Divided Sudan, Elusive Peace
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John Ashworth
Apr 14, 2026, 2:01:13 AM (5 days ago) Apr 14
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Divided Sudan, Elusive Peace
For nearly three years, the two sides in Sudan’s civil war have fought
bitterly for supremacy. Their conflict has devastated the country,
with the risks of long-term partition and spillover continuing to
grow. The outside powers with influence must keep striving for a
diplomatic solution.
International Crisis Group
13 April 2026
What’s new? Control of Sudan is now divided between its army, which
holds Khartoum and the east, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces
in the west. Though diplomacy made strides in 2025, it appears stalled
amid a row between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – and now
the Middle East war.
Why does it matter? Sudan is home to the world’s worst humanitarian
crisis. Millions of Sudanese face starvation or famine. The state has
largely collapsed, and Khartoum remains mostly uninhabitable. With
Gulf and other regional powers backing opposing sides, the war risks
further drawing in neighbours, including Ethiopia, the Horn of
Africa’s behemoth.
What should be done? While they may have little bandwidth for Sudan
diplomacy at present, the outside actors best positioned to press for
peace cannot let it slip off the agenda. Even as war wracks the Middle
East, they should step up their efforts to end Sudan’s conflict before
all momentum is lost.
I.Overview
With the world’s attention fixed on the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran,
another conflict is raging in the Horn of Africa, not that far away.
The Sudanese civil war is grinding on with no resolution in sight. For
nearly three years, two branches of the military, the Sudanese army
and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have fought bitterly for
supremacy. Neither seems on the verge of achieving it. Control of the
country is divided between them, and the risk of long-term partition
is growing, with both sides naming governments staking claims to
nationwide sovereignty in 2025. The war has compelled as many as four
million Sudanese to flee the country, displaced many more internally
and plunged several areas into prolonged hunger or famine. Foreign
powers are complicit, backing opposing sides. A U.S. effort to marshal
outside actors to press the conflict parties toward peace was
struggling even before the Middle East war distracted them all. But
they must not neglect the Sudan file; they need to find a way to
manage their own differences so they can map an endgame for the war
before it expands further past Sudan’s borders.
Sudan’s civil war broke out in April 2023, following a military
takeover that removed a civilian cabinet working toward a democratic
transition. The army and RSF had seized power together, but they soon
came to blows, kicking off a protracted battle that has seen each
side’s fortunes wax and wane. The army and its affiliated government
now hold the capital Khartoum; the central Nile River corridor; and
the east, including strategic Port Sudan. The RSF dominates most of
the western Darfur region, with supply routes from Chad and Libya. The
main front lines between the sides lie at present in the west-central
Kordofan region.
Throughout the conflict, peace efforts have been hampered by the fact
that many of the foreign countries with influence over the
belligerents have chosen to support one or the other. Due in part to
this outside patronage, both the army and the RSF have rebuffed
would-be mediators, believing instead that they can win by force of
arms and attrition. Worse, the outside backers appear locked in an
escalation cycle inside Sudan, hoping to outlast and overpower the
other side. Sudan’s African neighbours are also divided and
increasingly entangled in the war. The conflict is already roiling
nearby countries, with spillover effects apparent in Chad, Ethiopia,
South Sudan and Yemen.
Amid these pernicious dynamics, the main mediation effort has been led
by a group known as the Quad, which is headed by the United States and
includes the three Arab powers with the most sway over the conflict
parties – Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which back the army, and the UAE,
which is the RSF’s primary patron. In September 2025, these four
countries agreed on a peace roadmap that envisages starting with a
humanitarian truce before moving to a permanent ceasefire and talks
about Sudan’s political future. Yet hostilities have continued to
intensify on the ground, and the army in particular has resisted the
U.S. proposal, fearing that a truce would leave swathes of the country
in the RSF’s hands. Meanwhile, relations among the Quad powers have
deteriorated over the past year, with rancour between Abu Dhabi and
Riyadh bursting into the open in December after Saudi Arabia used its
military to stop a campaign by UAE-backed forces in Yemen.
The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran – which rumbles on amid a 7 April
ceasefire, a collapsed round of talks in Islamabad, and the U.S.
announcement of a blockade on Iranian ports – is dominating the
headlines, but it has not, at least yet, altered the big picture in
Sudan. When the smoke clears, all indications are that the UAE and
Saudi Arabia will be locked in a rivalry over competing regional
visions whose effects have increasingly reverberated in the Red Sea
basin and the Horn of Africa. By extension, they are unlikely to
reduce their support for the opposing sides in the Sudanese war.
Meanwhile, despite its preoccupation with the war in Iran – and the
larger Middle East conflict that is shifting regional dynamics in ways
that are not yet fully clear – Washington is still leading efforts to
reach a ceasefire. Moreover, it will likely continue to do so, unless
the U.S. pivots away from its Sudan diplomacy or Middle Eastern,
African or European powers displace it, which at present does not look
imminent.
Yet years of lacklustre Washington-led diplomacy have produced
disappointing results. Part of the problem has been a failure to
bridge key disagreements between the UAE and Saudi Arabia (as well as
Egypt). The September 2025 roadmap, for example, was a breakthrough as
a basic framework for ending the war. Yet it also danced around core
differences – including over the army’s political role, the RSF’s
future and the knotty question of how to handle the resurgent
influence of Sudan’s homegrown Islamist forces in post-conflict Sudan.
The lack of common vision for the war’s endgame has undermined U.S.
efforts to secure a humanitarian truce – which was meant to be the
first step in bringing the roadmap to fruition. Even in the event of a
temporary truce, which Washington is pushing to secure in the run-up
to a mid-April Sudan conference in Berlin, those disagreements would
likely stymie efforts to achieve a more durable peace.
What is clear is that if the U.S., its Arab partners or anyone else is
to have the best shot at achieving success, they will have to tackle
these thorny endgame questions sooner rather than later. The U.S.
should use its political capital to try forging clearer agreement
about Sudan’s “day after” among key outside players, especially Saudi
Arabia, Egypt and the UAE, and then work with them to push the
conflict parties toward that off-ramp. Simultaneously, other
diplomatic tracks should try to complement these efforts – leaders in
the Horn of Africa could, for example, try to suss out how to coax the
belligerents toward silencing the guns on either a short- or long-term
basis, while other states and multilateral bodies work in other
formats to advance conversations about Sudan’s post-conflict political
order. A high-level effort to bring about a clearer modus vivendi
between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi when it comes to their competition in the
Red Sea basin and Horn of Africa would also be welcome; facilitators
might include major regional actors, European security partners or, of
course, the U.S.
After three years of brutal war, it is sobering that the options for
peacemaking in Sudan remain so limited – and so dependent on the
diplomatic efforts of actors who have yet to deliver. If nothing else,
perhaps the prospect of further instability in a region deeply
unsettled by the new Middle East war will generate a new level of
seriousness from the outside players most enmeshed in Sudan’s war to
wind it down rather than escalate it. If not, the prospect of yet more
tragic anniversaries looms over this war-ravaged country.
II.The Ebb and Flow of Battlefield Momentum
Sudan’s civil war broke out three years ago, amid a power struggle
among the military units that seized power after the fall of the
Islamist-led authoritarian regime of Omar al-Bashir. In 2019,
youth-driven protests helped topple Bashir, ushering in a civilian
government – which entered an awkward power-sharing arrangement with
both the army and RSF – that was to shepherd the country toward
democratic elections. Two years later, the military branches dissolved
the government and took power for themselves. But tensions soon built
between army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and his junta
deputy, RSF leader General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, or “Hemedti”, who
disagreed over whether the army should absorb the paramilitary into
its ranks. In April 2023, their respective forces started fighting in
Khartoum, with hostilities spreading quickly to central and western
parts of the country.
The RSF kept the momentum during the war’s first year. Its fighters
rapidly seized most of Khartoum and its surrounds, causing its
residents, including the country’s professional class, to flee en
masse. It launched offensives south east of the city, sacking swathes
of Sudan’s riverine heartland. In this period, the RSF also tightened
its grip on much of its historical base in Darfur, which gave it a
commercial lifeline to neighbours Chad, Libya and the Central African
Republic, as well as firmer control of major gold deposits. African,
Arab and Western diplomats, as well as independent investigations,
also point to a second reason for the RSF’s gains, namely the
financial, military and logistical support it has received from its
main patron, the UAE.1 The UAE has reportedly kept up a steady supply
of arms and other materiel to the RSF, at first primarily through
eastern Chad, before spreading out the shipments across a broader set
of routes.2
The Sudanese army, meanwhile, decamped to Port Sudan, the country’s
primary maritime gateway, setting it up as the de facto administrative
capital. But it struggled to regroup on the battlefield, despite its
air superiority.3
To help its soldiers turn the tide, the army assembled a coalition of
militias, employing a strategy the Sudanese army has used for decades.
To this end, Burhan forged an alliance with former rebel groups from
Darfur, known collectively as the Joint Forces, several of which had
signed a peace agreement with the post-Bashir transitional government
in 2020.4 Most of these groups had opposed both the regular army and
the Darfuri Arab militias that have long formed the RSF’s core. They
tried to stay neutral at first when the two military branches went to
war with each other. By late 2023, however, the most prominent groups,
led by Darfur Governor Minni Minawi, had decided to align with the
army and to mobilise Darfuri men to resist the RSF.
Further, the army raised popular and communal defence militias in
central and northern Sudan. In doing so, it leaned heavily on its
longstanding alliance with Islamist politicians and others affiliated
with the old Bashir regime.5 Some of these groups are linked with the
former ruling National Congress Party or the associated Sudanese
Islamic Movement, a network run by senior figures tied to the former
regime. The army also armed tribal militias to augment its sometimes
meagre infantry divisions. What united these groups was animosity
toward the RSF, which had sharpened after the paramilitary’s rampant
abuses in areas its fighters captured, ranging from widespread looting
and killing to sexual violence, mostly against women and girls.6
In addition, Burhan corralled support from an array of outside powers,
each with its own interests in Sudan, including Egypt, Eritrea,
Türkiye, Qatar, Iran and, increasingly, Saudi Arabia, which at first
had preferred to play the role of neutral mediator.7 Today, all these
countries recognise Burhan as Sudan’s head of state, as do the UN, the
Arab League and the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development
(IGAD), the Horn of Africa’s regional bloc. Most of Burhan’s backers
frame their support for the army and its government as helping Sudan
put down an internal rebellion. Some chose sides partly as a way of
providing a counterweight to the UAE’s sponsorship of the RSF.
