Koert Lindijer has been a correspondent in Africa for the Dutch newspaper NRC since 1983. He is the author of four books on African affairs.
NEWSFLASH
The Sudanese army said it broke a years-long siege on the city of Kadugli on Tuesday, potentially providing tens of thousands of people a reprieve from famine and signaling a shift in the war’s momentum. “With God’s help and guidance, your Sudanese Armed Forces and supporting forces have succeeded in opening the Kadugli-Dalanj road, after a heroic battle,” the army said in a statement.
Kadugli and nearby al-Dalanj had been under siege on and off since the start of the war nearly three years ago. There was an escalation in fighting after the insurgents of the SPLM-N, which controls territory in the state and elsewhere, joined forces with the RSF last year. The army broke the siege of al-Dalanj last week. The army’s advance was largely enabled by drone attacks and by allied armed groups recently recruited from local Nuba tribes, both sources said.
The army’s advance was aided by a breakdown in the RSF’s supply lines from Libya into the Kordofan region, an army source and an SPLM-N source told Reuters. Reuters reported on Monday that Egypt had deployed drones at an airstrip near its borders with Sudan and Libya, in what experts and officials said was a sign of its deepening involvement in Sudan. It seems the Egyptian planes have been used recently to bomb the supply lines of the RSF from Libya and to a lesser extend Chad. Although it is not the first time the Egyptian Airforce is actively involved in the war, this time it shows a more active engagement by Egypt.
The New York Times writes: The base is in Egypt, hidden amid a vast, agricultural project in the country’s Western desert. But the targets are in Sudan. The clandestine drone operation offers new evidence of how the civil war in Sudan — racked by famine, atrocities and tens of thousands of deaths — is morphing into a sprawling theater for high-tech drone warfare driven by the interests of rival foreign powers.
Does this victory mean a big change on the battlefield? Probably not.
The Saf is still weak and urgently needs new planes to control the sky. But that can change. Pakistani officials recently told Reuters that negotiations are advanced on a defence package valued at about $1.5bn that would include JF-17 Block III fighters, K-8 attack aircraft, and more than 200 drones for the Sudanese Armed Forces. For now, the high technology drones paid for by the United Arab Emirates help the Rapid Support forces to dominate the skies.
A new front in the east is now threatening the Saf. Recent incursions from Ethiopia there by the RSF seem to suggest that RSF can operate from there. Tracking the flights in the region tell the story.
Middle East Eye writes:
While the purpose and any connection between the flights is unclear, they have taken place against the backdrop of a spiralling power struggle between the UAE and Saudi Arabia across Yemen and the Horn of Africa that has upturned the geopolitics of the region and prompted concerns of a new escalation in the Sudan war.
The UAE has been thrown onto the back foot after Saudi Arabia launched military action to oust the Emirati-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) from the Yemeni port city of Aden, and has been forced to withdraw from its key military base in Bosaso on the opposite Somali coastline.
The uncertainty at the UAE’s bases in Berbera and Bosaso after the Somali government cancelled all its agreements with the UAE has seen Emirati personnel redeployed to Ethiopia, which, according to multiple sources, including a former Ethiopian government adviser, is now crucial to the UAE’s strategy in the region.
The adviser, who worked for the Addis Ababa government for over a decade, said that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali “certainly seems to see the future as Ethiopia aligning itself firmly with the UAE alliance rather than other options”.
“Some, in Ethiopia’s foreign ministry and elsewhere, believe the UAE has been calling the shots for Ethiopia in regard to the Sudan government, RSF and Eritrea over Assab for the last two years,” the source said, referring to the Eritrean port of Assab, which the adviser said Abiy “very nearly invaded last year at the behest of Abu Dhabi”.
For now, it seems, there will be more internationalization, more weapons, more suffering and no immediate peace in sight.
