More than two years into Sudan’s brutal civil conflict, the war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has transformed into a drawn-out contest over territory, legitimacy, and control of key transit corridors.
What began in April 2023 as a power struggle between two rival military factions has evolved into a complex internal conflict, with far-reaching consequences for civilian populations and regional stability. Despite fluctuations in active battlefronts — including a marked decline in fighting intensity by mid-2024 — the war has not slowed in strategic significance. Instead, both sides have redirected efforts toward consolidating control over vital logistical hubs, transport routes, and symbolic urban centers such as El Fasher and Khartoum.
Recent developments in 2024 and early 2025 reveal shifting dynamics. The SAF has made tactical gains in central and eastern Sudan and launched a renewed offensive around Khartoum, while the RSF continues to assert control in Darfur and Kordofan, using violence not only as a military tool but also to intimidate civilian populations in contested areas. New forms of warfare — notably the use of drones and expanded airstrikes — have further complicated the conflict, underscoring a growing reliance on asymmetric tactics and foreign-supplied capabilities.
This article explores Sudan’s ongoing war through the lens of international relations and security studies. It argues that the conflict is not merely a domestic struggle, but a geopolitical flashpoint shaped by transnational interests, hybrid warfare, and the erosion of state institutions. By analyzing territorial shifts, evolving military strategies, and their humanitarian consequences, the piece situates Sudan within broader debates on regional instability, foreign intervention, and the limits of international diplomacy.
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- Strategic Geography and Control of Corridors
The territorial logic of Sudan’s civil war has become increasingly defined by access to strategic supply routes, logistical chokepoints, and border corridors that determine the operational mobility of each faction. While the SAF have concentrated efforts on consolidating control in the country’s east and center, the RSF have doubled down on a westward strategy—fortifying strongholds in Darfur and Kordofan and pushing to secure key towns like Babanusa and El Fasher. These areas are more than symbolic; they are vital arteries for the movement of troops, weapons, fuel, and humanitarian supplies.
An illustrative case is the RSF’s seizure of the Libyan‑Egyptian‑Sudanese border triangle in mid-2024. By securing this strategic zone, the RSF forged a corridor linking Darfur to Libya and Egypt, facilitating potential arms flows, trade, and foreign logistical support. This expansion enhanced the RSF’s operational reach, complicating SAF efforts to isolate its adversary in western Sudan. In response, the SAF has launched operations in central and eastern Sudan, aiming to disrupt these corridors and encircle transport routes stretching into Kordofan and Darfur.
The town of Babanusa in West Kordofan exemplifies the strategic tug-of-war shaping Sudan’s conflict. Lying along the Western Salvation Road, it serves as a vital logistics pivot between SAF-held central Sudan and RSF-controlled western regions. Its capture would severely limit the SAF’s ability to reinforce Darfur, while granting the RSF seamless access from central to western fronts. Meanwhile, El Fashir—the last SAF-controlled capital in Darfur—has endured months of RSF siege and bombardment, highlighting the SAF’s faltering control in a region long marked by ethnopolitical tensions and humanitarian decline. These corridor battles are far more than incidental clashes: they are deliberate maneuvers tied to each side’s political brinkmanship. For the RSF, control over Darfur and Kordofan underpins its claim to an alternate governance model; for the SAF, holding these choke points is essential to prevent RSF consolidation and reclaim strategic ground. This geography-driven struggle not only prolongs the war but also militarizes civilian zones, deepens humanitarian crises, and blurs any path toward negotiated peace.
Military Dynamics and Emerging Warfare Trends
Sudan’s military dynamics have undergone a profound transformation. Traditional ground clashes over territory are now being supplemented — and in some cases replaced — by the expanded use of drone strikes, long-range artillery, and intensified aerial bombardments. Both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have adapted to a prolonged, high-intensity conflict with shifting frontlines and limited international oversight. By mid-2024, RSF drone strikes reached deeper into SAF-controlled regions than ever before, targeting army bases and civilian infrastructure in eastern and central Sudan. These attacks, enabled by foreign drone technology, disrupted logistics and raised the RSF’s operational threat profile significantly.
