How The War In Sudan Could End

How the War in Sudan Could End

As the Battlefield Stabilizes, a Window for Negotiations Opens

Volker Perthes

February 11, 2026

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The war in Sudan is a battle for land and resources. Over nearly three years of conflict, the Sudanese Armed Forces—the country’s regular army—and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have traded territory at an unimaginable human cost. Since April 2023, more than 12 million people have been displaced within Sudan or sought refuge in neighboring countries. Half the population faces severe food shortages, and acute hunger afflicts several regions, including Darfur. Evidence of massacres has been covered up and bodies from street fighting in Khartoum are still buried under the rubble, making the death toll impossible to count; it is estimated to exceed 150,000.

Amid this brutality, more clearly defined battle lines have begun to emerge. Early in the war, the RSF had controlled most of the capital city, Khartoum, located on the Nile River in the center of the country, and most of Darfur in the west. In 2024, it also occupied most of El Gezira state, south of Khartoum. The SAF held on to the inhabited parts of the north and the east, and the SAF-affiliated government retreated from Khartoum to Port Sudan on the eastern Red Sea coast. The rest of the country remained embattled. The SAF recaptured El Gezira in January and Khartoum in March 2025, pushing the RSF west of the Nile River valley. This withdrawal from central Sudan enabled the RSF to concentrate its forces in Darfur and besiege El Fasher, the capital of Darfur and the last SAF stronghold in the west. In October, the RSF overran El Fasher. Thousands of civilians trapped in the city were massacred.

The RSF now controls the capitals of all five states in Darfur, cementing its rule across the western parts of the country, and the SAF has consolidated its control of the east and most of the central provinces along the Nile. Battles continue in the Kordofan region, located between the Nile River valley and Darfur, and in the southern Blue Nile state, which borders South Sudan and Ethiopia. From the start of the war, both the SAF under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the RSF under General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, have aimed to bring all of Sudan under their control. Both still claim that victory is possible, but the map suggests otherwise. Sudan, in effect, is now split in two.

The country’s increasingly entrenched divide could pave the way for a new phase in the war. It might lead to a situation in which the frontlines are gradually frozen, as both the SAF and RSF realize that they will not be able to make significant territorial gains beyond what they control today. This could lead to a more permanent division of the country under two authorities, or to fragmentation on both sides.Or, if the regional and international players with the most influence over the warring parties apply enough pressure, the current split could be an opportunity to negotiate a cease-fire—and, in time, an end to this horrific war.

A TALE OF TWO ARMIES

The war is often described as a conflict between two generals, the SAF’s Burhan and the RSF’s Hemedti. But more precisely, it is a conflict between two militaries—the regular army and a parallel force—that are each backed by national and regional constituencies and networks. The involvement of various tribal or ideological militias has, over time, turned what began as a purely military-to-military confrontation into a broader civil war.

The current conflict has roots in the war in Darfur that began in 2003, in which the Sudanese army launched a counterinsurgency campaign against non-Arab rebel groups with the help of local Arab militias, often collectively referred to as Janjaweed. The UN estimates that hundreds of thousands of people, primarily non-Arab Darfuri civilians, were killed. Large-scale war crimes allegedly committed by the Janjaweed are still under investigation by the International Criminal Court. Burhan and Hemedti know each other from that war, when both were on the side of the government fighting the rebel uprising. Burhan was a regional commander in the Sudanese army; Hemedti led a smaller militia that was one of many armed groups that supported the SAF in its fight against the rebels.

The Sudanese government under the longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir established the RSF in 2013 with Hemedti as its commander, drawing mostly from Arab militias to fill its ranks. Most RSF fighters today hail from Arab tribes in Darfur and Kordofan. And although the RSF was set up as part of Bashir’s state security apparatus, Hemedti has run it a family business—his older brother is its deputy commander, a younger brother its chief financial officer, and most of the core leadership comes from his own tribe.

Bashir was overthrown ing months of popular protests in 2019. At first the military attempted to rule alone, but as protests continued, it had to accept a civilian-military arrangement. The government was led by a civilian prime minister, and an 11-member Transitional Sovereignty Council functioned as a collective head of state, with Burhan as its chair and Hemedti as his deputy. In October 2021, Burhan and Hemeti jointly staged a coup against the civilian government and assumed executive power. They fared poorly as leaders. Sudanese society resisted their rule, they lacked international support, and the economy was running aground. Eventually, Burhan and Hemedti began to reach out to civilian politicians and members of the government they had overthrown. By December 2022, they reached a preliminary agreement to return Sudan to civilian rule. In April 2023, after four months of negotiating the details in talks facilitated by the UN, the African Union, and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, an East African regional organization, one key issue remained unresolved: how to integrate the RSF into the Sudanese army. Burhan and the SAF wanted this done as quickly and comprehensively as possible. Hemedti, however, did not want to lose control of his troops and, with it, his source of power and wealth.

Sudan, in effect, is now split in two.

The disagreement between the leaders of the SAF and RSF prevented a conclusion of these negotiations and brought the two militaries to war. Both have recruited rebel groups and various ideological, tribal, or criminal militias to their sides. The SAF, for instance, draws support from Islamist armed groups, such as the Al-Baraa bin Malik militia, and from former rebel groups that had signed a deal with the transitional government, the Juba Peace Agreement, in 2020, including the Minawi faction of the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement. The Al-Hilu wing of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army-North (SPLM/N-AH), which is not a party to the Juba Agreement and has held on to substantial territory in the Nuba mountains in Kordofan, declined to take sides at first but entered an alliance with the RSF in 2025.

Ethnic divides and racism play a role in the conflict, most notably in the massacres committed by the predominantly Arab RSF against non-Arab peoples such as the Masalit and the Zaghawa. But center-periphery and ideological divides complicate the picture. There are Arab militias aligned with both the RSF and the SAF, and the same is true of non-Arab armed groups. Some militias are primarily opportunistic; several have switched sides when promised higher pay, more territorial control, or better security for their communities.

The SAF and the RSF both accuse each other of having started the war. Both had certainly geared up for it. And the military leaders on both sides undoubtedly bear responsibility for three years of violence, war crimes, and unspeakable human rights violations. RSF fighters have committed most of the on-the-ground killing, rape, and looting, while the SAF has used its air force (which the RSF lacks) to bomb markets and civilian infrastructure in towns and villages under RSF control or where the army suspected that RSF supporters were located. Both warring parties have used control over humanitarian aid as a weapon—the RSF by starving El Fasher in its military siege and the SAF by repeatedly placing bureaucratic obstacles in the way of the World Food Program, other UN agencies, and international aid organizations attempting to bring relief to people in areas under RSF control.

Most Sudanese who are not aligned with either the SAF or the RSF might see the SAF as the lesser of two evils. Sudan’s people have repeatedly risen up against the armed forces during periods of military dictatorship, but the SAF has a clear chain of command and administrative experience that the RSF does not. Whenever the RSF has captured a city, it has committed mass atrocities, and waves of refugees have tried to escape its rule. When the SAF recaptured El Gezira state and Khartoum, its soldiers and allied militias also committed war crimes, such as executing captured RSF fighters and young men who, based on appearance, they suspected of supporting the RSF. Yet the residents of these areas did not flee in large numbers when the SAF arrived. Rather, many people who had previously fled returned home or began preparing to do so, obviously feeling safer under SAF rule than they did under the RSF.

POLITICAL AGENDAS

What has made this war so intractable is that both sides claim to be the legitimate representatives of Sudan and both sides have foreign powers supporting their cause. Burhan’s claim is the more widely accepted. In addition to his role as army chief, he has been the head of the Transitional Sovereignty Council since 2019, retaining the position even after his and Hemedti’s coup. He has also maintained control over government ministries. The United Nations and most foreign countries deal with him as Sudan’s de facto head of state. Most Sudanese regard him as such, too, even though a large part question the legitimacy of his position since the 2021 coup. The RSF’s atrocities, including those in El Fasher, have no doubt helped Burhan and his government make the case that they represent and defend the state against a predatory militia.

