Sudan at war in favor of the West

In recent weeks, the fragile balance of Sudan has once again jumped with considerable bloodshed. A country already battered in the past decades by endemic civil wars, such as the one in Darfur, in its western part, and the one in its southern portion, which resulted in the secession and independence of South Sudan in 2011, finds itself once again to be a field of battle, accomplices external influences.

The struggle for power that broke out between the regular army of General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and the RSF special forces of General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as "Hemetti", is the background of the interest of foreign powers in the fields of gold and oil of the country, as well as for its strategic position as a crossroads between the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea, on the road between Suez, i.e. the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean. A crisis that can act as a detonator in an already problematic region.

The armed clashes that began on 15 April 2023 in Sudan between the two main exponents of the military junta that has led the country since autumn 2021 show no sign of diminishing despite the repeated truces proclaimed in recent days, but never fully observed.

In two weeks, the clashes have caused at least 334,000 internally displaced people according to Paul Dillon, spokesman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), during a briefing in Geneva. More than 100,000 people have fled to neighboring nations, including Egypt, Chad, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Ethiopia, added Olga Sarrado, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR). The United Nations fears a mass exodus and estimates that "more than 800,000 people" could flee Sudan.

Beijing has always counted on Sudan as a discrete source of oil, still important despite the fact that for over a decade most of the wells have remained in the territory of secessionist South Sudan. Following in order, with much smaller figures, are Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Russia, while bringing up the rear, among the "big" countries, are Turkey and the United States. In general, the attitude of all these powers has been cautious and not particularly incisive, at least for the moment, as proof of the fact that the conflict seems to have broken out due to dynamics entirely internal to Sudan and constitutes a problem for everyone, rather than a real opportunity.