Meanwhile, both sides intensified heavy artillery and air campaigns. The SAF, maintaining air superiority, launched major aerial attacks in Khartoum, El Gezira, and Darfur, causing mass civilian casualties and displacement. The RSF, meanwhile, increasingly relied on mobile units, urban hideouts, and hit-and-run tactics — often employing civilians or civilian infrastructure as shields, complicating the already dire humanitarian situation. These tactical shifts reflect more than battlefield improvisation—they indicate a hardened strategy focused on attrition rather than rapid victories. The SAF’s once‑planned swift retaking of Khartoum has devolved into a war of exhaustion, where territory is traded for time and pressure. In Darfur and Kordofan, combat has centered on key towns such as El Fashir and Babanusa, underscoring the logistical and symbolic value of these locations.
What emerges is a hybrid war. This evolution signifies more than just changing tactics; it reveals a deeper collapse in Sudan’s political and institutional architecture. With no enforceable peace process or international deterrent, both parties continue to escalate unchecked, offering a concerning precedent for other fragile states facing internal military rivalries.
Regional and International Implications
The Sudanese conflict, though rooted in domestic power struggles, has evolved into a major regional and international crisis. After over two years of fighting, its consequences now extend far beyond Sudan’s borders—destabilizing neighboring countries, weakening regional security mechanisms, and exposing the shortcomings of global diplomacy. One of the immediate repercussions has been the mass cross‑border displacement. With conflict erupting in April 2023, Sudan has endured one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises: over 12 million displaced, including more than 4 million refugees seeking safety in Chad, South Sudan, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, and Uganda. Chad alone has received over 844,000 refugees, many fleeing RSF-perpetrated attacks in Darfur and suffering human rights abuses en route.
Strategically, the RSF’s capture of the Libyan–Egyptian–Sudanese border triangle has created corridors for arms, trade, and influence from Sahel and North African actors—including Libya’s militias and Egypt’s balancing diplomacy over Nile water politics. Meanwhile, the SAF’s increased reliance on drones and air power suggests possible external backing, though much remains opaque. International response has been fragmented and largely ineffective. Mediation efforts led by the African Union, IGAD, the United Nations, and regional partners have repeatedly failed to produce lasting ceasefires or cohesive strategies. Diplomacy remains fractured, with overlapping initiatives undermining coherence, while peace talks—such as those in Jeddah—have stalled amid the exclusion of key actors and persistent.
This crisis also underscores a global governance dilemma: Sudan highlights the tension between norms on responsibility to protect (R2P), humanitarian access, and post-conflict peacebuilding, and the political reality of sovereignty-based resistance to external intervention. Without a unified multilateral strategy that combines diplomacy, accountability, and humanitarian coordination, Sudan risks a descent into state failure—and sets a worrying precedent for future internal conflicts. Finally, the conflict once again reveals the gap between international legal principles and geopolitical realism. Despite UN condemnations and calls for a ceasefire, enforcement mechanisms remain largely ineffective. The ongoing war advances in a vacuum of deterrence, reinforcing the message to combatants that international condemnation carries little consequence.
Conclusion
The war in Sudan is no longer a localized power struggle between two rival factions. As the SAF and RSF battle for control of strategic corridors and urban centers, their tactics have increasingly eroded civilian safety, weakened national institutions, and widened the scope of the humanitarian disaster. Through evolving methods of warfare, including the use of drones, long-range bombardments, and information manipulation, both parties have adapted to a prolonged stalemate with little regard for the rules of armed conflict. The resulting security vacuum has empowered local militias, criminal networks, and transnational actors, creating a fragmented and dangerous landscape that extends beyond Sudan’s borders.
Internationally, the conflict highlights the paralysis of global diplomacy in the face of complex internal wars. Despite clear warnings of mass atrocities, the absence of sustained international engagement or effective mediation has allowed the war to continue unchecked. Sudan’s descent into chaos reflects not just a domestic governance failure, but also a broader breakdown in the international community’s capacity—or will—to respond.