Sudan’s war has also unfolded amid a scramble for influence in the
Horn of Africa. The country boasts a long Red Sea shoreline and sits
at a crossroads linking the Horn with North Africa and the
Mediterranean basin. External powers that seek to guide its post-war
direction could view pouring in weaponry and financing for the
belligerents as advancing that goal. Turbulence in the Middle East has
only made outsiders keener on attaining greater sway in the region.
Israel’s late December 2025 recognition of Somaliland – which Saudi
Arabia and Egypt strongly opposed – was an augury of the shadow game
among rival countries trying to establish a firmer foothold. In these
circumstances, Sudan’s civil war has gradually become a stage for
indirect competition among foreign capitals with overlapping or
clashing agendas, with all of them trying to shape the conflict’s
trajectory.
Still, despite occasional tactical gains, none of the parties has
managed to secure a decisive advantage. In the second half of 2024,
the army and its disparate coalition made their first significant
gains on the battlefield, aided by new drone capabilities.8 By March
2025, they had pushed the RSF out of Khartoum and its bases east of
the Nile. The recapture of the capital proved a turning point in the
war.9 It bolstered the army’s claim to be Sudan’s legitimate
government, even if the country’s western regions remained out of
reach. The army’s offensive forced much of the RSF to retreat to
Darfur. The front shifted west to El Fasher, the army’s last bastion
in North Darfur, which the RSF had been besieging for over a year, as
well as to Kordofan. But the army’s advance soon stalled once more.
The pendulum then swung back toward the RSF, buoyed by the UAE’s
support.10 In May 2025, the RSF began launching long-range drone
attacks on targets in eastern Sudan, from Port Sudan and Kassala to
critical oil depots and Khartoum’s airport.11 These surprise attacks
not only escalated the war but also enraged nearby countries,
especially Saudi Arabia, which sits across the Red Sea from Port
Sudan, and Egypt, which shares a 1,200km border with Sudan. At the
same time, the RSF went on the offensive to consolidate its control of
Darfur, capturing the tri-border region linking Sudan with Egypt and
Libya. With this manoeuvre, it acquired a more direct supply route
from southern Libya, helping it ease its reliance on eastern Chad as
the main conduit for weapons deliveries.12
In October 2025, the RSF captured El Fasher after a roughly
eighteen-month siege.13 The RSF had surrounded the city in mid-2024,
blocking aid deliveries and subsequently constructing an earthen berm
to hinder movement. It also stepped up drone and artillery strikes,
including on mosques, hospitals and displacement camps, killing or
maiming hundreds of civilians. When the RSF finally decided to overrun
the city, its fighters slaughtered thousands of residents, looted
businesses and destroyed buildings, at times filming their actions
triumphantly with their mobile phones. Particularly egregious was the
reported killing of 460 patients and others at the al-Saudi Maternity
Hospital.14 Torture, abductions and sexual violence were also
documented by Sudanese and international human rights organisations,
as well as by a UN fact-finding commission, which called them
“indicators of a genocidal path”.15 These atrocities brought a surge
of negative coverage of the UAE’s support for the RSF, including in
the Arab media.16
Following El Fasher’s fall, the army now controls most of central,
eastern and northern Sudan, while the RSF and its allies dominate the
west and parts of the south. The main battlefront has shifted to
Kordofan, roughly in the middle-west of the country, which is wedged
between the warring parties’ strongholds. The army aims to push the
RSF out of Kordofan, so that, eventually, it can try to recapture
Darfur.17 For its part, the RSF wants to move eastward through
Kordofan so that it can once again threaten Khartoum and the Nile
valley. It also hopes to put pressure on these areas from the west
through recent gains in southern Blue Nile state, which borders South
Sudan and Ethiopia.
III.Unstable Partition amid Devastation
If the war settles into a stalemate along a front in Kordofan, Sudan’s
division might become entrenched, with the country split roughly in
two. Yet the continued fighting and the heightened regional
competition for influence in Sudan suggest that the conflict is
unlikely to peter out along a stable partition line any time soon.
Meanwhile, political developments are also dividing the country. In
May 2025, Burhan appointed former diplomat Kamil al-Taib Idris as
prime minister of the army-affiliated government in Port Sudan. Idris,
the first civilian to hold the post since the 2022 coup, unveiled a
22-member cabinet composed of technocrats, allied militia leaders and
army-aligned civilians, including Islamist figures, reflecting the
army’s effort to accommodate the range of groups supporting its war
effort. The cabinet includes two women. Though Idris has pledged to
maintain independence from the military, in practice his authority is
limited by the army’s oversight and by a constitutional framework that
concentrates power in the high command. At present, the government is
attempting to return to Khartoum, where it is reopening ministries.
Three months after Idris announced his cabinet, the RSF and its allies
swore in a widely unrecognised government of their own in Nyala,
capital of South Darfur, naming Hemedti as chair of a Presidential
Council and Mohammed Hassan al-Ta’ishi, a politician who hails from a
small Darfuri Arab community, as prime minister at the helm of a
cabinet.18 This move followed the RSF’s formation of a broader
political coalition, known as Tasees, in Nairobi in February 2025.
Tasees includes other rebel groups and figures, most prominently the
Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North under Abdelaziz Al-Hilu.19
Despite the fanfare around its creation, the RSF’s ostensible
government is largely inoperable, as most of its officials reside
outside Sudan. No government or international organisation has
officially recognised it, and many (including the African Union) have
rejected it outright.
Yet little suggests that either side is content to focus on ruling the
area under its dominion. Instead, the Sudanese army, backed by its
foreign allies, has continued to launch offensives in Kordofan, helped
by new drone capacity, and has previously declared its intent to push
onward into Darfur.20 Meanwhile, the RSF is still seeking to advance
through Kordofan to the Nile valley. It is also trying to widen a new
front in the south east, in Blue Nile state, jutting between the
borders with South Sudan and Ethiopia. In February, Hemedti asserted
that the RSF had a duty to its “martyrs” to return to Khartoum.21
Among the risks that the fighting presents is that it could further
draw in other countries in the Horn of Africa, with Ethiopia seemingly
weighing in more heavily on the RSF’s side against the army, which is
backed by Ethiopia’s main adversaries, Egypt and Eritrea.22 The
worsening relations between Ethiopia and the Sudanese military risk
further destabilising both sides of the border by escalating proxy
dynamics.23 Meanwhile, many of the countries supporting the Sudanese
army have rallied behind Eritrea in its dispute with Ethiopia, which
has the backing of the UAE. Fierce antagonism between Ethiopia and
Egypt, with Egypt opposing Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam on the
Blue Nile as well as its desire to regain a foothold on the Red Sea,
exacerbates regional rifts. Should renewed conflict break out between
Ethiopia and Eritrea, or in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, that
could in turn escalate the war in Sudan as rivals ramp up their
jockeying for regional dominance.24
Meanwhile, the conflict continues to be devastating for Sudan’s
civilian population. There are no reliable casualty figures for the
war. Some 14 million have been displaced, including some four million
refugees who often live in difficult conditions in neighbouring
countries like Chad, South Sudan and Egypt.25 Humanitarian conditions
are the worst in the world, with several pockets of famine.26 Overall,
more than 20 million Sudanese, nearly half the population, are
classified as acutely food-insecure.
The conflict has affected men and women in different ways. Women and
girls have faced widespread sexual and gender-based violence,
including rape, sexual exploitation and forced labour.27 The
destruction of health care facilities and restrictions on movement due
to insecurity have severely undermined access to maternal and
reproductive health services, placing pregnant women and new mothers
at heightened risk. Men, on the other hand, are often targeted for
killing, torture, disappearance, arbitrary detention and forced
recruitment by armed groups and militias, particularly in areas of
active fighting or contested control.
IV.Flagging Peace Efforts
A.Resisting Peace
Since Sudan’s civil war broke out in 2023, the warring parties have
had vastly different positions about how it should end and what should
happen to Sudan afterward. This gap has hobbled peace negotiations, as
has the army’s resistance to speaking directly with RSF leaders.
There is still stiff resistance to serious peace talks within each
camp. As for Burhan, he faces opposition to the idea from various
sides. First, many Sudanese (including those from Khartoum and other
areas where the army enjoys significant support) despise the RSF,
which they view as a heinous proxy of an external power, the UAE, that
they blame for their country’s destruction. To them, the idea of
talking with the paramilitary is anathema. Secondly, the army
continues to rely on its alliance with anti-RSF Darfuri militias,
which have helped it retake Khartoum and fight in Kordofan, and are
still harrying the RSF in Darfur. Those groups, heavily composed of
non-Arab fighters, fear a truce that would leave Darfur in the RSF’s
grip and their communities vulnerable to its reprisals.
Lastly, the anti-RSF Islamist militias and powerful Islamist figures
from the Bashir regime are also leery of peace talks, especially those
led by the Quad. They worry that any new army-RSF pact or civilian
government brokered by the U.S., which has designated the Sudanese
Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organisation, would again
exclude them from political authority and crack down on their
networks.28 While there is no major self-identifying Sudanese Muslim
Brotherhood chapter, the U.S. has described the Sudanese Islamic
Movement as such. It regards the Islamic Movement, led by Ali Karti, a
former foreign minister under Bashir, as the Brotherhood’s political
wing in Sudan, and the al-Baraa militia, which fights alongside the
Sudanese army and has a major social media presence, as its armed
wing.29 These groups are a pillar of Burhan’s wartime coalition.
Amid this resistance, Burhan’s government has promoted a proposal for
ending the war on its own terms. This plan, which it presented to the
UN Security Council, calls for the RSF’s full unilateral withdrawal to
cantonment camps for disarmament, followed by a national dialogue. It
is not a promising basis for negotiations. Indeed, on the RSF side,
there is little apparent appetite for major concessions, whether
unilateral withdrawal, disarmament or absorption into the army. The
RSF’s political coalition instead demands an end to the army’s
political role, a new civilian government, the creation of a new
national army (in which it would participate) and a new federal system
that provides significant regional autonomy from the national
government. It also wants Islamists out of politics.
Though the RSF has been more open to peace talks than the army, it has
rejected formats that recognise Burhan as Sudan’s leader and his
administration as Sudan’s government – a precondition Burhan has
insisted upon in previous mediation attempts. Hemedti has long
harboured ambitions to rule Sudan and is likely to keep resisting any
effort to dismantle the forces and commercial empire that undergird
his political power.30
A question concerning both sides is whether they would change their
positions if they came under significant pressure from their main
patrons. The RSF is especially susceptible, given its heavy reliance
on one sponsor, the UAE. If Abu Dhabi throttles back its support, or
if it begins struggling to get weapons and equipment into western
Sudan, the RSF’s calculations could shift. While Burhan and his
coalition also receive external support and are thus vulnerable to
pressure from outside actors, they are less dependent on a single
supplier and face fewer logistical obstacles in importing arms, given
their bases on the Red Sea.
