After nearly two years of fighting between the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Force (RSF), Sudan is looking at the possibility of being divided by a de facto partition that roughly separates Darfur from the rest of the country.
The RSF is entrenched in the western region, which is almost the size of France, even as the army advances through other parts of the country, leading to a division that could grow even stronger.
Analysts say that if this happens, not only could the country be marred by more localized conflicts, it could also lead to further state collapse.
“A split would be the beginning of the end for Sudan,” said Kholood Khair, founder of Confluence Advisory, a think tank focused on Sudanese political issues.
Given the devastation Sudan has already experienced, it’s hard to imagine things getting any worse.
Of fighting broke out in April 2023 between the army and the RSF in control of the country, tens of thousands of people have been killed, millions have been displaced, and millions are facing starvation.
However, Khair told Al Jazeera that if the division solidifies further and the fighting stops, it could fracture and divide the loose coalitions built around the army and the RSF, making it difficult to reach a lasting peace deal.
“The country would immediately fall apart and there would be less opportunity to put Humpty Dumpty back together,” she said.
The dividing line
The Sudanese army recently won a significant victory from regaining control of Wada Madanithe second largest city in Sudan.
Wad Madani was under RSF control for a year, during which RSF forces committed serious human rights violations, according to local observers.
Since then, there have been credible reports of the military executing people based on perceived links to the RSF, a claim the military has denied, but previously accused of.
The RSF’s failure to hold Wad Madani is partly attributed to their inability to recruit loyal recruits from outside Darfur.
The region is a traditional stronghold of the RSF. The paramilitary force was formed from the “Janjaweed” tribal militias, which became a notorious state-backed group used as a counter-insurgency force during the Darfur War, a 17-year conflict that officially ended in 2020.
Outside of Darfur, support for the RSF is limited. Analysts have suggested that the RSF could soon lose control of the capital, Khartoum, in the coming weeks, which could force them to withdraw and focus on trying to capture el-Fasherthe capital of North Darfur.
The city was under siege by the RSF for months, and hundreds of people were killed, according to the United Nations.
Since the RSF already holds East, West, Central and South Darfur, capturing the northern capital would bring the entire region under their control.
This would be no small victory as Darfur, a resource-rich region, strategically shares borders with Chad, South Sudan and Libya.
“This looks like a scenario that [the army and RSF] he would be satisfied because it also allows for a military victory, while other scenarios do not,” said Khair.
Leaving Darfur?
The war in Sudan attracted foreign countries, allowing the army and the RSF to maintain their war effort and control large parts of the country.
A year ago, the army was on the brink of collapse after losing the state of Gezira to the RSF, prompting a call for an army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan to step down.
The stunning defeat prompted Iran, Turkey and Egypt to step up support to save the military, Khair said.
“People who support the military say it’s a different animal than it was last year,” she told Al Jazeera. “They have more modern weapons and are much better in terms of logistics, and they also get a lot of help from Egypt and the Turks. … The military is a much different entity than it was last year.”
Khair said Egypt had long insisted that Gezira and Khartoum be returned to military control to strengthen its legitimacy as an undisputed sovereign authority.
Cairo, she added, would like the army to retake all of Sudan, but could accept a scenario in which the RSF is pushed back into Darfur.
“Maybe Egypt will be able to live with the division,” Khair said.
It will likely be difficult for the Sudanese army to take over Darfur if the RSF becomes more entrenched, said Hamid Khalafallah, a Sudanese political analyst.
He said that if the RSF managed to control all of Darfur, it would probably be able to hold onto the region indefinitely.
“It will take a lot for the military to defeat the RSF in Darfur, and the military doesn’t seem interested at all [in retaking the region]Khalafallah told Al Jazeera.
But that would mean abandoning local groups such as the Sudan Liberation Movement, led by Minni Ark Minnawi (SLM-MM), and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), which in November 2023 announced its support for the army against the RSF.
Both groups were mainly composed of non-Arab Zaghawa fighters. “Non-Arabs” in the periphery of Sudan mainly refer to sedentary farmers, while “Arabs” are considered pastoralists and nomads.
They are both black and Muslim and have been married for centuries. During the war in Darfur, SLA-MM and JEM rebelled against the central government protesting the economic and political marginalization of their region.
Over the past two decades, both groups have signed numerous peace agreements in the hope of gaining access to state resources and accumulating some power in the country.
Those same incentives drove the groups to support the military in the current war, analysts told Al Jazeera.
They added that the army could abandon these armed movements and their allies in exchange for the capture of Khartoum.
But this does not necessarily mean the end of resistance against the RSF in Darfur, nor does it rule out SLA-MM and JEM deals with the RSF.
“Even if the RSF regroups and focuses on capturing el-Fasher, it does not mean that they will have an easy victory, even if [army] is leaving Darfur,” Anette Hoffman, a Sudan expert at the Clingendael Institute, an independent Dutch think tank, told Al Jazeera, explaining that the armed movements in el-Fasher are capable fighters who can still mount a strong defense.
Total collapse of the state
Suliman Baldo, founder of the Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker think tank, said the RSF and the army are handing the fight to allied groups.
The nature of these forces could lead to fierce conflicts within the army and the RSF if they consolidate control of their strongholds.
Internal conflicts between the Salamat and Beni Halba, two Arab tribes fighting in support of the RSF in South and Central Darfur, have already occurred last year, leading to mass displacement and many casualties.
The two sides clashed as they competed for loot, according to local news reports.
Separately, the army and its allied movements recruited civilians auxiliary militiaand Baldo believes that these groups will grow stronger over time and then pressure the military to acquire more power and wealth, similar to the Arab tribal militias that eventually became the RSF.
“Each [of the army’s militias] it will require the sharing of wealth and power in any post-conflict situation,” Baldo warned. “The military thinks it can manipulate these groups, but they create chaos.”
