Sudan’s civil war began as a struggle between two rival factions, but the battle is growing more complex as armed civilian groups, rebel fighters, and tribal and regional militias have joined the grinding, back-and-forth fray.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) controlled the capital, Khartoum, for two years until March, when the national Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, reclaimed it with the help of armed civilians.
“Khartoum was not just a battlefield defeat for the RSF,” Mohamed Saad, a researcher at Charles University in the Czech Republic, wrote for The Conversation. “It was a turning point in how the war is fought — it’s no longer a military struggle but a battle involving armed civilians across Sudan.”
According to Saad, Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo built the RSF on tribal loyalty, but many factions have felt slighted by Hemedti, and the RSF’s cohesion has suffered. The RSF has been accused of committing mass killings, sexual violence and looting. The rival national forces are also accused of committing atrocities against civilians.
“Internal divisions within the RSF [also] have played a major role in its recent losses,” Saad wrote. “Some former RSF fighters have formed their own militias.”
Analysts: Additional Actors Will Prolong War
Both the SAF and RSF have made nationwide efforts to recruit new troops, and several communities across the country have chosen sides and committed to send fighters into battle. Analysts say additional actors will only prolong the war.
In urban areas in central Sudan, Khartoum, North Darfur, North Kordofan, South Kordofan and West Kordofan, neighborhood defense units have emerged. Formed to protect residents from the RSF, they have expanded their roles and increasingly operate outside SAF oversight, according to Saad. In Darfur and Kordofan, where entrenched ethnic and political rivalries have intertwined with the current war, tribal and regional militias have also become more prominent. Some of them are aligned with SAF, while others pursue their own agendas.
The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, an ethnic-linked group, has expanded its operations in Kordofan and the Blue Nile state. The group has allied with the RSF to push its own agenda, which includes “securing greater autonomy for these regions and promoting a secular political framework that challenges Khartoum’s Islamist-leaning governance,” Saad wrote. Other ethnic militias operate in eastern Sudan.
Islamist-linked militias, particularly the El Baraa Ibn Malik Brigade, now a key SAF ally, also have emerged. The Brigade was named after a famous Muslim fighter during early Muslim conquests. RSF supporters have complained on social media that these fighters are remnants of the Omar al-Bashir regime that was toppled in a 2019 coup.
Another Islamist group, the Sudanese Popular Resistance Factions (PRF), supports the SAF. In 2023, it released a video in which masked gunmen pledged to “liberate Khartoum and cleanse it of the filth of these [RSF] mercenaries.” The group’s name echoes that of the resistance committees that played a role in al-Bashir’s ouster. Unlike those committees, the PRF “espouses violence rather than non-violence and emerged not from the grassroots but from the shadows,” the Sudan War Monitor reported.
If the rise of armed groups is not stemmed, Saad says they may evolve and establish territories where local commanders wield unchecked power. This would undermine the possibility of establishing central governance in Sudan.
“These groups don’t share a single goal,” he wrote. “Some fight for self-defense, others for political power. Some for revenue and wealth. Others are seeking ethnic control — Sudan’s population has 56 ethnic groups and 595 sub-ethnic groups. This is what makes Sudan’s war even more dangerous: fragmentation is creating multiple mini-wars within the larger conflict.”
‘A War on Your Future’
Attempts at a ceasefire through talks in Jeddah, Addis Ababa and Geneva have failed to end the violence as each side seeks to gain and maintain momentum. After recent military setbacks, the RSF in late May regained control of El Dabibat, a strategic gateway between Kordofan and Darfur, after launching drone strikes and ground assaults on the SAF and allied fighters, Dabanga Sudan reported. The SAF had claimed control of the town days before.
Abdul Mohammed, a former African Union and United Nations official, recently urged the Sudanese people to take ownership of their country’s path to peace, arguing that international mediation alone cannot end the war. Writing in the Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker, Mohammed called for a grassroots movement driven by the people, rather than politicians.
“This war is not merely a military confrontation,” Mohammed wrote. “It is a war on your dignity, your identity, your communities, and your future.”