B.Enter the Quad
Given the chasm between the two sides and the deep involvement of
outsiders, diplomacy has resorted to an “outside-in” approach that
tries to align the key external players behind ways to end the war and
then asks them to persuade the parties to follow suit. Right now, the
primary vehicle for these efforts is the Quad – the U.S., Saudi
Arabia, the UAE and Egypt. The Quad was established informally in
2024, under then-President Joe Biden’s special envoy, Tom Perriello,
but it has taken on greater importance under President Donald Trump.
By mid-2025, the Trump administration had made the Quad talks the core
of its Sudan diplomacy, driven chiefly by Massad Boulos, a member of
the extended Trump family and a senior adviser focused on Africa and
Arab issues at the State Department. On 12 September 2025, after
months of U.S.-led dialogue, the Quad proposed its roadmap to peace.31
The plan called for a three-month humanitarian truce, followed by a
permanent ceasefire and a nine-month transition to a civilian-led
government, alongside an immediate halt to outside military support.
The Quad’s roadmap has yet to get off the ground, however, and if it
is not revived it could become a dead letter. The Sudanese army
appears to have rejected the plan, though at times it has equivocated
under pressure from Saudi Arabia and Egypt. As noted, key Burhan
allies strongly oppose either a humanitarian truce or peace talks.
They see the UAE as a party to the conflict – not one that should be
participating in the Quad.32 The RSF eventually endorsed the full
roadmap but only, as discussed below, after it was clear that the army
had no interest in it.
Complicating matters further is that in reaching putative consensus
about the roadmap the Quad members papered over their own significant
differences. Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which both back the army, are
seeking an important role for it in a post-war transitional period.
They frame the army as a state institution critical for preventing
total state collapse and disorder in Sudan, and in the roadmap
discussions they accordingly supported a sequence of events starting
with a ceasefire. Broader political talks, they said, would come after
the army had finished its negotiations with the RSF, with the
expectation that these could take some time. Riyadh and Cairo also
take issue with characterisations – including in the roadmap – that
appear to put the two warring parties on an equal footing. In
contrast, they contend that Sudan’s war pits a government against a
rogue militia.
For its part, the UAE wants to quickly displace the army’s rule. Thus,
it pushed in roadmap talks for any truce to be followed by an
immediate intra-Sudanese dialogue aimed at forming a new civilian
government concurrent with army-RSF negotiations over a more enduring
ceasefire. Emirati officials envisage that pro-RSF and other
UAE-friendly civilians would be part of that dialogue and thus part of
a future civilian government. In negotiating the roadmap, the UAE also
argued for short timelines so that the army could not ensconce its
rule by dragging out the negotiations indefinitely.33
Against this backdrop, the roadmap document was a compromise driven by
the U.S. that refrained from dealing with sticky issues, such as how
Sudan would be reunified and what the army and RSF’s future roles
would be. Thus, according to Quad officials and other diplomats,
neither side was completely satisfied with the September text.34 As a
result, the U.S. has had great difficulty persuading its Quad partners
and others to turn the roadmap into something more than words on
paper. At the UN General Assembly in September 2025, the group could
not agree on a new joint statement focused on lifting the RSF siege on
El Fasher. In late October, Washington held indirect discussions
involving all the Quad countries and both the Sudanese belligerents.
These contacts marked modest progress, given that there had been no
public peace talks since 2023. But they, too, ended without a
meaningful output.
Events on the ground soon overtook diplomacy. The furor over the
atrocities accompanying El Fasher’s fall in late October led Saudi
Arabia and Egypt to ease diplomatic pressure on Burhan to agree to an
immediate truce, while backers like Egypt and Türkiye appeared to
double down on their military support for the army. Emboldened, Burhan
dismissed the proposed roadmap, saying it aimed to disband the army
and calling it biased due to the UAE’s participation.35 After the
capture of El Fasher, the RSF publicly endorsed the proposal, but the
army had already rejected it, and in any case the RSF made no move to
unilaterally halt fighting.36 Fundamentally, both warring parties
seemed to believe that a fresh influx of armaments could turn the tide
in their favour.
C.The Hadramawt Episode
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s mid-November visit to the
White House briefly appeared to give peace efforts a shot in the arm.
President Trump said afterward that the Saudi leader had raised the
war in Sudan and asked for U.S. engagement in efforts to end it. Trump
said he had promised to help.37
Soon thereafter, however, a rift between Saudi Arabia and the UAE cast
a shadow over the roadmap negotiations. In December, UAE-backed
separatist forces affiliated with Yemen’s Southern Transitional
Council (STC) launched a surprise offensive in Hadramawt, a
governorate in eastern Yemen that abuts Saudi Arabia and whose
population has close ties with people across the border. The move
infuriated Riyadh. After more than three weeks of negotiations with
the UAE and Yemeni parties, Saudi Arabia bombed Emirati ships,
accusing them of carrying arms to the STC (something the UAE denies)
and joined the Yemeni government’s demand for a full withdrawal of
Emirati forces from Yemen. Meanwhile, Hadrami and other fighters
backed by Saudi airstrikes drove the STC out of Hadramawt and its
positions in southern Yemen.
While the UAE took steps to de-escalate the Yemen dispute – declaring
that it would remove its forces from the country and then doing so –
the rift lingers. Saudi-linked media accuse the UAE of destabilising
the entire Red Sea basin (including Sudan), and Saudi officials say
they seek to enforce “red lines” near the kingdom’s land and maritime
borders.38 Emirati officials paint their larger neighbour as suffering
from “big brother” complex and seeking to exercise hegemony over the
smaller Gulf Arab states.39
Senior Gulf officials told Crisis Group that they see the Yemen fracas
as an outgrowth of tensions over Sudan. They believe that the UAE
backed the STC offensive in Hadramawt as a calculated act of
retaliation for the Saudi crown prince’s plea for Trump’s intercession
in the Sudanese conflict.40 These officials also say Abu Dhabi thinks
that the crown prince asked Trump to level sanctions at RSF backers,
namely the UAE. Saudi officials strenuously deny that they asked for
U.S. action against the UAE, however, while Emirati officials insist
they were not behind the STC offensive (despite being the STC’s
patron) and dismiss the idea that the Hadramawt episode was related to
Sudan.
The new Middle East war has pushed intra-Gulf disputes to the side for
the time being, but the ill feeling between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi
persists and is likely to continue manifesting in the Horn of
Africa.41
D.Distracted Diplomacy
Since 28 February, the U.S. and Israeli campaign against Iran has
distracted Quad members from Sudan diplomacy, though some work
continues. Up until that point, however, the Trump administration
appeared to be trying to continue its diplomatic push through the
Quad, notwithstanding the tensions between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.
U.S. efforts focused on two texts: a broad framework document,
reportedly modelled in part after the Trump administration’s
twenty-point Gaza deal; and a 90-day humanitarian truce proposal,
negotiated within the Quad but yet to be agreed upon by the Sudanese
belligerents. The framework document is organised around five pillars:
a humanitarian truce (which would primarily serve to temporarily halt
fighting and create space for the remaining four pillars); unfettered
humanitarian access; a ceasefire; a political process leading to a
civilian-led government; and post-conflict reconstruction and
recovery.42
But making any progress at all proved challenging, with the parties
jockeying for position with respect to “endgame” issues. As a
condition for coming to the table, the army wanted guarantees that it
would regain sovereignty over all of Sudanese territory and that the
UAE would stop supporting the RSF. The RSF was more willing to
negotiate but rejected making the major concessions demanded by the
army (such as territorial withdrawal) as a precondition for either a
truce or talks. It planned to use its territorial control as leverage
to demand major changes to the Sudanese state, government and
military.
The U.S. sought to get around the obstacles by proposing limited RSF
withdrawals, namely from portions of North Darfur, including El
Fasher, and Kordofan region, as part of the humanitarian truce.43
While senior RSF officials say they reject this idea, the U.S.
believes it has finally gained the paramilitary’s acceptance, possibly
with a plan to swap out its military units for police or other less
overtly militarised ones, though the RSF also wants the army to commit
to doing the same in at least some areas under its control.44 As of
early April, Boulos was still pressing Burhan to agree as well, but
there was no sign that the latter was eager to do so (as it fell short
of the army’s ambitious demands) or was feeling pressure to fall in
line from his major backers, who are all preoccupied with the Middle
East war though they still consider Sudan a major priority.45
Thus, it seems that the most likely near-term trajectory is that
diplomacy will remain slowed even as Sudan’s civil war continues, with
even less external pressure on the parties to curb their belligerency.
In time, there will be important questions to ask about whether
relations among Quad members have improved or deteriorated during the
course of the Middle East war, as well as whether this group – under
U.S. leadership – is still best positioned to lead on Sudan diplomacy.
At present, however, it still appears to be the most viable option.
V.A Search for Peace in Uncertain Times
Three years into Sudan’s devastating civil war, prospects for a
negotiated settlement remain dim. The army refuses to talk to the RSF,
while both parties still appear to believe that their outside backing
puts them in a position to win a war of attrition. The sharp discord
between Saudi Arabia and the UAE has undercut the momentum that
started building in 2025 within the U.S.-led Quad format. Horn of
Africa dynamics are also trending in the wrong direction, with rivals
Ethiopia and Eritrea migrating toward opposite sides of the Sudan war,
in a way that suggests a new war between the powerful Horn neighbours
could spill over into Sudan. Until it has been resolved, the
U.S.-Israeli war with Iran seems likely to retard and possibly suspend
high-level regional diplomacy on Sudan for the foreseeable future.
But neither fatalism nor distraction is an excuse for allowing Sudan’s
war to disappear from the international agenda, particularly since it
shows no sign of burning out on its own. The war is too big, cruel and
geopolitically important to be allowed to rage indefinitely, without a
serious international effort to bring it to a close. Even if diplomacy
is temporarily hindered, the time is right to take stock of where
diplomatic efforts stand and where they might go next.
A.Looking for a Landing Zone
First comes the question of which diplomatic format makes sense. As
noted, for all the difficult dynamics described above, the Quad
remains the leading forum for reaching a ceasefire in Sudan as well as
the group of actors best positioned to bring the war to an enduring
end.