Yet the RSF leadership and its limited number of civilian supporters also claim that the group is the legitimate representative of Sudan. They say that they are fighting against an unjust regime that is dominated by a small military, bureaucratic, and economic elite that originates from the Nile River valley and has exploited the peoples on Sudan’s peripheries, whether Arab or African, since the country gained independence in 1956. Hemedti is certainly not a credible champion of justice, human rights, inclusive governance, or secularism. But he has managed to capitalize on a widespread sense of exclusion among large parts of the Sudanese population, as well as the resentment toward the Sudanese Islamic Movement, a variant of the Muslim Brotherhood that dominated politics under the Bashir regime and has made a comeback under Burhan, who has allowed the Islamists to rebuild and expand their influence in the army, intelligence agencies, judiciary, and administration in return for their support.

Neither the SAF nor the RSF would have been able to sustain this war and defend their political claims without external backing. Egypt, Sudan’s neighbor to the north, has been the SAF’s strongest supporter since the beginning of the war. Egypt’s military leadership prefers a general at the helm of its southern neighbor, and Cairo has a strong interest in keeping Sudan on its side in its dispute with Ethiopia over the waters of the Nile. Since the fall of El Fasher, Cairohas increased its involvement. According to reporting in The New York Times and elsewhere, Egypt is now not only providing intelligence and material to the SAF but also, among other things, allowing drone operations against the RSF to launch from Egyptian territory. The SAF has also received arms from Iran, from Russia, and, increasingly, from Turkey. Saudi Arabia tried to position itself as a neutral mediator when the war started—together with the United States, it co-hosted negotiations between the SAF and the RSF in Jeddah in 2023—but Riyadh has gradually moved closer to the SAF side.

Saudi Arabia’s growing support for the SAF is largely a response to the United Arab Emirates’ support for the RSF, which Riyadh fears could bring about an RSF victory that would fragment and destabilize not only Sudan but the entire Red Sea region. The UAE has repeatedly denied supplying the RSF with weapons, but it undoubtedly supports the group politically and materially. It sees the RSF as a counterweight to Islamist influence in the SAF and its government. The UAE regards Islamist forces across the Arab world as a dangerous challenge to its own secular authoritarian model, and it does not want Sudan, a country at the center of Red Sea and East African geopolitics, to fall under the control of inimical forces.

TURNING POINT

The tragedy of El Fasher, by completing the stark division of SAF- and RSF-held territory, could end up creating the conditions for some kind of truce. The RSF has set up its own government in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur state, which it sees as its natural base. (No country, not even neighbors such as Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Sudan, which have remained neutral but lean toward the RSF, has recognized this government.) RSF authorities are now attempting, with some difficulty, to administer those areas of Darfur where Hemedti’s troops have consolidated their control. RSF militants in Darfur are fighting on home turf and will be more motivated to hold on to it than they were in Khartoum. On the other side, Burhan and other top SAF generals are Sudanese nationalists who want to preserve the country’s current borders and bring all its territory under the authority of one central government. But some of their Islamist allies whose main constituencies are in the north and along the Nile may prefer to give up Darfur and other peripheral areas if they cannot be controlled from Khartoum. Sudan’s ruling elites in Khartoum made a similar choice before, in 2011, when they accepted a referendum that led to South Sudan’s independence after decades of civil war and unsuccessful attempts to defeat the rebels in the south. Today, some of them may again choose to hold on to one part of Sudan for themselves rather than power over all of it.

Given that both sides may now be reaching a point where further territorial gains are unly, both may conclude that a consolidation of their current positions is the best they can do at an acceptable cost. Both the SAF and RSF seek regional and international acceptance, and they know that participating in U.S.-led peace efforts would improve their reputations. This motive—and, presumably, a desire to deflect accusations of war crimes and genocide—is what ly drove the RSF to declare a “unilateral humanitarian cease-fire” after its capture of El Fasher, even as its offensive in the Kordofan states continued. Burhan and the SAF leadership have vowed publicly to continue the fight until the RSF is defeated or lays down its arms, but Burhan has quietly explored cease-fire options with Massad Boulos, a senior adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump. In October, too, both the SAF and the RSF sent officers to Washington for talks.

