Sudan’s 2-year-old war began as a fight for supremacy between the leaders of the national Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF), but it has evolved into a proxy struggle between two Persian Gulf nations looking to expand their influence in Africa.
On the SAF’s side is Saudi Arabia, whose relationship with Sudan goes back to the 1950s. Saudi leaders have cultivated a relationship with SAF leader Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who also is Sudan’s de facto leader. Al-Burhan visited Saudi Arabia in March to discuss strengthening relations between the two countries.
The United Arab Emirates has thrown its weight behind the RSF, channeling weapons to the Darfur-based fighters through humanitarian operations for displaced Sudanese living in Chad. The UAE has built its relationship with the RSF around gold smuggled into the UAE from mines controlled by the militia’s leader, Gen. Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo.
The two monarchies’ strategies in Sudan reflect the ways their international priorities have diverged in recent years, according to analyst Elfadil Ibrahim. Two nations that once were closely aligned geopolitically have become rivals.
“Ultimately, Sudan is paying the price for this fractured Gulf relationship,” Ibrahim wrote recently for Responsible Statecraft. “As long as the rivalry persists, Sudan will remain tragically caught in the crossfire.”
Saudi Arabia seeks to maintain stability in a volatile region. Saudi leaders see the Red Sea as crucial to their economic growth as a venue for tourism and as a way to protect oil shipments by shifting some oil ports away from the Strait of Hormuz. The strait is bordered by Saudi Arabia’s regional rival Iran, along with the UAE and Oman.
“The UAE’s actions in Sudan appear consistent with a wider regional modus operandi,” Ibrahim wrote. “Abu Dhabi’s playbook involves empowering non-state actors, often with secessionist leanings, to secure access to resources and strategic geography.”
The UAE’s strategy in Sudan has echoes in eastern Libya, where it backed Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, and in Somalia, where it has armed and funded forces in Puntland, Somaliland and Jubbaland. There are indications that the UAE has used Puntland’s Bosaso port to supply RSF forces in Sudan, according to Ibrahim.
The UAE also supported the RSF’s proposal in February to create a parallel government to rule areas of Sudan under its control. Saudi officials joined the SAF in rejecting that proposal.
The Gulf states’ support is one reason the fighting continues in Sudan, according to Federico Donelli, a political scientist at the University of Trieste in Italy.
“As long as Hemedti has support from UAE and al-Burhan from Saudi Arabia, I don’t see any end to the conflict in Sudan, I’m afraid,” Donelli wrote recently for the Nordic Africa Institute. “In this sense it is a kind of a proxy war because they are supporting one side of the conflict to create problems for their rival.”
The RSF needs the UAE’s support to continue fighting more than the SAF needs aid from Saudi Arabia, according to Donelli. Sudan’s location makes it a crossroads from which both Gulf nations seek to extend their influence westward into the Sahel and south into Sub-Saharan Africa. In the short term, however, there’s the risk that their involvement in Sudan could contribute to instability in the Horn of Africa, according to Donelli.
“Sudan sits in the middle of two regions which have high levels of instability and conflict — the Sahel to the west and the Horn of Africa connected with the Red Sea to the east,” Donelli wrote. “What happens in Sudan is of strategic interest for many actors. The UAE and Saudi Arabia’s rivalry in the Horn of Africa is a powder keg waiting to explode.”