As has been the case since Sudan’s civil war began three years ago, if
the U.S. wants to be effective diplomatically, it will need to
intensify its efforts and put more political capital on the line. It
remains unlikely that the two Sudanese parties will bridge the gaps
between them without urging from their outside backers, and it is
likewise improbable that the outside backers will apply that pressure
without narrowing their own differences first, which may well require
more senior-level diplomacy from Washington. Boulos, by many accounts,
deserves credit for leading the negotiations that led to the September
2025 roadmap, the first indirect talks between the two parties in
nearly two years and dogged pursuit of a humanitarian truce. His
continued engagement would likely be constructive. Yet, given the
divergences that remain, the personal involvement of Trump or another
top-level experienced official from his foreign policy inner circle,
perhaps Secretary of State Marco Rubio, could prove essential for
breaking the logjam in the Quad, particularly between Riyadh and
Cairo, on one side, and Abu Dhabi and the other.
In terms of what U.S. priorities should be, Washington may need to do
more legwork to supplement its effort to secure a humanitarian truce,
which could remain stuck absent headway on longer-term political and
security arrangements. Even if the U.S. does manage – against all odds
– to force through a truce in the short term, the belligerents would
clearly struggle to come to a durable ceasefire, much less a lasting
peace, without a stronger steer from key regional players. Thus, it
may make sense to redouble efforts at the highest levels to work out a
landing zone that all Quad members can genuinely live with and all
agree is better than the bloody status quo.
Finding a workable middle ground among those outside players has long
proven a challenge. It would require Abu Dhabi, on one side, and
Riyadh and Cairo on the other, to acknowledge that none of them will
fully get their way in Sudan. The three Arab powers could, however,
agree to work together on the contours of a deal that would give each
of them essential assurances.
For Saudi Arabia and Egypt, that could mean, at minimum, a contained
and curtailed RSF that does not threaten Khartoum or eastern Sudan –
or retain the ability to split Sudan in two. This condition will
probably require an Emirati commitment to hold the RSF to future
deadlines for withdrawing, integrating, demobilising or expatriating
its fighters.
The UAE, meanwhile, would seek clear guarantees that the Sudanese army
and security apparatus will distance itself from the Bashir-linked
Sudanese Islamic Movement, including through rebalancing in the
officer corps and the demobilisation of militias, while recognising
that some Islamists will invariably retain influence. Agreement to
back formation of a unity civilian government will also be essential,
so that neither Egypt nor Saudi Arabia is faced with a failed state,
and so that Abu Dhabi has authorities to deal with besides the
Sudanese army.
If the Quad’s Arab powers can come together on these broad principles,
the next step would be for the latter to press the Sudanese warring
parties to agree to this framework and push them into direct or
indirect negotiations over remaining details for a durable ceasefire.
Ideally, such talks would be complemented by an immediate humanitarian
truce along the lines the U.S. has been proposing and a suspension of
arms flows, which the U.S. would commit to keeping tabs on. The U.S.
and Saudi Arabia would also need to coordinate with other key backers
of the Sudanese army, including Egypt, Qatar and Türkiye, to ensure a
united front of concerned states working toward the same objective.
Some of these supporters, especially Qatar and Türkiye, may need to
help broker dialogue with Sudan’s powerful Islamist figures, to
address their own opposition to ceasefire negotiations.
Given the intense regional acrimony the Sudan war has unleashed,
progress on the Sudan question may need to be part of a wider thaw
between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, whether brought about through
Washington’s good offices or perhaps those of another facilitator as
suggested below. Such a warming might in turn benefit from the
articulation of red lines that each would commit to respect. For Saudi
Arabia, that would likely include proscribing overt or covert UAE
involvement in military action near its land or sea borders, including
on the African shores of the Red Sea. Clear past examples of crossing
that red line might include the May 2025 drone attacks on Port Sudan,
which regional actors blamed on the UAE.46 It would also include any
UAE-backed Ethiopian attempt to seize the Eritrean port of Assab,
something many fear Addis Ababa might try in the future. The UAE could
make clear that lobbying for coercive measures against it, as it
believes Riyadh did in the White House meeting between Trump and the
crown prince in late 2025, is out of bounds.
B.Backstopping U.S. Diplomacy
The U.S. is an imperfect choice to be at the helm of Sudan peace
efforts. It seems likely that Washington’s relationships in the Red
Sea basin and the Gulf will survive the war it has launched with Iran
– among other things, states that have relied on the U.S. for years as
their primary security partner may have no better option – but it is
hard to know for sure what they will look like. Perhaps more
importantly, the U.S. has yet to show willingness to use the leverage
that ending the war in Sudan is likely to require.
While there are regrettably few fallback options, there are steps that
other states could take that might aid peace efforts in Sudan, many of
which will also have to wait until the new Middle East war has run its
course. For example, Gulf states could resume working independently of
Washington to try repairing relations between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi,
with a focus on finding a way forward on Sudan. Renewed top-level
contact between Saudi and Emirati leaders concerning the Iran crisis
might create openings. European powers, some of which are now forging
stronger security links with Gulf countries, could also help push
Saudi Arabia and the UAE toward such a resolution, as could other
influential players, such as Egypt and Türkiye. The goal would be for
Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Cairo and/or others to re-establish a quiet channel
for direct or indirect negotiations between the Sudanese army and the
RSF, as last occurred in Manama, Bahrain in early 2024.47
Given the tattered state of diplomacy, no route toward ending the war
should be left unexplored. Horn of Africa leaders, despite their
differences, should rekindle their own early efforts to bring Burhan
and Hemedti together for high-level talks. They last made such an
attempt in late 2023, under IGAD auspices, but the meeting fell
through at the last minute, with Burhan later pulling Sudan out of the
bloc.48 Still, Sudan rejoined IGAD in 2026, raising the prospect of a
new push. If they work together, African heads of state have the
convening power to bring both belligerents to the table. Djibouti,
IGAD’s current chair, is close to Burhan, while Ethiopia, Kenya and
Uganda have warm relations with Hemedti. While the Quad’s Arab leaders
work at their level to narrow their differences over Sudan’s end
state, the African leaders could use this parallel track to sound out
the parties on what it might take for them to agree to a truce in line
with the Quad’s roadmap, which IGAD and the African Union (AU) have
already endorsed.
Diplomats in both formats would also need to give thought to
challenges in the event of a breakthrough that stops the fighting.
First will be enforcing and monitoring any humanitarian truce or more
enduring ceasefire, especially given the numerous allied militias on
both sides that would also need to comply. Both parties would need to
commit to responsibility for the actions of these armed groups.
Monitoring teams would probably need to include representatives of
both belligerents, as well as outside experts, such as from the UN or
AU.
The next step would be to tackle the intra-Sudanese political process
that would come next under the Quad roadmap. Washington looks like it
is strengthening coordination with the European Union, which together
with the UN, the AU, IGAD and the Arab League, aim to facilitate
civilian political dialogue through a separate grouping of
multilateral institutions on Sudan known as the Quintet.49 Swiss
diplomats have also hosted meetings between opposing political
factions, while Egypt, Norway, the UK and Qatar have all also sought
to help get intra-Sudanese discussions going.
Making sure these efforts complement one another should be a priority
at Europe’s third annual Sudan conference in Berlin on 15 April, which
for the first time will be co-hosted with the U.S. and the AU. All
should clearly agree to link the ceasefire and political tracks,
should either of them take off. They could also find ways to support
the others’ respective efforts, given that neither track has clear
momentum. While the September 2025 Quad roadmap (which foresaw an
immediate truce) called for a political process to start after the
conclusion of ceasefire talks, the AU, the EU and others have been
pushing for a wider Sudanese political process to start posthaste,
under the Quintet’s auspices, though AU-led and EU-supported attempts
to start such dialogue in the middle of the war have thus far fallen
flat. If those efforts, which deserve support given the breadth and
magnitude of the issues that Sudanese need to discuss, do eventually
gain traction, then coordination between the Quad and Quintet will be
crucial. New UN envoy Pekka Haavisto, a former Finnish foreign
minister, could emerge as a point person for rallying diplomacy,
especially should U.S. efforts tail off.
There is also an urgent need to defuse Sudan-linked tensions in the
Horn of Africa more generally. All those with influence, including in
Africa, the Middle East, Europe and North America, should press the
region’s leaders to lower the political temperature and prevent the
Sudan war from spilling over regional borders. In particular, those
countries with sway in Ethiopia should urge Addis Ababa to retain its
official neutral stance in Sudan’s civil war and avoid getting more
involved. Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and others should also encourage the
Sudanese army to try improving relations with Ethiopia, which is put
off by the army’s close alliance with Egypt and Eritrea, both of which
Addis Ababa views as adversaries.
VI.Conclusion
Sudan’s spiralling conflict is the worst of all nightmares for
Sudanese and is now contributing to instability far outside Sudan’s
borders. Khartoum is the only world capital to be razed in recent
years, and it remains virtually uninhabitable. The rest of the country
faces the worst humanitarian conditions on the planet. Alarmingly, the
squabbles among outside powers involved in the conflict only seem to
get more bitter. Tensions over the Sudan war are so high that they
helped spark a Saudi-Emirati row in Yemen. Neighbours, including the
Horn of Africa’s largest country, Ethiopia, risk being pulled in. For
all the damage the U.S. is doing to its own interests with the new
Middle East war, it still leads efforts to broker peace in Sudan. But
to succeed it will need to put sustained pressure, including via
top-level engagement, on the Quad members who wield the most influence
over the belligerents. A humanitarian truce is sorely needed but
unlikely to happen without more work within the Quad on a
post-conflict landing zone.
That said, relying on the United States to bring this conflict to an
end has been a recipe for disappointment over the past three long
years. Other states from Europe to the Middle East to the Horn of
Africa will also need to work whatever angles they can – seeking to
forge a rapprochement among the Quad’s Arab states, encouraging
discussion of Sudan’s political future and (in the case of regional
powers) striving to manage the risk of spillover.
Three years into Sudan’s horrendous conflict, there is no clear path
out of it. But if those positioned to do so use the tools at their
disposal, they may yet be able to blaze such a trail and, in the
meantime, limit the risk that this war spreads its misery any further
in the region.
Nairobi/Riyadh/Abu Dhabi/Brussels, 13 April 2026
https://www.crisisgroup.org/brf/africa/sudan-egypt-saudi-arabia-united-arab-emirates-united-states/b211-divided-sudan-elusive-peace
END
______________________
John Ashworth
ashwor...@gmail.com
+254 725 926 297 (Kenya mobile, WhatsApp and Signal)
PO Box 403 - 00206, Kiserian, Kenya
For nearly three years, the two sides in Sudan’s civil war have fought
bitterly for supremacy. Their conflict has devastated the country,
with the risks of long-term partition and spillover continuing to
grow. The outside powers with influence must keep striving for a
diplomatic solution.
International Crisis Group
13 April 2026
What’s new? Control of Sudan is now divided between its army, which
holds Khartoum and the east, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces
in the west. Though diplomacy made strides in 2025, it appears stalled
amid a row between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – and now
the Middle East war.
Why does it matter? Sudan is home to the world’s worst humanitarian
crisis. Millions of Sudanese face starvation or famine. The state has
largely collapsed, and Khartoum remains mostly uninhabitable. With
Gulf and other regional powers backing opposing sides, the war risks
further drawing in neighbours, including Ethiopia, the Horn of
Africa’s behemoth.
What should be done? While they may have little bandwidth for Sudan
diplomacy at present, the outside actors best positioned to press for
peace cannot let it slip off the agenda. Even as war wracks the Middle
East, they should step up their efforts to end Sudan’s conflict before
all momentum is lost.
I.Overview
With the world’s attention fixed on the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran,
another conflict is raging in the Horn of Africa, not that far away.
The Sudanese civil war is grinding on with no resolution in sight. For
nearly three years, two branches of the military, the Sudanese army
and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have fought bitterly for
supremacy. Neither seems on the verge of achieving it. Control of the
country is divided between them, and the risk of long-term partition
is growing, with both sides naming governments staking claims to
nationwide sovereignty in 2025. The war has compelled as many as four
million Sudanese to flee the country, displaced many more internally
and plunged several areas into prolonged hunger or famine. Foreign
powers are complicit, backing opposing sides. A U.S. effort to marshal
outside actors to press the conflict parties toward peace was
struggling even before the Middle East war distracted them all. But
they must not neglect the Sudan file; they need to find a way to
manage their own differences so they can map an endgame for the war
before it expands further past Sudan’s borders.
Sudan’s civil war broke out in April 2023, following a military
takeover that removed a civilian cabinet working toward a democratic
transition. The army and RSF had seized power together, but they soon
came to blows, kicking off a protracted battle that has seen each
side’s fortunes wax and wane. The army and its affiliated government
now hold the capital Khartoum; the central Nile River corridor; and
the east, including strategic Port Sudan. The RSF dominates most of
the western Darfur region, with supply routes from Chad and Libya. The
main front lines between the sides lie at present in the west-central
Kordofan region.
Throughout the conflict, peace efforts have been hampered by the fact
that many of the foreign countries with influence over the
belligerents have chosen to support one or the other. Due in part to
this outside patronage, both the army and the RSF have rebuffed
would-be mediators, believing instead that they can win by force of
arms and attrition. Worse, the outside backers appear locked in an
escalation cycle inside Sudan, hoping to outlast and overpower the
other side. Sudan’s African neighbours are also divided and
increasingly entangled in the war. The conflict is already roiling
nearby countries, with spillover effects apparent in Chad, Ethiopia,
South Sudan and Yemen.
Amid these pernicious dynamics, the main mediation effort has been led
by a group known as the Quad, which is headed by the United States and
includes the three Arab powers with the most sway over the conflict
parties – Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which back the army, and the UAE,
which is the RSF’s primary patron. In September 2025, these four
countries agreed on a peace roadmap that envisages starting with a
humanitarian truce before moving to a permanent ceasefire and talks
about Sudan’s political future. Yet hostilities have continued to
intensify on the ground, and the army in particular has resisted the
U.S. proposal, fearing that a truce would leave swathes of the country
in the RSF’s hands. Meanwhile, relations among the Quad powers have
deteriorated over the past year, with rancour between Abu Dhabi and
Riyadh bursting into the open in December after Saudi Arabia used its
military to stop a campaign by UAE-backed forces in Yemen.
The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran – which rumbles on amid a 7 April
ceasefire, a collapsed round of talks in Islamabad, and the U.S.
announcement of a blockade on Iranian ports – is dominating the
headlines, but it has not, at least yet, altered the big picture in
Sudan. When the smoke clears, all indications are that the UAE and
Saudi Arabia will be locked in a rivalry over competing regional
visions whose effects have increasingly reverberated in the Red Sea
basin and the Horn of Africa. By extension, they are unlikely to
reduce their support for the opposing sides in the Sudanese war.
Meanwhile, despite its preoccupation with the war in Iran – and the
larger Middle East conflict that is shifting regional dynamics in ways
that are not yet fully clear – Washington is still leading efforts to
reach a ceasefire. Moreover, it will likely continue to do so, unless
the U.S. pivots away from its Sudan diplomacy or Middle Eastern,
African or European powers displace it, which at present does not look
imminent.
Yet years of lacklustre Washington-led diplomacy have produced
disappointing results. Part of the problem has been a failure to
bridge key disagreements between the UAE and Saudi Arabia (as well as
Egypt). The September 2025 roadmap, for example, was a breakthrough as
a basic framework for ending the war. Yet it also danced around core
differences – including over the army’s political role, the RSF’s
future and the knotty question of how to handle the resurgent
influence of Sudan’s homegrown Islamist forces in post-conflict Sudan.
The lack of common vision for the war’s endgame has undermined U.S.
efforts to secure a humanitarian truce – which was meant to be the
first step in bringing the roadmap to fruition. Even in the event of a
temporary truce, which Washington is pushing to secure in the run-up
to a mid-April Sudan conference in Berlin, those disagreements would
likely stymie efforts to achieve a more durable peace.
What is clear is that if the U.S., its Arab partners or anyone else is
to have the best shot at achieving success, they will have to tackle
these thorny endgame questions sooner rather than later. The U.S.
should use its political capital to try forging clearer agreement
about Sudan’s “day after” among key outside players, especially Saudi
Arabia, Egypt and the UAE, and then work with them to push the
conflict parties toward that off-ramp. Simultaneously, other
diplomatic tracks should try to complement these efforts – leaders in
the Horn of Africa could, for example, try to suss out how to coax the
belligerents toward silencing the guns on either a short- or long-term
basis, while other states and multilateral bodies work in other
formats to advance conversations about Sudan’s post-conflict political
order. A high-level effort to bring about a clearer modus vivendi
between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi when it comes to their competition in the
Red Sea basin and Horn of Africa would also be welcome; facilitators
might include major regional actors, European security partners or, of
course, the U.S.
After three years of brutal war, it is sobering that the options for
peacemaking in Sudan remain so limited – and so dependent on the
diplomatic efforts of actors who have yet to deliver. If nothing else,
perhaps the prospect of further instability in a region deeply
unsettled by the new Middle East war will generate a new level of
seriousness from the outside players most enmeshed in Sudan’s war to
wind it down rather than escalate it. If not, the prospect of yet more
tragic anniversaries looms over this war-ravaged country.
II.The Ebb and Flow of Battlefield Momentum
Sudan’s civil war broke out three years ago, amid a power struggle
among the military units that seized power after the fall of the
Islamist-led authoritarian regime of Omar al-Bashir. In 2019,
youth-driven protests helped topple Bashir, ushering in a civilian
government – which entered an awkward power-sharing arrangement with
both the army and RSF – that was to shepherd the country toward
democratic elections. Two years later, the military branches dissolved
the government and took power for themselves. But tensions soon built
between army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and his junta
deputy, RSF leader General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, or “Hemedti”, who
disagreed over whether the army should absorb the paramilitary into
its ranks. In April 2023, their respective forces started fighting in
Khartoum, with hostilities spreading quickly to central and western
parts of the country.
The RSF kept the momentum during the war’s first year. Its fighters
rapidly seized most of Khartoum and its surrounds, causing its
residents, including the country’s professional class, to flee en
masse. It launched offensives south east of the city, sacking swathes
of Sudan’s riverine heartland. In this period, the RSF also tightened
its grip on much of its historical base in Darfur, which gave it a
commercial lifeline to neighbours Chad, Libya and the Central African
Republic, as well as firmer control of major gold deposits. African,
Arab and Western diplomats, as well as independent investigations,
also point to a second reason for the RSF’s gains, namely the
financial, military and logistical support it has received from its
main patron, the UAE.1 The UAE has reportedly kept up a steady supply
of arms and other materiel to the RSF, at first primarily through
eastern Chad, before spreading out the shipments across a broader set
of routes.2
The Sudanese army, meanwhile, decamped to Port Sudan, the country’s
primary maritime gateway, setting it up as the de facto administrative
capital. But it struggled to regroup on the battlefield, despite its
air superiority.3
To help its soldiers turn the tide, the army assembled a coalition of
militias, employing a strategy the Sudanese army has used for decades.
To this end, Burhan forged an alliance with former rebel groups from
Darfur, known collectively as the Joint Forces, several of which had
signed a peace agreement with the post-Bashir transitional government
in 2020.4 Most of these groups had opposed both the regular army and
the Darfuri Arab militias that have long formed the RSF’s core. They
tried to stay neutral at first when the two military branches went to
war with each other. By late 2023, however, the most prominent groups,
led by Darfur Governor Minni Minawi, had decided to align with the
army and to mobilise Darfuri men to resist the RSF.
Further, the army raised popular and communal defence militias in
central and northern Sudan. In doing so, it leaned heavily on its
longstanding alliance with Islamist politicians and others affiliated
with the old Bashir regime.5 Some of these groups are linked with the
former ruling National Congress Party or the associated Sudanese
Islamic Movement, a network run by senior figures tied to the former
regime. The army also armed tribal militias to augment its sometimes
meagre infantry divisions. What united these groups was animosity
toward the RSF, which had sharpened after the paramilitary’s rampant
abuses in areas its fighters captured, ranging from widespread looting
and killing to sexual violence, mostly against women and girls.6
In addition, Burhan corralled support from an array of outside powers,
each with its own interests in Sudan, including Egypt, Eritrea,
Türkiye, Qatar, Iran and, increasingly, Saudi Arabia, which at first
had preferred to play the role of neutral mediator.7 Today, all these
countries recognise Burhan as Sudan’s head of state, as do the UN, the
Arab League and the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development
(IGAD), the Horn of Africa’s regional bloc. Most of Burhan’s backers
frame their support for the army and its government as helping Sudan
put down an internal rebellion. Some chose sides partly as a way of
providing a counterweight to the UAE’s sponsorship of the RSF.
