December 15, 2024: Once more war has broken out in the northeast African nations of Sudan and South Sudan. Since October 2023 there has been fighting between the Sudanese government and major portions of the country that violently disagree with government policies. The SNC/Sovereign National Council was created by civilian and military groups to negotiate a peace deal. That effort has ended as a stalemate in the effort to restore democracy. The coup was supposed to be a temporary condition to speed things up. That backfired as a lot of the pro-reform civilians declared the military government another effort to restore dictatorship. That’s how Omar al Bashir, the dictator from 1989-to-2019, got his start. What form post-Bashir Sudan will take is still unknown. The situation in South Sudan, one of the results of Bashir’s misrule, is more settled.

Before the April 2023 outbreak of fighting between the RSF/Rapid Support Forces and the army, Sudan was planning a long period of peace, reconciliation, reform and rebuilding. By late 2024 the death toll, including civilians, is approaching 70,000. Many more people have been driven from their homes and lost their jobs. This has turned into an economic disaster and food shortages are growing. Foreign aid is often stolen by gangsters, the RSF or soldiers. Instability and violence are becoming Sudan’s normal state of affairs.

The two Sudans had become quieter since 2019 when the long-lasting Bashir dictatorship was removed by determined popular resistance. South Sudan ended its post-independence civil war when everyone realized that they were destroying what they were allegedly fighting over and maybe a shouting-match was preferable to a death match. That has brought peace to both Sudans for the first time since the 1989 coup where then general Bashir took power and led Sudan on a downward trajectory.

The peace did not last and the fighting between government forces and those of the RSF that has been around since 1988, when they appeared as the Janjaweed Arab Sudanese militia in the west Sudan region of Darfur. Before 1988 the Janjaweed were involved with violence going on in neighboring Chad and Libya but after 1988 the Janjaweed concentrated its activities in Darfur. In 2013 the Janjaweed rebranded themselves as the RSF and evolved into paid Sudanese government enforcers in Darfur.

In 2023 the Sudan government suggested that the RSF become part of the Sudanese Army. RSF refused and in April 2023 the fighting between government forces and the RSF began. At this point the RSF was powerful enough to take on the army. Currently that struggle continues. Between then and now there were some other interesting developments. For example the slavery problem continues in Sudan, The slaving continues and sometimes gets into the news. This happened a lot in Sudan since the 1990s as the government encouraged Arabized tribes to raid non-Moslem black African tribes and take slaves. In northern Mali retreating al Qaeda men sometimes took newly enslaved blacks with them. This tolerance of slaving is one of the many reasons Sudan is one of the five most corrupt nations in the world. These five outlaw states are, according to the annual Transparency International Corruption Perception Index North Korea, Yemen, Syria, South Sudan and Somalia. Sudan is considered a bit less corrupt than South Sudan and ranks 162 out of 180 nations. South Sudan ranks closer to the bottom at 177th place.

Sudan has been behaving in other ways and in October 2020 was removed from the U.S.’s State Sponsor of Terrorism/SST list. Sudan agreed to pay compensation to American victims of terror attacks, with the attack on the 2000 USS Cole in Yemen and the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania the most important. Sudan was on the SST list for 27 years. Sudan’s 2020 transitional government agreed to peaceful relations with Israel. That eventually happened and since late 202, Israeli governments and security forces have cooperated with their Sudanese equivalents. Recognizing Israel was a divisive issue in Sudan. Even some pro-democracy groups opposed it. As for the SST, escaping the list means Sudan now had better access to international financial and investment organizations. It will also make it much easier and legal for Sudanese to import western technology like computers, smart phones and software. Sudan now had easier access to foreign aid of all types, including life-saving medical. The aid was a major consideration, for Sudan’s governments were always facing an extended economic crisis and shortages of food and medical supplies.