KhartoumEthiopia revoked Sudan’s ambassador over drone attacks.
South Sudan ordered Egypt to close its military base near the Sudan-Ethiopia border, fearing entanglement in cross-border strikes.
The Rapid Support Forces’ rival aid body has ordered aid groups to bypass Khartoum’s official channels.
Sources: Mada Masr
THE TWO ARMIES
Sudan's war is between two generals who once partnered to overthrow a civilian government. The SAF (regular army) under Burhan and the RSF (paramilitary) under Hemedti jointly crushed the 2019 democracy movement, then turned their shared military infrastructure against each other in April 2023.
THE RSF'S ORIGINS
The RSF evolved from the Janjaweed militias that carried out the Darfur genocide beginning in 2003. The Bashir regime armed Arab militias to fight non-Arab rebels, then formalized them as the Rapid Support Forces in 2013. Hemedti, a former camel trader from Darfur, rose from militia commander to the second most powerful man in Sudan — with troops loyal to him personally, not the state.
THE NEIGHBORS' STAKES
Sudan borders seven countries, and almost every one has a reason to intervene. Egypt backs the SAF to keep the Nile flowing and to deny the UAE-aligned RSF a Red Sea foothold. Ethiopia disputes the al-Fashaga borderland and watches the GERD dam from upstream. South Sudan exports its only oil through Sudanese pipelines.
THE EXTERNAL BACKERS
The proxy war behind the proxy war: the UAE supplies the RSF via Chad and Libya's Haftar; Egypt and Saudi Arabia back the SAF; Iran has resupplied SAF drones after a 2024 rapprochement. The 'civil war' framing understates how thoroughly the conflict is funded from outside.
THE PARALLEL STATE
The RSF's move to bypass Khartoum's aid channels is part of a wider claim to sovereignty. In February 2025 it signed a charter in Nairobi to form a 'Government of Peace and Unity' in territory it controls — the first serious attempt to partition Sudan along the RSF/SAF line since independence in 1956.
THE COST
Roughly 12 million people have been displaced — the largest displacement crisis in the world. Famine has been formally declared in parts of Darfur and the Nuba Mountains. The Gezira scheme, Sudan's breadbasket, has been overrun and looted; sorghum (the staple, not wheat) has no domestic substitute at scale.