Fractured Loyalties: How Sudan’s War Is Hollowing Out Civilian Politics
Fractured Loyalties: How Sudan’s War Is Hollowing Out Civilian Politics
A paper by Osama Abu Zaid (Ph.D) with the support of CEDEJ Khartoum
Since fighting erupted in Sudan on 15 April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the country has entered one of the most destructive periods in its modern history. Entire neighborhoods have been emptied, millions displaced, and basic systems of health, food, and governance have collapsed. The United Nations warns that Sudan is facing one of the most severe displacement and hunger crises globally, with famine conditions emerging in several areas and more than 30 million people in need of humanitarian assistance (OCHA, 2024).
Beyond this humanitarian catastrophe lies a quieter but deeply consequential transformation: the hollowing out of Sudanese civilian politics. The war has not only destroyed homes and institutions; it has reshaped how civilians relate to one another, to politics, and to the very notion of collective civilian agency.
Sudanese civilians are increasingly divided between two broad positions. One supports continuing the war until the RSF is militarily defeated. The other rejects the war altogether and calls for an immediate ceasefire and negotiations. These positions are often framed as ideological or political camps. Based on in-depth interviews with civilians holding both stances, this article argues that such framing is insufficient. What is unfolding is not simply polarization, but a deeper erosion of civilian politics itself. Civilians articulate strong political judgments while simultaneously rejecting political identity. Politics has become stigmatized—associated with betrayal, corruption, and moral compromise—while political positions are reframed as ethical or existential choices: justice versus survival, dignity versus collapse. This shift carries profound implications for Sudan’s future.
Methodological Note
This article draws on 30 semi-structured, in-depth interviews conducted between 2024 and 2025 with Sudanese civilians displaced by the war and currently residing in Cairo, Egypt. A purposive sampling strategy was employed to capture contrasting civilian positions toward the conflict: 15 interviewees expressed support for continuing the war until the RSF is defeated, while 15 rejected the war and advocated for an immediate ceasefire and negotiations. Participants were accessed through Sudanese community networks, and informal social ties within displaced communities. While the sample does not claim representativeness of all civilians inside Sudan, displacement itself constitutes a central dimension of contemporary Sudanese civilian experience and political perception, shaped by direct exposure to violence, loss, and state collapse.
From Revolutionary Unity to Wartime Fracture
The intensity of today’s civilian division is striking when contrasted with the unity of Sudan’s 2018–2019 uprising. That movement briefly brought together diverse social groups across class, region, and ideology under a shared demand for civilian rule and an end to authoritarian governance. As Alex de Waal argues (de Waal, 2022), the revolution represented a rare civic moment that challenged Sudan’s long-standing militarized political order.
That unity did not survive the transition. The post-Bashir political settlement preserved the power of military institutions while fragmenting and weakening civilian forces. The RSF—originally constructed, armed, and legitimized by the state—retained autonomous command structures, economic networks, and regional alliances, becoming a central pillar of Sudan’s coercive landscape rather than a temporary paramilitary force.
Civilian actors fractured over leadership, strategy, and engagement with military elites. The October 2021 coup, jointly executed by SAF commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti), shattered remaining confidence in a military-led transition and reaffirmed the dominance of armed power over civilian politics. When fighting erupted between the two forces in April 2023, civilians were forced into immediate, emotionally charged positions shaped by loss, fear, and survival rather than programmatic political debate.
“Just Finish Them Off”: War as Moral Necessity
Among civilians who support continuing the war, the conflict is framed as an existential struggle against an illegitimate and predatory force. These views are shaped by direct exposure to RSF violence, particularly in Khartoum, Gezira, and Darfur. Human rights investigations document widespread RSF attacks on civilians, including deliberate killings, mass displacement, looting, sexual violence, and the destruction of civilian infrastructure. In Darfur, assaults on displacement camps have been described as potential war crimes.
One interviewee explained:
“They hate us. They humiliated us. They took away our beloved ones. We built our lives with sweat and tears. We can no longer live together. Just finish them all off.”
Another rejected what they described as selective historical narratives:
“They depend on fake historical grievances. Now it is our grievance—after all the killing, looting, violence, and rape. Finish them off.”
Sexual violence occupies a central place in these narratives. Investigations by international human rights organizations have documented rape and sexual violence by RSF fighters as tools of terror, humiliation, and forced displacement. Across this position, several themes recur: the RSF is viewed as fundamentally illegitimate and incapable of reform; negotiation is framed as a betrayal rather than pragmatism; and revenge is recast as justice and moral restoration.
Notably, some interviewees explicitly accept the return of authoritarian or Islamist rule as a lesser evil if it guarantees the defeat of the RSF. This reflects a broader pattern observed in contexts of extreme insecurity, where fear and perceived existential threat generate what scholars describe as an “authoritarian fallback,” in which populations tolerate or even support illiberal governance as a perceived guarantor of order and survival rather than democratic rule (Levitsky & Way 2010; Bellin 2012).
This position is rooted in real and profound suffering. Yet it also reveals a critical silence. Responsibility for the RSF is almost entirely externalized, while the role of the SAF—and the Sudanese state more broadly—in creating, empowering, and shielding the RSF for years is frequently minimized or ignored. Moral clarity regarding RSF violence thus coexists with a form of moral amnesia regarding state violence.