Sudan’s war has also unfolded amid a scramble for influence in the
Horn of Africa. The country boasts a long Red Sea shoreline and sits
at a crossroads linking the Horn with North Africa and the
Mediterranean basin. External powers that seek to guide its post-war
direction could view pouring in weaponry and financing for the
belligerents as advancing that goal. Turbulence in the Middle East has
only made outsiders keener on attaining greater sway in the region.
Israel’s late December 2025 recognition of Somaliland – which Saudi
Arabia and Egypt strongly opposed – was an augury of the shadow game
among rival countries trying to establish a firmer foothold. In these
circumstances, Sudan’s civil war has gradually become a stage for
indirect competition among foreign capitals with overlapping or
clashing agendas, with all of them trying to shape the conflict’s
trajectory.
Still, despite occasional tactical gains, none of the parties has
managed to secure a decisive advantage. In the second half of 2024,
the army and its disparate coalition made their first significant
gains on the battlefield, aided by new drone capabilities.8 By March
2025, they had pushed the RSF out of Khartoum and its bases east of
the Nile. The recapture of the capital proved a turning point in the
war.9 It bolstered the army’s claim to be Sudan’s legitimate
government, even if the country’s western regions remained out of
reach. The army’s offensive forced much of the RSF to retreat to
Darfur. The front shifted west to El Fasher, the army’s last bastion
in North Darfur, which the RSF had been besieging for over a year, as
well as to Kordofan. But the army’s advance soon stalled once more.
The pendulum then swung back toward the RSF, buoyed by the UAE’s
support.10 In May 2025, the RSF began launching long-range drone
attacks on targets in eastern Sudan, from Port Sudan and Kassala to
critical oil depots and Khartoum’s airport.11 These surprise attacks
not only escalated the war but also enraged nearby countries,
especially Saudi Arabia, which sits across the Red Sea from Port
Sudan, and Egypt, which shares a 1,200km border with Sudan. At the
same time, the RSF went on the offensive to consolidate its control of
Darfur, capturing the tri-border region linking Sudan with Egypt and
Libya. With this manoeuvre, it acquired a more direct supply route
from southern Libya, helping it ease its reliance on eastern Chad as
the main conduit for weapons deliveries.12
In October 2025, the RSF captured El Fasher after a roughly
eighteen-month siege.13 The RSF had surrounded the city in mid-2024,
blocking aid deliveries and subsequently constructing an earthen berm
to hinder movement. It also stepped up drone and artillery strikes,
including on mosques, hospitals and displacement camps, killing or
maiming hundreds of civilians. When the RSF finally decided to overrun
the city, its fighters slaughtered thousands of residents, looted
businesses and destroyed buildings, at times filming their actions
triumphantly with their mobile phones. Particularly egregious was the
reported killing of 460 patients and others at the al-Saudi Maternity
Hospital.14 Torture, abductions and sexual violence were also
documented by Sudanese and international human rights organisations,
as well as by a UN fact-finding commission, which called them
“indicators of a genocidal path”.15 These atrocities brought a surge
of negative coverage of the UAE’s support for the RSF, including in
the Arab media.16
Following El Fasher’s fall, the army now controls most of central,
eastern and northern Sudan, while the RSF and its allies dominate the
west and parts of the south. The main battlefront has shifted to
Kordofan, roughly in the middle-west of the country, which is wedged
between the warring parties’ strongholds. The army aims to push the
RSF out of Kordofan, so that, eventually, it can try to recapture
Darfur.17 For its part, the RSF wants to move eastward through
Kordofan so that it can once again threaten Khartoum and the Nile
valley. It also hopes to put pressure on these areas from the west
through recent gains in southern Blue Nile state, which borders South
Sudan and Ethiopia.
III.Unstable Partition amid Devastation
If the war settles into a stalemate along a front in Kordofan, Sudan’s
division might become entrenched, with the country split roughly in
two. Yet the continued fighting and the heightened regional
competition for influence in Sudan suggest that the conflict is
unlikely to peter out along a stable partition line any time soon.
Meanwhile, political developments are also dividing the country. In
May 2025, Burhan appointed former diplomat Kamil al-Taib Idris as
prime minister of the army-affiliated government in Port Sudan. Idris,
the first civilian to hold the post since the 2022 coup, unveiled a
22-member cabinet composed of technocrats, allied militia leaders and
army-aligned civilians, including Islamist figures, reflecting the
army’s effort to accommodate the range of groups supporting its war
effort. The cabinet includes two women. Though Idris has pledged to
maintain independence from the military, in practice his authority is
limited by the army’s oversight and by a constitutional framework that
concentrates power in the high command. At present, the government is
attempting to return to Khartoum, where it is reopening ministries.
Three months after Idris announced his cabinet, the RSF and its allies
swore in a widely unrecognised government of their own in Nyala,
capital of South Darfur, naming Hemedti as chair of a Presidential
Council and Mohammed Hassan al-Ta’ishi, a politician who hails from a
small Darfuri Arab community, as prime minister at the helm of a
cabinet.18 This move followed the RSF’s formation of a broader
political coalition, known as Tasees, in Nairobi in February 2025.
Tasees includes other rebel groups and figures, most prominently the
Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North under Abdelaziz Al-Hilu.19
Despite the fanfare around its creation, the RSF’s ostensible
government is largely inoperable, as most of its officials reside
outside Sudan. No government or international organisation has
officially recognised it, and many (including the African Union) have
rejected it outright.
Yet little suggests that either side is content to focus on ruling the
area under its dominion. Instead, the Sudanese army, backed by its
foreign allies, has continued to launch offensives in Kordofan, helped
by new drone capacity, and has previously declared its intent to push
onward into Darfur.20 Meanwhile, the RSF is still seeking to advance
through Kordofan to the Nile valley. It is also trying to widen a new
front in the south east, in Blue Nile state, jutting between the
borders with South Sudan and Ethiopia. In February, Hemedti asserted
that the RSF had a duty to its “martyrs” to return to Khartoum.21
Among the risks that the fighting presents is that it could further
draw in other countries in the Horn of Africa, with Ethiopia seemingly
weighing in more heavily on the RSF’s side against the army, which is
backed by Ethiopia’s main adversaries, Egypt and Eritrea.22 The
worsening relations between Ethiopia and the Sudanese military risk
further destabilising both sides of the border by escalating proxy
dynamics.23 Meanwhile, many of the countries supporting the Sudanese
army have rallied behind Eritrea in its dispute with Ethiopia, which
has the backing of the UAE. Fierce antagonism between Ethiopia and
Egypt, with Egypt opposing Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam on the
Blue Nile as well as its desire to regain a foothold on the Red Sea,
exacerbates regional rifts. Should renewed conflict break out between
Ethiopia and Eritrea, or in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, that
could in turn escalate the war in Sudan as rivals ramp up their
jockeying for regional dominance.24
Meanwhile, the conflict continues to be devastating for Sudan’s
civilian population. There are no reliable casualty figures for the
war. Some 14 million have been displaced, including some four million
refugees who often live in difficult conditions in neighbouring
countries like Chad, South Sudan and Egypt.25 Humanitarian conditions
are the worst in the world, with several pockets of famine.26 Overall,
more than 20 million Sudanese, nearly half the population, are
classified as acutely food-insecure.
The conflict has affected men and women in different ways. Women and
girls have faced widespread sexual and gender-based violence,
including rape, sexual exploitation and forced labour.27 The
destruction of health care facilities and restrictions on movement due
to insecurity have severely undermined access to maternal and
reproductive health services, placing pregnant women and new mothers
at heightened risk. Men, on the other hand, are often targeted for
killing, torture, disappearance, arbitrary detention and forced
recruitment by armed groups and militias, particularly in areas of
active fighting or contested control.
IV.Flagging Peace Efforts
A.Resisting Peace
Since Sudan’s civil war broke out in 2023, the warring parties have
had vastly different positions about how it should end and what should
happen to Sudan afterward. This gap has hobbled peace negotiations, as
has the army’s resistance to speaking directly with RSF leaders.
There is still stiff resistance to serious peace talks within each
camp. As for Burhan, he faces opposition to the idea from various
sides. First, many Sudanese (including those from Khartoum and other
areas where the army enjoys significant support) despise the RSF,
which they view as a heinous proxy of an external power, the UAE, that
they blame for their country’s destruction. To them, the idea of
talking with the paramilitary is anathema. Secondly, the army
continues to rely on its alliance with anti-RSF Darfuri militias,
which have helped it retake Khartoum and fight in Kordofan, and are
still harrying the RSF in Darfur. Those groups, heavily composed of
non-Arab fighters, fear a truce that would leave Darfur in the RSF’s
grip and their communities vulnerable to its reprisals.
Lastly, the anti-RSF Islamist militias and powerful Islamist figures
from the Bashir regime are also leery of peace talks, especially those
led by the Quad. They worry that any new army-RSF pact or civilian
government brokered by the U.S., which has designated the Sudanese
Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organisation, would again
exclude them from political authority and crack down on their
networks.28 While there is no major self-identifying Sudanese Muslim
Brotherhood chapter, the U.S. has described the Sudanese Islamic
Movement as such. It regards the Islamic Movement, led by Ali Karti, a
former foreign minister under Bashir, as the Brotherhood’s political
wing in Sudan, and the al-Baraa militia, which fights alongside the
Sudanese army and has a major social media presence, as its armed
wing.29 These groups are a pillar of Burhan’s wartime coalition.
Amid this resistance, Burhan’s government has promoted a proposal for
ending the war on its own terms. This plan, which it presented to the
UN Security Council, calls for the RSF’s full unilateral withdrawal to
cantonment camps for disarmament, followed by a national dialogue. It
is not a promising basis for negotiations. Indeed, on the RSF side,
there is little apparent appetite for major concessions, whether
unilateral withdrawal, disarmament or absorption into the army. The
RSF’s political coalition instead demands an end to the army’s
political role, a new civilian government, the creation of a new
national army (in which it would participate) and a new federal system
that provides significant regional autonomy from the national
government. It also wants Islamists out of politics.
Though the RSF has been more open to peace talks than the army, it has
rejected formats that recognise Burhan as Sudan’s leader and his
administration as Sudan’s government – a precondition Burhan has
insisted upon in previous mediation attempts. Hemedti has long
harboured ambitions to rule Sudan and is likely to keep resisting any
effort to dismantle the forces and commercial empire that undergird
his political power.30
A question concerning both sides is whether they would change their
positions if they came under significant pressure from their main
patrons. The RSF is especially susceptible, given its heavy reliance
on one sponsor, the UAE. If Abu Dhabi throttles back its support, or
if it begins struggling to get weapons and equipment into western
Sudan, the RSF’s calculations could shift. While Burhan and his
coalition also receive external support and are thus vulnerable to
pressure from outside actors, they are less dependent on a single
supplier and face fewer logistical obstacles in importing arms, given
their bases on the Red Sea.
