Sudan's Proxy War: How 7 Powers Fuel World's Worst Crisis

How gold, drones, and geopolitics transformed Sudan's civil war into the world's deadliest conflict.

Summary

While global attention fixates on Gaza and Ukraine, Sudan has descended into what the United Nations calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

A power struggle between two military factions that began in April 2023 has metastasized into a sprawling proxy war, with at least seven foreign powers backing rival Sudanese forces to secure strategic footholds across northeast Africa.

The numbers tell a grim story: approximately 400,000 dead over two and a half years, nearly 12 million displaced, and 25 million facing acute hunger. Despite the destruction of entire cities in Darfur and the ongoing systematic massacres, this catastrophe only receives a fraction of the media attention that other conflicts garner.

Dear readers and subscribers,

I combined various documents and investigations conducted by various reputable sources to present my readership with a clear (or clearer) understanding of the forgotten or complex situation in the Sudan.

This investigation examines how the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo became proxies for a complex web of regional and global powers pursuing interests that have nothing to do with Sudanese welfare.