The two militaries, furthermore, have shown that they are willing to step back from fighting to serve practical goals, such as to keep oil and oil revenues flowing—even if they are not willing to exhibit such restraint to protect Sudan’s people. In December, the RSF managed to drive the SAF out of Heglig, a site in West Kordofan that is home to Sudan’s most important oil field and is a key position along the pipeline that connects South Sudan’s oil fields to the export terminal in Port Sudan. Oil production in the Heglig field had already dropped to less than a third of what it was before the war started, but continued disruption of the pipeline would have dealt an enormous blow to South Sudan, whose economy depends on oil exports, and taken away an important source of income for the government in Port Sudan. South Sudan, wishing to avoid that outcome, brokered parallel understandings with Hemedti and Burhan whereby the RSF would withdraw from Heglig and allow South Sudanese troops, as a neutral force, to secure the oil field and the pipeline. Details of the arrangement—including whether the RSF would receive any remuneration for its withdrawal—have not been disclosed, but the RSF withdrew within days of capturing the field and South Sudanese forces have moved in.

Seizing this opportunity to reach a cease-fire agreement and, eventually, an end to the war will depend to a large extent on whether the United States and the SAF’s and RSF’s external backers can change the militaries’ calculations. In September, the U.S.-led Quad, which also includes Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE—the regional players with the most influence on Hemedti and Burhan—agreed on a road map for peace in Sudan, starting with a three-month “humanitarian truce” and ed by a permanent cease-fire and a political process to establish a civilian-led government. The RSF has accepted the road map in principle and agreed to the humanitarian truce, but the SAF has so far refused to do so until the RSF withdraws from El Fasher and other cities and gives up its heavy arms. The SAF-affiliated government, furthermore, has objected to the UAE’s participation in the Quad because of its support for the RSF.

A truce is no guarantee of peace.

A cease-fire may still be possible. An updated plan, which Boulos announced earlier this month at a fundraising event in Washington, aims to address some of the SAF’s reservations by including provisions for the withdrawal of fighters from and the safe return of civilians to El Fasher and other sensitive areas. This will make the deal less appealing to the RSF, however, and getting both parties to agree will ly require substantial pressure. Foreign backers will need to withdraw their political and material support from the SAF and the RSF or make serious threats to do so. Being cut off from their supply of drones, for instance, would be a significant blow to both militaries’ capabilities. Both sides are exporting gold to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or the UAE; if all three countries stopped buying this gold, the warring parties would struggle to finance their war efforts. Additional coordinated sanctions by the United Kingdom, the United States, and the EU on military and militia leaders, their businesses, and anyone involved in the recruitment of mercenaries would also make the war less profitable.

International actors could offer positive incentives, too. Giving some RSF and SAF leaders personal exit options, including safe places to live, could make them more willing to end the war. Although the promise of humanitarian and reconstruction aid may not entice military leaders, it would interest civilian supporters of the SAF and the RSF. And credible plans for postwar economic engagement and investment from Gulf countries could undermine the political influence of Islamists who are inclined to reject any proposal from the Quad as undue external interference.

There is reason for the members of the Quad to push the warring armies into a truce. Trump wants his peacemaking efforts to yield a clear success, and all parties want to remain on his good side. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE still have different long-term goals in Sudan, but they have all declared their commitment to the September road map and can all get behind its first phase, a humanitarian truce. The rising risk of a regional expansion of the conflict increases the urgency of reducing the violence in Sudan, too. South Sudan is on the verge of war itself as the war to the north strains the country’s economy and deepens its political divides. The SAF is launching drones from Egypt, pro-SAF militias are training in Eritrea, and fighters allied with the RSF are staging their offensive in Blue Nile state from Ethiopian territory.

A truce is no guarantee of peace, but it is a necessary first step and could prevent a regionalization of the conflict. Sudan’s people certainly need the fighting to end, and most observers agree that a majority would support an immediate cessation of hostilities regardless of where the lines of control fall. Yet although the participation of SAF and RSF leaders would be necessary to establish and stabilize a cease-fire, any peace process that s would need to be led by civilian actors, not military ones, to be successful. If the cease-fire simply led to a division of the country between SAF- and RSF-held territory, it would only lead to further fragmentation. The alliance between the RSF and the SPLM/N-AH is unly to last; former rebel groups from Darfur that are now supporting the SAF against a common enemy would ly break with the SAF and the Islamists; and separatism could emerge in the east. Avoiding this outcome requires reunifying Sudan, a task that must fall to the country’s civilian political leaders and its still vibrant civil society. After nearly three years of war, their work will not be easy. But a truce would give civilian forces more space to act.

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