B.Enter the Quad
Given the chasm between the two sides and the deep involvement of
outsiders, diplomacy has resorted to an “outside-in” approach that
tries to align the key external players behind ways to end the war and
then asks them to persuade the parties to follow suit. Right now, the
primary vehicle for these efforts is the Quad – the U.S., Saudi
Arabia, the UAE and Egypt. The Quad was established informally in
2024, under then-President Joe Biden’s special envoy, Tom Perriello,
but it has taken on greater importance under President Donald Trump.
By mid-2025, the Trump administration had made the Quad talks the core
of its Sudan diplomacy, driven chiefly by Massad Boulos, a member of
the extended Trump family and a senior adviser focused on Africa and
Arab issues at the State Department. On 12 September 2025, after
months of U.S.-led dialogue, the Quad proposed its roadmap to peace.31
The plan called for a three-month humanitarian truce, followed by a
permanent ceasefire and a nine-month transition to a civilian-led
government, alongside an immediate halt to outside military support.
The Quad’s roadmap has yet to get off the ground, however, and if it
is not revived it could become a dead letter. The Sudanese army
appears to have rejected the plan, though at times it has equivocated
under pressure from Saudi Arabia and Egypt. As noted, key Burhan
allies strongly oppose either a humanitarian truce or peace talks.
They see the UAE as a party to the conflict – not one that should be
participating in the Quad.32 The RSF eventually endorsed the full
roadmap but only, as discussed below, after it was clear that the army
had no interest in it.
Complicating matters further is that in reaching putative consensus
about the roadmap the Quad members papered over their own significant
differences. Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which both back the army, are
seeking an important role for it in a post-war transitional period.
They frame the army as a state institution critical for preventing
total state collapse and disorder in Sudan, and in the roadmap
discussions they accordingly supported a sequence of events starting
with a ceasefire. Broader political talks, they said, would come after
the army had finished its negotiations with the RSF, with the
expectation that these could take some time. Riyadh and Cairo also
take issue with characterisations – including in the roadmap – that
appear to put the two warring parties on an equal footing. In
contrast, they contend that Sudan’s war pits a government against a
rogue militia.
For its part, the UAE wants to quickly displace the army’s rule. Thus,
it pushed in roadmap talks for any truce to be followed by an
immediate intra-Sudanese dialogue aimed at forming a new civilian
government concurrent with army-RSF negotiations over a more enduring
ceasefire. Emirati officials envisage that pro-RSF and other
UAE-friendly civilians would be part of that dialogue and thus part of
a future civilian government. In negotiating the roadmap, the UAE also
argued for short timelines so that the army could not ensconce its
rule by dragging out the negotiations indefinitely.33
Against this backdrop, the roadmap document was a compromise driven by
the U.S. that refrained from dealing with sticky issues, such as how
Sudan would be reunified and what the army and RSF’s future roles
would be. Thus, according to Quad officials and other diplomats,
neither side was completely satisfied with the September text.34 As a
result, the U.S. has had great difficulty persuading its Quad partners
and others to turn the roadmap into something more than words on
paper. At the UN General Assembly in September 2025, the group could
not agree on a new joint statement focused on lifting the RSF siege on
El Fasher. In late October, Washington held indirect discussions
involving all the Quad countries and both the Sudanese belligerents.
These contacts marked modest progress, given that there had been no
public peace talks since 2023. But they, too, ended without a
meaningful output.
Events on the ground soon overtook diplomacy. The furor over the
atrocities accompanying El Fasher’s fall in late October led Saudi
Arabia and Egypt to ease diplomatic pressure on Burhan to agree to an
immediate truce, while backers like Egypt and Türkiye appeared to
double down on their military support for the army. Emboldened, Burhan
dismissed the proposed roadmap, saying it aimed to disband the army
and calling it biased due to the UAE’s participation.35 After the
capture of El Fasher, the RSF publicly endorsed the proposal, but the
army had already rejected it, and in any case the RSF made no move to
unilaterally halt fighting.36 Fundamentally, both warring parties
seemed to believe that a fresh influx of armaments could turn the tide
in their favour.
C.The Hadramawt Episode
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s mid-November visit to the
White House briefly appeared to give peace efforts a shot in the arm.
President Trump said afterward that the Saudi leader had raised the
war in Sudan and asked for U.S. engagement in efforts to end it. Trump
said he had promised to help.37
Soon thereafter, however, a rift between Saudi Arabia and the UAE cast
a shadow over the roadmap negotiations. In December, UAE-backed
separatist forces affiliated with Yemen’s Southern Transitional
Council (STC) launched a surprise offensive in Hadramawt, a
governorate in eastern Yemen that abuts Saudi Arabia and whose
population has close ties with people across the border. The move
infuriated Riyadh. After more than three weeks of negotiations with
the UAE and Yemeni parties, Saudi Arabia bombed Emirati ships,
accusing them of carrying arms to the STC (something the UAE denies)
and joined the Yemeni government’s demand for a full withdrawal of
Emirati forces from Yemen. Meanwhile, Hadrami and other fighters
backed by Saudi airstrikes drove the STC out of Hadramawt and its
positions in southern Yemen.
While the UAE took steps to de-escalate the Yemen dispute – declaring
that it would remove its forces from the country and then doing so –
the rift lingers. Saudi-linked media accuse the UAE of destabilising
the entire Red Sea basin (including Sudan), and Saudi officials say
they seek to enforce “red lines” near the kingdom’s land and maritime
borders.38 Emirati officials paint their larger neighbour as suffering
from “big brother” complex and seeking to exercise hegemony over the
smaller Gulf Arab states.39
Senior Gulf officials told Crisis Group that they see the Yemen fracas
as an outgrowth of tensions over Sudan. They believe that the UAE
backed the STC offensive in Hadramawt as a calculated act of
retaliation for the Saudi crown prince’s plea for Trump’s intercession
in the Sudanese conflict.40 These officials also say Abu Dhabi thinks
that the crown prince asked Trump to level sanctions at RSF backers,
namely the UAE. Saudi officials strenuously deny that they asked for
U.S. action against the UAE, however, while Emirati officials insist
they were not behind the STC offensive (despite being the STC’s
patron) and dismiss the idea that the Hadramawt episode was related to
Sudan.
The new Middle East war has pushed intra-Gulf disputes to the side for
the time being, but the ill feeling between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi
persists and is likely to continue manifesting in the Horn of
Africa.41
D.Distracted Diplomacy
Since 28 February, the U.S. and Israeli campaign against Iran has
distracted Quad members from Sudan diplomacy, though some work
continues. Up until that point, however, the Trump administration
appeared to be trying to continue its diplomatic push through the
Quad, notwithstanding the tensions between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.
U.S. efforts focused on two texts: a broad framework document,
reportedly modelled in part after the Trump administration’s
twenty-point Gaza deal; and a 90-day humanitarian truce proposal,
negotiated within the Quad but yet to be agreed upon by the Sudanese
belligerents. The framework document is organised around five pillars:
a humanitarian truce (which would primarily serve to temporarily halt
fighting and create space for the remaining four pillars); unfettered
humanitarian access; a ceasefire; a political process leading to a
civilian-led government; and post-conflict reconstruction and
recovery.42
But making any progress at all proved challenging, with the parties
jockeying for position with respect to “endgame” issues. As a
condition for coming to the table, the army wanted guarantees that it
would regain sovereignty over all of Sudanese territory and that the
UAE would stop supporting the RSF. The RSF was more willing to
negotiate but rejected making the major concessions demanded by the
army (such as territorial withdrawal) as a precondition for either a
truce or talks. It planned to use its territorial control as leverage
to demand major changes to the Sudanese state, government and
military.
The U.S. sought to get around the obstacles by proposing limited RSF
withdrawals, namely from portions of North Darfur, including El
Fasher, and Kordofan region, as part of the humanitarian truce.43
While senior RSF officials say they reject this idea, the U.S.
believes it has finally gained the paramilitary’s acceptance, possibly
with a plan to swap out its military units for police or other less
overtly militarised ones, though the RSF also wants the army to commit
to doing the same in at least some areas under its control.44 As of
early April, Boulos was still pressing Burhan to agree as well, but
there was no sign that the latter was eager to do so (as it fell short
of the army’s ambitious demands) or was feeling pressure to fall in
line from his major backers, who are all preoccupied with the Middle
East war though they still consider Sudan a major priority.45
Thus, it seems that the most likely near-term trajectory is that
diplomacy will remain slowed even as Sudan’s civil war continues, with
even less external pressure on the parties to curb their belligerency.
In time, there will be important questions to ask about whether
relations among Quad members have improved or deteriorated during the
course of the Middle East war, as well as whether this group – under
U.S. leadership – is still best positioned to lead on Sudan diplomacy.
At present, however, it still appears to be the most viable option.
V.A Search for Peace in Uncertain Times
Three years into Sudan’s devastating civil war, prospects for a
negotiated settlement remain dim. The army refuses to talk to the RSF,
while both parties still appear to believe that their outside backing
puts them in a position to win a war of attrition. The sharp discord
between Saudi Arabia and the UAE has undercut the momentum that
started building in 2025 within the U.S.-led Quad format. Horn of
Africa dynamics are also trending in the wrong direction, with rivals
Ethiopia and Eritrea migrating toward opposite sides of the Sudan war,
in a way that suggests a new war between the powerful Horn neighbours
could spill over into Sudan. Until it has been resolved, the
U.S.-Israeli war with Iran seems likely to retard and possibly suspend
high-level regional diplomacy on Sudan for the foreseeable future.
But neither fatalism nor distraction is an excuse for allowing Sudan’s
war to disappear from the international agenda, particularly since it
shows no sign of burning out on its own. The war is too big, cruel and
geopolitically important to be allowed to rage indefinitely, without a
serious international effort to bring it to a close. Even if diplomacy
is temporarily hindered, the time is right to take stock of where
diplomatic efforts stand and where they might go next.
A.Looking for a Landing Zone
First comes the question of which diplomatic format makes sense. As
noted, for all the difficult dynamics described above, the Quad
remains the leading forum for reaching a ceasefire in Sudan as well as
the group of actors best positioned to bring the war to an enduring
end.
