Ethiopia and Sudan are showing renewed signs of stronger cooperation, as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) emerges as a possible problem for both. The new reality check could now upend any suspicions the leaders of the Sudan Sovereignty Council may have harboured against Ethiopia, which had been initially seen as profiting from the same sources that have benefited the RSF.
This week, however, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed arrived in Port Sudan, the tentative capital of the military junta in Sudan during this wartime. Walking hand-in-hand, Abiy and Gen Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan spoke of cooperation to deal with common challenges.
Dr Abiy Ahmed said his visit to Sudan is in solidarity with the Sudanese people, saying that “true friends appear in times of trouble".
“This visit confirms the support of the Ethiopian government and people for Sudan…the visit is a message of solidarity with the people of Sudan in their plight… the war will end and relations between the two countries will remain solid and strong,” he said on July 9.
The trip was significant because the junta in Khartoum had initially seen Addis Ababa and Nairobi among possible backers of the RSF.
Both refuted that claim, emphasising that they vouched for peace and dialogue to end the conflict. But even that call for dialogue did not please the junta which labels RSF, led by Mohamed Hamdani Daglo, as a “rebel militia” it should never sit at a table with.
Ethiopia and Nairobi didn’t come especially as clean mediators, considering they both have tight relations with the United Arab Emirates, which Khartoum accuses of arming the RSF to target civilian areas. Abu Dhabi has, however, recently rejected those claims, in a statement to the United Nations Security Council.
In Port Sudan, Burhan thanked Mr Abiy for expressing “the sincerity of the Ethiopian leadership and its goodwill towards Sudan,” and endorsed “the strength of relations between the two countries and the importance of preserving them.”
However, it wasn’t lost on the conditionality the junta imposed: Any support for RSF would be unwelcome.
“The militia committed crimes and atrocities against the Sudanese people, destroyed the State's infrastructure, and targeted national institutions,” Mr Burhan said.
Sources told The EastAfrican that, concerns about RSF reach was one of the reasons for Mr Abiy’s travel to Port Sudan. Although not expressly critical of the RSF, and had called for dialogue for all parties in Sudan to iron out differences, RSF continual expansion in eastern parts of Sudan was becoming a worry.
In public, Mr Abiy spoke of the importance of peace as the basis for development but argued “problems of countries must be solved internally without external interference.”
“There is a threat of RSF and Fano creating some sort of alliance. And that could cause further security problems in Ethiopia,” explained a diplomatic source who spoke on the background.
The source was referring to the Ethiopian militia in Amhara. Since August last year, Ethiopian forces has been battling the militia which went to arms, in protest against the implementation of the Tigray peace deal with the Ethiopian government.
The group initially supported the war against Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). But after the African Union (AU) mediated a peace settlement between Ethiopian government and the TPLF in November 2022, Fano differed with Ethiopian authorities on disarmament.
Disarmament and demobilisation were crucial pillars of that peace deal, that provided for only Ethiopia’s security agencies to remain armed, and for the country to have one national defence force.
The diplomatic source, however, said Ethiopia moving closer to Burhan could test Addis Ababa relationship with the United Arab Emirates, which was credited for supporting Ethiopia’s aerial power against the TPLF. It could also, for now, pose the perennial border dispute between Sudan and Ethiopia, especially since the two sides now face a common humanitarian problem.
In Addis Ababa, the civilian political alliance known as Taqaddum, led by former Sudan Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok was calling on both sides to join the dialogue.
Sudan, however, has been critical of regional efforts to end the war. Neither junta nor RSF sent representatives to Cairo to kick-start talks on agenda for dialogue last weekend.
Starting July 10, the Inter-Sudanese Political Dialogue Process, AU-Igad (Intergovernmental Authority on Development) joint initiative, to establish “the appropriate atmosphere for dialogue” between the Sudanese stakeholders.
Those talks were chaired by Mohamed Ibn Chambas, the AU High-Level Panel on Sudan (HLP-Sudan) and the Igad Special Envoy for Sudan Lawrence Korbandy.
The AU had said it wanted “a unified platform, an inclusive approach and Sudanese ownership.” But the sides were still haggling on agenda, participants and crucial timelines for peace talks, by the time we went to press.
Mr Burhan, meanwhile, said he won’t sit at a table with RSF, even though he signaled a liking for the Jeddah Peace Process fronted by Saudi Arabia and the United States.
“Sudan is committed to the success of the Jeddah platform and considered it a foundation upon which to build,” he had said on Monday after meeting Waleed bin Abdulkarim El-Khereiji, deputy foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, in Port Sudan.
Hussein Awad, a Sudanese diplomat in the Foreign Ministry said the Sovereignty Council was keen to resume those talks as long as it doesn’t involve “rebel militia”.
Since May 2023, Saudi Arabia and the United States have sponsored talks between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF in the Saudi Arabian port city of Jeddah. But the two sides violated all commitments to ceasefire and talks completely broke down in October after “fundamental differences” emerged between warring sides.
The war, however, has been a matter of concern for the region and all Sudan’s allies abroad. Since mid-April 2023, at least 16,650 lives have been lost, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Some eight million people have been displaced internally within Sudan, while about 2.2 million others have crossed borders into neighbouring countries, according to the UN International Organisation for Migration.
Warning
This week, charity group Care warned that some 26.5 million people in Sudan, half the population of the country, are “facing disastrous levels of hunger.”
“This situation is forecast to worsen as the country endures reduced agricultural output ahead of the next harvest in September 2024, while fighting escalates,” the charity group said in a statement. The situation has got worse in the last two months as the RSF raided Sinnar and Sinjah in the eastern part of Sudan, displacing more people.
“Families in Sudan are caught in a spiralling horror, and are living a nightmare that continues to worsen,” said Abdirahman Ali, Care Sudan Country Director.
“In the camps and other sites, parents are skipping meals to feed their children, who are already weak from malnutrition.”
Sudan’s other initiatives at peace have also failed, largely due to a trust deficit. Among these initiatives are the recent talks held in Cairo as part of international efforts to calm the situation.
Despite the importance of these talks, the main parties to the conflict did not attend, resulting in no tangible progress towards ceasing the hostilities. Mediation by the African Union and the Igad also initially failed, as Mr Burhan boycotted the Igad summit hosted by Uganda last January to discuss Sudanese affairs.