“No to War”: Survival Over Retribution
On the other side are civilians who reject the war altogether. Their position is shaped less by anger than by exhaustion, displacement, and fear of irreversible societal collapse. One respondent stated:
“I have lost almost everything because of this war, but I cannot seek revenge. Making peace is more difficult than continuing to fight.”
Another focused on displacement and exile:
“I want peace because I want to go back home. I want my children to grow up in their homeland, not as refugees.”
This position emphasizes several claims: that there is no military solution to the conflict; that prolonged fighting will deepen famine, disease, and fragmentation; and that the SAF bears responsibility for creating and sustaining the RSF and must therefore negotiate an end to the violence. These concerns echo warnings by UN agencies regarding catastrophic food insecurity and the collapse of basic services.
Some interviewees were explicit about their discomfort: they do not want the RSF to shape Sudan’s future, yet they are willing to accept deeply imperfect outcomes if that is the price of stopping the war. This stance prioritizes harm reduction over punishment. However, research on post-conflict transitions consistently demonstrates that negotiated settlements lacking credible accountability mechanisms tend to entrench impunity, weaken the rule of law, and increase the likelihood of renewed violence (Sriram 2004; Vinjamuri & Snyder 2004).
When Politics Itself Becomes Suspect
What unites these opposing positions is not ideology, but a shared rejection of political identity. Across interviews, civilians insisted that they were “not political,” even as they articulated strong political judgments. This phenomenon did not emerge with the 2023 war alone. Extensive scholarship on authoritarian governance demonstrates how prolonged repression, surveillance, and politicized violence encourage civilians to distance themselves from formal political identity as a survival strategy (Wedeen 1999; Bayat 2010; Bellin 2012). Sudanese civilians have long navigated authoritarian environments in which overt political affiliation carried risks of repression, surveillance, or exclusion. The war has intensified this dynamic by collapsing already limited civic spaces and further associating politics with violence, betrayal, and elite manipulation.
This rejection does not signal neutrality. Rather, it reflects the stigmatization of politics itself. In wartime Sudan, politics is widely perceived as an arena dominated by armed actors, opportunistic elites, and foreign agendas. Civilians instead frame their positions as ethical or existential: justice, dignity, survival, peace. The consequence is severe. When civilians reject political identity, they also abandon collective political agency. Politics becomes something done to civilians rather than by them.
Why Polarization Deepens
Several forces continue to intensify Sudan’s civilian divide. Trauma pushes individuals toward moral absolutes, while social media amplifies outrage and simplifies complex realities into binary narratives that reward certainty over reflection. Political and military elites exploit civilian suffering to legitimize their preferred armed partner while evading responsibility for past and present violence. As the International Crisis Group has warned, this dynamic risks locking Sudan into prolonged fragmentation rather than resolution (International Crisis Group, 2023).
What Is at Stake
Sudan’s polarization is often treated as a temporary wartime condition. It is not. It is reshaping how civilians understand politics, legitimacy, and belonging. The danger is not only continued violence, but the normalization of a political order in which civilians align with guns out of fear rather than conviction. If civilian politics collapses entirely, Sudan’s future will be decided by force alone.
Conclusion
Sudan’s civilian divide is not a failure of morality. It is a failure of political reconstruction. Both positions emerge from real pain and rational fear. Yet both risk reproducing the conditions that allowed militarized power to dominate Sudanese life in the first place.
Ending the war will require more than a ceasefire. It will require reclaiming politics as a civilian space—one where disagreement does not mean extermination, and peace does not mean forgetting.
Without that, Sudan may survive the war only to lose the possibility of civilian politics altogether.
A Note on Perspective
I write this as a Sudanese researcher and displaced civilian, shaped by the same violence I analyze. This proximity does not produce neutrality, but it does impose responsibility: to resist simplification, refuse moral shortcuts, and insist that civilian suffering not be converted into permanent political silence.
References
- de Waal A. Sudan’s unfinished democracy: The promise and betrayal of a people’s revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2022.
- United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Sudan: humanitarian needs overview 2024. New York: United Nations; 2024. Available from: https://www.unocha.org
- Levitsky S, Way LA. Competitive authoritarianism: Hybrid regimes after the Cold War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2010.
- Bellin E. Reconsidering the robustness of authoritarianism in the Middle East: Lessons from the Arab Spring. Comp Polit. 2012;44(2):127–149.
- Sriram CL. Confronting past human rights violations: Justice vs peace in times of transition. London: Routledge; 2004.
- Vinjamuri L, Snyder J. Advocacy and scholarship in the study of international war crime tribunals. Annu Rev Polit Sci. 2004; 7:345–362. doi:10.1146/annurev.polisci.7.012003.104755
- Wedeen L. Ambiguities of domination: Politics, rhetoric, and symbols in contemporary Syria. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1999.
- Bayat A. Life as politics: How ordinary people change the Middle East. Stanford (CA): Stanford University Press; 2010.
- International Crisis Group. Sudan’s conflict: Pathways to peace. Brussels: ICG; 2023. Available from: https://www.crisisgroup.org
OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
cedejsudan (10 février 2026). Fractured Loyalties: How Sudan’s War Is Hollowing Out Civilian Politics. Researching Sudan - A perspective on contemporary Sudan. Consulté le 7 mars 2026 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/15nnq