As has been the case since Sudan’s civil war began three years ago, if
the U.S. wants to be effective diplomatically, it will need to
intensify its efforts and put more political capital on the line. It
remains unlikely that the two Sudanese parties will bridge the gaps
between them without urging from their outside backers, and it is
likewise improbable that the outside backers will apply that pressure
without narrowing their own differences first, which may well require
more senior-level diplomacy from Washington. Boulos, by many accounts,
deserves credit for leading the negotiations that led to the September
2025 roadmap, the first indirect talks between the two parties in
nearly two years and dogged pursuit of a humanitarian truce. His
continued engagement would likely be constructive. Yet, given the
divergences that remain, the personal involvement of Trump or another
top-level experienced official from his foreign policy inner circle,
perhaps Secretary of State Marco Rubio, could prove essential for
breaking the logjam in the Quad, particularly between Riyadh and
Cairo, on one side, and Abu Dhabi and the other.
In terms of what U.S. priorities should be, Washington may need to do
more legwork to supplement its effort to secure a humanitarian truce,
which could remain stuck absent headway on longer-term political and
security arrangements. Even if the U.S. does manage – against all odds
– to force through a truce in the short term, the belligerents would
clearly struggle to come to a durable ceasefire, much less a lasting
peace, without a stronger steer from key regional players. Thus, it
may make sense to redouble efforts at the highest levels to work out a
landing zone that all Quad members can genuinely live with and all
agree is better than the bloody status quo.
Finding a workable middle ground among those outside players has long
proven a challenge. It would require Abu Dhabi, on one side, and
Riyadh and Cairo on the other, to acknowledge that none of them will
fully get their way in Sudan. The three Arab powers could, however,
agree to work together on the contours of a deal that would give each
of them essential assurances.
For Saudi Arabia and Egypt, that could mean, at minimum, a contained
and curtailed RSF that does not threaten Khartoum or eastern Sudan –
or retain the ability to split Sudan in two. This condition will
probably require an Emirati commitment to hold the RSF to future
deadlines for withdrawing, integrating, demobilising or expatriating
its fighters.
The UAE, meanwhile, would seek clear guarantees that the Sudanese army
and security apparatus will distance itself from the Bashir-linked
Sudanese Islamic Movement, including through rebalancing in the
officer corps and the demobilisation of militias, while recognising
that some Islamists will invariably retain influence. Agreement to
back formation of a unity civilian government will also be essential,
so that neither Egypt nor Saudi Arabia is faced with a failed state,
and so that Abu Dhabi has authorities to deal with besides the
Sudanese army.
If the Quad’s Arab powers can come together on these broad principles,
the next step would be for the latter to press the Sudanese warring
parties to agree to this framework and push them into direct or
indirect negotiations over remaining details for a durable ceasefire.
Ideally, such talks would be complemented by an immediate humanitarian
truce along the lines the U.S. has been proposing and a suspension of
arms flows, which the U.S. would commit to keeping tabs on. The U.S.
and Saudi Arabia would also need to coordinate with other key backers
of the Sudanese army, including Egypt, Qatar and Türkiye, to ensure a
united front of concerned states working toward the same objective.
Some of these supporters, especially Qatar and Türkiye, may need to
help broker dialogue with Sudan’s powerful Islamist figures, to
address their own opposition to ceasefire negotiations.
Given the intense regional acrimony the Sudan war has unleashed,
progress on the Sudan question may need to be part of a wider thaw
between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, whether brought about through
Washington’s good offices or perhaps those of another facilitator as
suggested below. Such a warming might in turn benefit from the
articulation of red lines that each would commit to respect. For Saudi
Arabia, that would likely include proscribing overt or covert UAE
involvement in military action near its land or sea borders, including
on the African shores of the Red Sea. Clear past examples of crossing
that red line might include the May 2025 drone attacks on Port Sudan,
which regional actors blamed on the UAE.46 It would also include any
UAE-backed Ethiopian attempt to seize the Eritrean port of Assab,
something many fear Addis Ababa might try in the future. The UAE could
make clear that lobbying for coercive measures against it, as it
believes Riyadh did in the White House meeting between Trump and the
crown prince in late 2025, is out of bounds.
B.Backstopping U.S. Diplomacy
The U.S. is an imperfect choice to be at the helm of Sudan peace
efforts. It seems likely that Washington’s relationships in the Red
Sea basin and the Gulf will survive the war it has launched with Iran
– among other things, states that have relied on the U.S. for years as
their primary security partner may have no better option – but it is
hard to know for sure what they will look like. Perhaps more
importantly, the U.S. has yet to show willingness to use the leverage
that ending the war in Sudan is likely to require.
While there are regrettably few fallback options, there are steps that
other states could take that might aid peace efforts in Sudan, many of
which will also have to wait until the new Middle East war has run its
course. For example, Gulf states could resume working independently of
Washington to try repairing relations between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi,
with a focus on finding a way forward on Sudan. Renewed top-level
contact between Saudi and Emirati leaders concerning the Iran crisis
might create openings. European powers, some of which are now forging
stronger security links with Gulf countries, could also help push
Saudi Arabia and the UAE toward such a resolution, as could other
influential players, such as Egypt and Türkiye. The goal would be for
Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Cairo and/or others to re-establish a quiet channel
for direct or indirect negotiations between the Sudanese army and the
RSF, as last occurred in Manama, Bahrain in early 2024.47
Given the tattered state of diplomacy, no route toward ending the war
should be left unexplored. Horn of Africa leaders, despite their
differences, should rekindle their own early efforts to bring Burhan
and Hemedti together for high-level talks. They last made such an
attempt in late 2023, under IGAD auspices, but the meeting fell
through at the last minute, with Burhan later pulling Sudan out of the
bloc.48 Still, Sudan rejoined IGAD in 2026, raising the prospect of a
new push. If they work together, African heads of state have the
convening power to bring both belligerents to the table. Djibouti,
IGAD’s current chair, is close to Burhan, while Ethiopia, Kenya and
Uganda have warm relations with Hemedti. While the Quad’s Arab leaders
work at their level to narrow their differences over Sudan’s end
state, the African leaders could use this parallel track to sound out
the parties on what it might take for them to agree to a truce in line
with the Quad’s roadmap, which IGAD and the African Union (AU) have
already endorsed.
Diplomats in both formats would also need to give thought to
challenges in the event of a breakthrough that stops the fighting.
First will be enforcing and monitoring any humanitarian truce or more
enduring ceasefire, especially given the numerous allied militias on
both sides that would also need to comply. Both parties would need to
commit to responsibility for the actions of these armed groups.
Monitoring teams would probably need to include representatives of
both belligerents, as well as outside experts, such as from the UN or
AU.
The next step would be to tackle the intra-Sudanese political process
that would come next under the Quad roadmap. Washington looks like it
is strengthening coordination with the European Union, which together
with the UN, the AU, IGAD and the Arab League, aim to facilitate
civilian political dialogue through a separate grouping of
multilateral institutions on Sudan known as the Quintet.49 Swiss
diplomats have also hosted meetings between opposing political
factions, while Egypt, Norway, the UK and Qatar have all also sought
to help get intra-Sudanese discussions going.
Making sure these efforts complement one another should be a priority
at Europe’s third annual Sudan conference in Berlin on 15 April, which
for the first time will be co-hosted with the U.S. and the AU. All
should clearly agree to link the ceasefire and political tracks,
should either of them take off. They could also find ways to support
the others’ respective efforts, given that neither track has clear
momentum. While the September 2025 Quad roadmap (which foresaw an
immediate truce) called for a political process to start after the
conclusion of ceasefire talks, the AU, the EU and others have been
pushing for a wider Sudanese political process to start posthaste,
under the Quintet’s auspices, though AU-led and EU-supported attempts
to start such dialogue in the middle of the war have thus far fallen
flat. If those efforts, which deserve support given the breadth and
magnitude of the issues that Sudanese need to discuss, do eventually
gain traction, then coordination between the Quad and Quintet will be
crucial. New UN envoy Pekka Haavisto, a former Finnish foreign
minister, could emerge as a point person for rallying diplomacy,
especially should U.S. efforts tail off.
There is also an urgent need to defuse Sudan-linked tensions in the
Horn of Africa more generally. All those with influence, including in
Africa, the Middle East, Europe and North America, should press the
region’s leaders to lower the political temperature and prevent the
Sudan war from spilling over regional borders. In particular, those
countries with sway in Ethiopia should urge Addis Ababa to retain its
official neutral stance in Sudan’s civil war and avoid getting more
involved. Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and others should also encourage the
Sudanese army to try improving relations with Ethiopia, which is put
off by the army’s close alliance with Egypt and Eritrea, both of which
Addis Ababa views as adversaries.
VI.Conclusion
Sudan’s spiralling conflict is the worst of all nightmares for
Sudanese and is now contributing to instability far outside Sudan’s
borders. Khartoum is the only world capital to be razed in recent
years, and it remains virtually uninhabitable. The rest of the country
faces the worst humanitarian conditions on the planet. Alarmingly, the
squabbles among outside powers involved in the conflict only seem to
get more bitter. Tensions over the Sudan war are so high that they
helped spark a Saudi-Emirati row in Yemen. Neighbours, including the
Horn of Africa’s largest country, Ethiopia, risk being pulled in. For
all the damage the U.S. is doing to its own interests with the new
Middle East war, it still leads efforts to broker peace in Sudan. But
to succeed it will need to put sustained pressure, including via
top-level engagement, on the Quad members who wield the most influence
over the belligerents. A humanitarian truce is sorely needed but
unlikely to happen without more work within the Quad on a
post-conflict landing zone.
That said, relying on the United States to bring this conflict to an
end has been a recipe for disappointment over the past three long
years. Other states from Europe to the Middle East to the Horn of
Africa will also need to work whatever angles they can – seeking to
forge a rapprochement among the Quad’s Arab states, encouraging
discussion of Sudan’s political future and (in the case of regional
powers) striving to manage the risk of spillover.
Three years into Sudan’s horrendous conflict, there is no clear path
out of it. But if those positioned to do so use the tools at their
disposal, they may yet be able to blaze such a trail and, in the
meantime, limit the risk that this war spreads its misery any further
in the region.
Nairobi/Riyadh/Abu Dhabi/Brussels, 13 April 2026
https://www.crisisgroup.org/brf/africa/sudan-egypt-saudi-arabia-united-arab-emirates-united-states/b211-divided-sudan-elusive-peace
END
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John Ashworth
ashwor...@gmail.com
+254 725 926 297 (Kenya mobile, WhatsApp and Signal)
PO Box 403 - 00206, Kiserian, Kenya
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