common goal of preventing Sudan from having a civilian and democratic government over the past few years, their interests and divergent agendas have significantly contributed to the current conflict, as they chose to support one side over the other to serve their own interests. 

One form of corruption, strategic corruption, as demonstrated in Sudan, involves the improper influence by international actors in collaboration with domestic actors to weaponize practices of foreign policy or access to natural resources. Activities such as gold mining are prioritized to the benefit of domestic power and corrupt foreign interests above the interests of the people.

Sudan’s civil war has a large cast of foreign malign actors. A June 2024 report by Amnesty International found that despite the Darfur embargo, recently manufactured guns, ammunition, drone jammers, mortars, and rifles have been imported into Sudan in large quantities from Russia, China, Turkey, and the UAE. Paul Sullivan, an analyst who focuses on the Middle East and North Africa, told Voice of America last year that China is interested in Sudan’s gold deposits and the Port Sudan location on the Red Sea in relation to growing world trade.

Sudan-Russia talks that began in 2007 under Omar al-Bashir were revived in June 2024, with Sudan’s RSF agreeing to give Russia a Red Sea base in exchange for weapons, ammunition, and replacement parts for Russian-made warplanes. Russia’s extended ties to Sudan also include gold mining that is presently organized by the Kremlin’s Africa Corps (and which was formerly run by the Wagner Group).

In March 2024, Iran petitioned Sudan to establish a naval base at the Port of Sudan on the Red Sea. The SAF rejected Iran’s request. Despite the rejection, Iran has reportedly supplied the SAF with Mohajer-6 drones.

Finally, there is the UAE. In violation of the Darfur arms embargo, the UAE is supplying weapons and ammunition to the RSF, as documented by a 2024 United Nations report to the Security Council. (The UAE strongly denies arming any group in Sudan.) The UAE is also the largest buyer of Sudanese gold. The RSF commits grievous violence against civilians using funds and weapons reportedly supplied by the UAE in return for gold from the country’s massive gold supplies. In 2023, Sudan was the third largest gold-producing country in Africa, yet Sudanese civilians are dying of hunger at the hands of corrupt military factions.