2023-04-17 18:56:42
Sudan doesn’t usually matter to anyone. It would seem that there are no more than 47 million people in a territory three times the size of Spain and that the United Kingdom colonized with the help of Egypt until 1956. A flag of deserts, semi-arid steppes and jungles so humid that they take your breath away. Since gaining independence it has suffered two civil wars, a secession that resulted in the creation of South Sudan, seven successful coups and more than 70,000 deaths during the 1998 famine, to name just one. The country is home to major gold mines, oil fields, and smaller amounts of chrome and copper.; the first is sold to the United Arab Emirates and Russia and makes up more than half of its exports, the second provides modest amounts to India, Malaysia and Italy.
And its strategic position makes it juicy in the eyes of other players. The enormous expanse that makes up Sudan collides to the south with South Sudan and the Central African Republic, to the west with Chad and a bit of Libya, to the north with Egypt and to the east with Eritrea, Ethiopia and the Red Sea. for their territory The flows of refugees and immigrants from their own and neighboring wars have been transiting for decades, in addition to well-known arms brokers that feed the countries in the area. Smuggling in the Sahel jumps to fingertips in the Horn of Africa, and the moment before the plunge occurs here in Sudan.
Good neighbours?
Historical relations between Egypt and Sudan have a turbulent past since Egypt helped the British conquer them, but they became more tense when the English Crown decided to concede some fertile territories of the colony of Egypt to the recently conquered colony of Sudan, the gold of that crown will know why. Following independence, Sudan has refused to return Egypt its former territories, and diplomatic tensions have risen and fallen ever since. These tensions appear to have eased in recent years: Egypt and Sudan are engaged in military cooperation, and it has been rumored for years that the two nations could join forces to fight Ethiopia if the crisis at the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam worsens. Such is the case that in the first days after the coup attempt Videos spread on social networks showing Egyptian soldiers captured by the RSFwho accused them in the images of allying with the Government to suppress the uprising.
a civil war in Sudan it would upset Egypt’s options when it comes to achieving an alliance with which to confront Ethiopia, it seems clear, just as it would be seen in the uncomfortable situation of being a neighbor of a country at war. The evidence collected on the Egyptian military involved adds to the rumors that speak of combat planes flying over Sudan from the country of the pharaohs, signs that raise fears of involvement in the conflict.
Frantz Celestin, Director of IOM in Somalia, confirms the negative effect that a possible conflict would have on the refugee flows that pass through the area. More than 70,000 displaced people from the Tigray war (which ended in November 2022, after two years of fighting and 600,000 deaths) live in camps on the Sudanese side of the border along with Somali refugees. But he is also concerned at the moment “not just the refugees, but also the Somali students, teachers and workers that the Somali government has asked us to help bring back.” After a hectic day of calls, he laments that “Sudan’s two international airports are damaged and there is no way to get out by air”. As with Somalia, so many nationals of other countries (including Spain) will have to manage to be evacuated by land; in the case of Somali nationals, through Tigray.
But the situation in northern Ethiopia is delicate. The last war and the consequent land blockade agreed between Ethiopia and Eritrea against the Tigray region made Sudan the only way to send weapons to the PFLT rebels. The reactivation of these routes due to the present conflict could affect the fragile peace in Ethiopia; the cracks that occur would further facilitate the transfer of materials to Sudan. Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia thus play their own seemingly unimportant regional game, all three swaying and struggling for balance as their surroundings crumble, tugging and loosening the ropes where the lives of hundreds of millions of their citizens hang.
Gold, weapons and donations
Outside of Africa, the fate of Sudan also hinders Putin’s plans. The Kremlin’s tentacles seized Khartoum years ago, taking advantage of the fact that nobody cared about him. A significant example would be the scandal revealed a few months ago that directly involved Yevgueni Prigozhin, the already well-known leader of the Wagner Group. As CNN discovered in February 2022, the Russian oligarch would have taken at least 16 planeloads of undeclared Sudanese gold., a significant amount that would allow you to imagine the fortune that is involved. The mines of Meroe Gold (Wagner’s mining subsidiary) are being defended by the group’s mercenaries, of course. The mercenaries who also have troops posted in the capital, Khartoum, collaborating with the government in terms of advice and training as part of the payment for the gold, and of whom nothing relevant is known so far or if they have decided to get involved in the clashes.
Will the possible conflict affect Prigozhin’s gold deliveries? Will Moscow manage to push back its mercenaries to the mines and pay for all the gold with money? It should be noted that the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, ratified in march building a naval base for your country with the capacity to dock four nuclear ships on the shores of the Red Sea. What will happen to the base if the conflict drags on? Or was the base a payment to the possible protection of Russia in case the RSF attacked? Russia, as always, are unknowns.
The United Arab Emirates, which donated more money to Sudan than they got from the royalties they took out of the gold, ranks as a prominent friend of the nation, among India providing the Sudanese government with missile systems and the American Enterprise Institute marked Sudan as a nation “in transition” to an active jihadist movement, contaminated in two ways by the mujahideen in the Sahel and in the Horn of Africa. If the Tigray route widens with a new conflict and the Somali terrorists see it in time, they would find a perfect route inland, almost to connect with their comrades in the Central African Republic or Congo and extending the jihadist corridor that began to be created ten years ago. in the Sahel.
It doesn’t seem important, but it is. Maybe too much. It is important for Putin to fall, to stop jihadism, for Somali students to get out alive or for the possible plans of a Machiavellian Egypt, among others. It is important to 47 million Sudanese that if there is a war, where will they flee? To Tigray, to the Central African Republic, to South Sudan, to the dictatorship of Chad? What country will want to accept them? Not even the most courageous experts would now have the guts to assure it.
#stake #conflict #Sudan #drags