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NAIROBI, KENYA —As Sudan's humanitarian crisis grows more dire, concerns are growing that foreign actors with interests in Sudan are complicating the situation and making it harder to end a 14-month war that has driven millions from their homes and has put parts of the country on the brink of famine.
Calls to end the fighting during the past year have come from around the world, including the United Nations, the African Union, the Arab League and East Africa's Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). IGAD tried to send the presidents of Kenya, South Sudan and Djibouti to Khartoum to mediate the crisis, the group's spokesperson at the time, Nuur Mohamud Sheekh, told VOA.
But so far, that initiative has not materialized. Other powers like the United States, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have led efforts to broker cease-fires that came and went without much effect.
Some have questioned how each of the warring factions - the Sudan Armed Forces, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti - have funded the war and supported their fighters for 14 months.
"There's a lot of resources and money that is being invested in this war, particularly on the RSF side," said Hala al-Karib, regional director for the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa.
Al-Karib believes the RSF is getting military and political support from the United Arab Emirates, while the Sudanese army may be getting help from Iran and Egypt. Her views are echoed by other analysts, including Kwaku Nuamah, a senior lecturer at American University's School of International Services.
Russia's state-run militia formerly known as the Wagner Group has also been identified as a major supplier of arms to the RSF.
Egypt's support of al-Burhan is largely a reflection of long-standing ties between the SAF and the Egyptian military, Nuamah said. He added that Iran's role in the conflict - once generally neutral, now one of active support for al-Burhan - reflects past good relations with the Sudanese government and contemporary geostrategic concerns, including Tehran's need for allies as it faces crushing global sanctions.
However, Michael Walsh, a senior fellow in the Africa program at the U.S.-based Foreign Policy Research Institute, cautions that hard evidence of outside support for either side in the Sudan conflict is hard to come by.
"Many of the journalists who are covering the region, they are covering it from Egypt. People have been displaced, embassies have been displaced," he said. "Given the security implications of information of who's supporting either party, it's really difficult to get access to that information and there's a huge risk of misinformation and disinformation."
War, humanitarian crisis
The war began on April 15, 2023, when Sudanese citizens awoke to sounds of gunfire and clashes in the capital, Khartoum, pitting units of the Sudan Armed Forces against the RSF.
At the time, al-Burhan was head of Sudan's transitional governing Sovereign Council; Dagalo was the deputy head. Tensions between the generals had been rising over disagreements about how the RSF should be integrated into the Sudanese army. Restructuring the military was part of an effort to restore the country to civilian rule after the ouster of former Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir in 2019 and a 2021 military coup orchestrated by the two generals.
The war quickly spread beyond the capital. Since its beginning, more than 8.8 million people have fled their homes and nearly 16,000 fatalities have been reported by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED), a data collection, analysis and crisis mapping project.
UAE links?
"Both sides have continued to violate the laws of armed conflict in multiple ways, with the support of outside actors allegedly ranging from the UAE to Russia to Iran to Egypt and others," Nathaniel Raymond, executive director at the Yale School of Public Health's Humanitarian Research Lab, told VOA.
The Yale humanitarian research lab has been tracking action in Sudan since the war started using satellite and other technology. In a report published last week, the lab used satellite images to identify an Ilyushin (IL-76) - a large Russian-made transport plane - flying June 11 near Sudan's El-Fasher region, above RSF-controlled territory.
The finding is significant, Raymond said, because the same model of plane has "also been seen at facilities identified by the United Nations panel of experts as being linked to alleged UAE lethal support activities on behalf of RSF in Sudan."
A report earlier this year by a U.N. panel of experts noted that accusations that UAE had provided military support to RSF via Amdjarass city in Chad were "credible."
About the IL-76, Raymond noted that "we don't know who was flying this plane and we are working to differentiate whether it was a Sudan Armed Forces plane or was resupplying RSF or was transiting through over El-Fasher."
Regardless, he said, it makes one wonder about what activities are going on to supply both sides in the conflict.
The UAE strongly rejects allegations of its involvement in the conflict and categorically denies the provision of military, logistical, financial or political support to any faction in Sudan, the UAE's foreign ministry told VOA in response to a query.
The UAE pointed out to VOA that after the Sudanese authorities refused a request in 2023 by the UAE to build a hospital inside Sudan to provide medical support to the wounded, the UAE built two field hospitals close to the Chadian-Sudanese border known as Amdjarass and Abeche. They have extended an invitation to the U.N. panel of experts to visit the hospitals and observe.
Why Sudan?
Walsh, at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said it's important to remember "there are some individuals in this conflict who have relationships with foreign actors that extend way before the start of hostilities in the current civil war ... in Sudan. There are connections to Yemen and other conflicts."
Russia's Wagner mercenary group, which was renamed the Africa Corps after the death of its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has also reportedly been present for years in Sudan, although Wagner denied this. The U.S. Treasury Department accused the group last year of providing the RSF with surface-to-air missiles that have contributed to "a prolonged armed conflict that only results in further chaos in the region."
According to more recent media reports, Ukrainian special forces have intervened on behalf of SAF to counter the Russian mercenary group. Ukraine has been at war with Russia for over two years now. Russia has used Wagner fighters to help fight its war in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with al-Burhan in Ireland in September 2023 to discuss Russia-funded armed groups. At the meeting, Zelenskyy thanked the Sudanese general for his country's support of Ukraine's territorial integrity.
There are also reports that Sudanese authorities are about to strike a deal for the construction of a logistical supply base for the Russian navy on its Red Sea coast. The Sudan Tribune reported this month that a Sudanese military delegation would visit Moscow soon to discuss the country's needs for weapons and munitions.
American University's Nuamah said Sudan is of interest to outside actors because of its strategic location on the coast of Red Sea at the crossroads of sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East; its possession of lootable natural resources such as gold; and the fact that it shares borders with numerous fragile states in a turbulent region. The Red Sea provides access to the Suez Canal and is one of the most heavily traveled waterways in the world.
In any case, Sudan is looking at a gloomy situation for the near term. ACLED ranks Sudan as one of the 50 most violent countries in the world, saying that conditions continue to get worse as mass killings remain a key feature of that conflict.
Earlier this month, about 200 people were killed during attacks by RSF soldiers on unarmed civilians in the village of Wad al-Noura, in Sudan's Gezira state. The attack was widely condemned by the international community and prompted renewed calls for a cease-fire.
Al-Karib of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa, who relocated to Uganda after the war started, still has friends and family in Sudan. Painting a grim picture of the war-torn country, she said that "people are getting killed regularly just for being themselves. People are being ... kidnapped and detained for lengthy periods of time. Women can't travel from point A to point B safely. Communities are looted completely."