Nearly two months ago, the International Quad on Sudan (the US, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE) launched an initiative to end the over two-and-a-half-year-old war. It called for a three-month truce, a humanitarian corridor for the delivery of emergency relief and aid, and the conclusion of a permanent ceasefire agreement leading to a political process that would culminate in the transfer of power to civilian authorities. No tangible progress whatsoever has been made towards these ends.
Instead, the launch of the Quad’s initiative coincided with a sharp escalation in the ferocity of the war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), each supported by an array of militias. Last month, the RSF captured Al-Fasher, the capital of the state of Darfur, sending tremors across the country.
In seizing this city, the RSF effectively established control over the entire Darfur region, which is rich in population, agriculture, livestock, and mineral resources. Covering an area the size of France – one-fifth of the whole of Sudan – Darfur has borders with four of Sudan’s neighbours: Libya, Chad, the Central African Republic, and South Sudan. Al-Fasher is thus a strategic hub, which also connects to the Northern State and eastward to Omdurman, one of the three metropolitan areas that make up the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.
Al-Fasher had held out for over 500 days against a brutal siege that blocked the entry of food and humanitarian aid. In addition to relentless attacks by RSF militias, the inhabitants suffered the ravages of starvation and disease. But the real horror began after the city’s fall: massacres and atrocities so appalling they defy description. Many of these were documented by RSF members themselves, in a gruesome triumphal exhibition. According to some observers, this type of butchery is typical of unrestrained and vengeful militias, whereas other observers suggested it was calculated to sow further terror and intimidate the local population into submission.
Despite this critical battlefield gain, the RSF has sustained major losses in other respects. Its actions have stirred outrage and prompted regional and international condemnations, leading to calls to designate it a terrorist organisation. Shaken by the severe damage to its reputation, the RSF leadership acknowledged some of the reported atrocities, pledging to form an investigative commission and prosecute one of the most notorious perpetrators, known as “Abu Lulu.” This has changed nothing for civilians in Darfur.
Meanwhile, the RSF has set its sights on other goals. It has embarked on a feverish campaign to seize swathes of Northern Kordofan, including the strategic town of Bara. Its apparent target is that state’s capital, Al- Obeid. At the same time, RSF drones have struck multiple targets across several Sudanese states.
The SAF, for its part, has mobilised to repel the attacks on Kordofan and eventually to retake Al-Fasher. Vowing to crush the RSF once and for all, SAF aircraft have been bombarding RSF-held areas, compounding the already catastrophic humanitarian conditions affecting millions of Sudanese. Naturally, the military deterioration, with the belligerents more fiercely determined than ever to annihilate their enemy, has crushed the already faint hopes the Quad’s roadmap had kindled.
Murky may be the most favourable description of the current political and diplomatic situation. Deceitful, hypocritical, evasive, cynical – such adjectives more accurately describe the various players, who have been accused of manoeuvring to buy time, playing to local galleries, and attempting to hoodwink or barter with foreign powers.
Only a few observers took the RSF’s agreement to the Quad’s proposal of a three-month humanitarian truce at face value. Many interpreted it as a PR gesture, an attempt to repair a severely damaged image following the atrocities in Al-Fasher, and a form of posturing calculated to make the other side appear obstructive. The SAF’s position remains unclear, as it has been sending out mixed signals. The Security and Defence Council issued a statement welcoming efforts to end the suffering of the Sudanese people, but it simultaneously stressed that the general mobilisation would continue. This, coupled with the rhetoric about fighting until the RSF is eliminated, has been widely interpreted as a tacit rejection of the proposed truce.
The situation is further complicated by multiple political forces influencing the decision-making centres on both sides. For example, the Islamist factions backing the SAF play a significant role in inducing it to resist the Quad initiative, as its provisions call for their exclusion from Sudan’s post-war political landscape.
Nevertheless, the RSF’s seizure of Al- Fasher has triggered a renewed push to implement the Quad’s initiative. All stakeholders appear to have realised the dire repercussions the ongoing Sudanese conflict could wreak both within the Arab region and across Africa, and the impacts this would have on international interests.
According to a Western diplomat, the Quad’s thinking is leaning towards the use of force to impose the truce. He suggested that the operation would be led by the US and the EU and regional partners. “I would not rule out the use of force,” he said, “given the ongoing human rights violations and atrocities across the country.”
Yet, even as regional and international parties appeal to both sides to seize the opportunity to halt the tragic deterioration, which has come to threaten the unity of Sudan itself, the prospects of the Quad-brokered truce remain bleak.
With so many complicating factors standing in the way, many observers fear the initiative will meet with the same fate as previous attempts to end the war in Sudan. Indeed, a truce does not stand a chance of success unless heavy pressure – including threats of sanction – is brought to bear on both parties to compel them to engage in serious and productive negotiations.
Of course, one cannot rule out the possibility of success, not only in securing a truce but also a lasting ceasefire. But even then, the peace process will be long and hazardous, requiring concerted efforts by all Sudanese political forces, regional powers and the international community as a whole to avert another backslide and collapse. Only through a national consensus on a comprehensive, unifying project, which would include such processes as social reconciliation, transitional justice, reparations and equitable development, will it be possible to overcome longstanding grievances, marginalisation, and fragmentation, and reach a just and enduring peace. Only then can the current war be called Sudan’s last.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 13 November, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
Short link: