Sudan and the Foreign Architecture of War

The war in Sudan, now entering its third year, has become a grim mirror of how global power plays unfold on African soil. What began on April 15, 2023, as a clash between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has crystalized into one of the world’s deadliest conflicts, sustained not only by internal ambition but also by the quiet persistence of foreign interests. Two years on, the war’s machinery continues to run on weapons, gold, and influence supplied from abroad, ensuring that peace remains as distant as it was the day the first shots were fired.

Sudan’s story spills beyond its borders. The overthrow of Omar al-Bashir in 2019 ended a 30-year dictatorship but left a vacuum thick with rivalry and foreign expectation. It also opened the door to a militarized struggle between two men — General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who leads the SAF, and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, commander of the RSF. The latter rose from the ashes of the Janjaweed militias responsible for the atrocities in Darfur, transforming his faction into a heavily armed, semi-autonomous force. What began as a domestic power struggle over the post-Bashir state quickly expanded into a proxy contest, drawing in foreign countries from Egypt to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Russia to Iran.

At the intersection of the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, Sudan’s geography is irresistible to external powers. Its Red Sea coastline offers a strategic corridor to global shipping routes, while its subsoil is rich with gold and other minerals that fund both militias and markets. The war has become a prism through which foreign actors, under the guise of partnership or humanitarian concern, are reshaping Sudan’s future in their own image. Iran, Russia, and the UAE are at the center of this network, each pursuing its own calculus of influence, profit, and proximity to power.

Iran’s support for the SAF reflects both ideology and strategy. In exchange for access to a Red Sea naval base, Iran has reportedly supplied the Sudanese army with drones and surveillance systems, strengthening a partnership that could project Iranian naval reach into one of the world’s most contested waterways. Russia’s trajectory has been less consistent but equally opportunistic. Initially, Russia backed the RSF through its Wagner Group proxies, providing weapons and training in return for gold mining concessions. By mid-2024, Russia had switched sides, aligning with the SAF after receiving renewed assurances that a long-delayed 2017 agreement for a Russian naval base at Port Sudan would finally be honored. Both powers, despite their shifting allegiances, share a common objective: securing access to Sudan’s coastline and mineral wealth as instruments of geopolitical leverage against Western influence.

The UAE’s involvement is perhaps the most revealing – and the most contested. The nation’s fingerprints are visible across the Sudanese battlefield, from financing to the flow of arms. Amnesty International recently identified sophisticated Chinese-made guided bombs and howitzers, re-exported by the UAE from China’s Norinco Group, in RSF-held territories. These are the first documented uses of such weapons in any global conflict, in direct breach of the UN arms embargo on Darfur. Since 2014, the Emirates has been linked to the transfer of small arms, armored vehicles, and ammunition to both the RSF and the Sudanese army, blurring the line between pragmatic diplomacy and covert intervention.

Even when the UAE announced in 2024 that it had ceased supplying weapons to the RSF under U.S. pressure, reports of continued shipments – disguised as humanitarian aid – persisted. Investigations have traced gold smuggled from Sudan to Dubai, revealing how RSF-controlled mines funnel wealth into the global economy through Emirati channels. The UAE’s actions echo its regional playbook – seen in Libya and Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict – where military and economic engagement serve as tools of political engineering. For the UAE, Sudan is not only a center of influence but also a node in its broader ambition to shape the Red Sea corridor as an Emirati sphere of leverage.

This entanglement of foreign interests has transformed Sudan’s war into a proxy mosaic that resists any attempts at resolution. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have thrown their weight behind the SAF, citing the need to preserve regional stability and counterbalance Iranian and Turkish influence. Russia and Iran, seeking access to ports and resources, have turned Sudan into a testing ground for drone warfare and maritime strategy. Meanwhile, the UAE stands accused of underwriting one of the most brutal paramilitary campaigns in modern African history. This week’s alleged massacre in El Fasher, where over 2,000 civilians were killed by RSF fighters after the city fell to their control, has drawn global outrage and renewed scrutiny of the RSF’s foreign backers. Satellite imagery shows mass graves and widespread destruction, prompting human rights observers to describe the killings as a continuation of the Darfur genocide.

Sudan brought its case against the UAE before the International Court of Justice in March this year, accusing the UAE of complicity in genocide by arming and financing the RSF. Abu Dhabi insists the claims are “pure fabrications,” citing a reservation it entered when signing the Genocide Convention in 2005 to argue that the ICJ lacks jurisdiction. Yet the proceedings themselves mark a shift – a rare attempt by an African state to use international law to hold a powerful foreign partner accountable. 

Outside the courtroom, the effects of foreign intervention are etched into Sudan’s human geography. More than 150,000 people have been killed and over 12 million displaced, with famine spreading through camps that international aid can barely reach. Neighboring countries including Chad, South Sudan and Egypt are absorbing waves of refugees, their own fragile economies buckling under the strain. The proliferation of advanced weaponry, from Iranian drones to Emirati howitzers, has turned Sudan into a live laboratory for global militarism, where African lives pay the price for the ambitions of others.

The world’s response has been characteristically cautious. The United States and the European Union have issued statements of concern, while the African Union’s calls for dialogue have gone largely unheeded. The reality is, without dismantling the supply networks that sustain both the SAF and RSF, diplomatic overtures amount to little more than suggestions. The Sudanese war persists because it is profitable – not only for warlords and generals but for the states and corporations that feed its appetite for arms and commodities.

In this sense, the Sudan crisis is less an anomaly than a reflection of how contemporary wars endure. The country’s devastation points to a hierarchy of suffering in which African crises are allowed to metastasize so long as they serve broader strategic designs. What Sudan’s crisis lays bare is not just the failure of its own political transition but also the complicity of a world order that enables and sanitizes such destruction.