Residents in Khartoum awoke to the sound of gunshots, as unrest broke out in the capital of the Republic of Sudan, Africa’s third largest nation. Last week, armed struggle between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Army began in earnest with both sides accusing each other of starting the fight. 

The RSF is a Sudanese paramilitary organization that was formerly allied with the Sudanese government. Throughout its lifetime, Sudan has gone through several conflicts and civil wars. The principal conflict has been between north and south, with the primarily Arab and Muslim majority in the north of the country fighting against the primarily Nilotic and Christian/Animist majority in the south of the country. The southern portion of the country, now the Republic of South Sudan, fought two separate wars in a bid for independence from the Sudanese government. Through both of these conflicts, the nation was able to gain concessions from the government of Sudan- after the first, it was granted autonomy and through the second, it was granted an independence referendum in 2011. 

However this left other issues somewhat unresolved. Outside of South Sudan, particularly in the Darfur region of North Sudan, there were large populations of non-Arab but still muslim groups that felt like they were also being discriminated against and that the crime of apartheid was being committed against them. Darfur used to be a very popular cause, with several western governments and even the Canadian Foreign Minister echoing such accusations of apartheid and discrimination. 

In 2003, in parallel with the second Sudanese Civil War (which was the second war that Sudan fought for independence), rebels in Darfur rose up against the government and attacked several military bases, with great successes. The government, which was tied down in South Sudan fighting the rebels there, needed to subcontract out its duties to a variety of Arab militias that lived in the Darfur regions. One of them was called the Janjawid. The Janjawid was an Arab militia that had begun operations in the eastern Sahara desert as early as the 1980s, when they fought in the Libya-Chad war on the side of Libya, and forged close connections with Muammar Gaddafi. The Janjawid also operated in regions of Chad. The government of Sudan had tolerated the presence of the Janjawid since at least the 90’s tacitly, but began to arm them in 1999 when the situation in Darfur began to come to a head. 

The Sudanese military then used the Janjawid against the various rebel groups in Darfur when the conflict began in 2003, since both groups had converging interests in defeating the regional anti-Arab rebels. The Janjawid, behaving much like other non government paramilitary forces, committed numerous war crimes and were even accused of genocide by the United States government in 2007, after explicitly targeting non-Arab populations and killing 200,000-400,000 civilians. During the course of the conflict, many Janjawid forces joined the Sudanese security forces, and the two became virtually interchangeable as Sudan endorsed the actions of the Janjawid. 

The Janjawid was then later reorganized into the Rapid Support Forces so they could be deployed to other regions around Sudan to fight regional rebellions in the South Kordofan and Blue Nile regions when, in 2011, militias there rose up against the authoritarian government of Omar Al-Bashir. 

Eventually, the political situation in Sudan would become unstable when Omar Al Bashir was deposed by a military coup in 2019, under which the Sudanese military declared that a return to democracy would occur. However, that return has been stalled by the military and had been gummed up in the bureaucratic processes of Sudan’s military. The Sudanese people, initially supportive of the military’s removal of Al-Bashir, began to grow impatient and would start protest movements (both violent and nonviolent) multiple times throughout the rule of the military junta. 

An important step of returning to democracy was figuring out how to reintegrate the RSF into the Sudanese military to prevent the new government from having a paramilitary force to operate at will against its enemies. Although a controversial move, integration was likely the best option to avoid confrontation with the RSF by a likely unstable new democratic government. The military entered into negotiations with the RSF, but ultimately the two sides could not agree on which authority should be charged with overseeing the transition, leading to conflict between the two sides. Both parties blame each other for starting the fighting. 

So far the fighting has been contained primarily to Khartoum (although clashes have also broken out in Darfur, where the Janjawid were originally used), with many foreign countries evacuating their citizens (primarily diplomats) from the city. However, fears of the conflict spreading seem to be founded as other countries take positions in what could be a lengthy civil conflict. General Haftar, a warlord and one of the two main factions in the current phase of the Libyan Civil War, has expressed his support for the RSF. There have also been accusations of the United Arab Emirates supporting both sides of the conflict at various points. Egypt stands with Sudan’s Army, but does want to avoid angering the United Arab Emirates- which has historically been its ally. The Russian Wagner Group has also become involved in the conflict, backing and selling arms to the RSF. 

Whether or not this will evolve into a wider Sudanese Civil War and whether or not this will destabilize the rest of the region remains to be seen.