After 10 days of brutal urban war that left hundreds dead, there is a tenuous ceasefire in Sudan brokered by the United States with the help of Saudi Arabia.

US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and a high-level team have been on the phone for hours over the past week, talking directly with the two Sudanese generals leading opposing sides in the conflict, as well as other key actors from a half-decade. dozen countries.

The United States has long played an important role in developments in Sudan, ending the dictatorship of Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir and trying to lead the country towards democracy, an effort that has so far failed dangerously.

The Sudanese people are not giving up, and neither are we, according to the US

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Secretary of State for Africa

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with Molly Phee, as she announced

during the weekend

the indefinite closure of the nation

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mbassy in Khartoum after American

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special forces airlifted nearly 100 US diplomats from the Sudanese capital

Khartoum

in a high-security mission in the middle of the night.

Intensified fighting in Sudan is accelerating the evacuation of diplomats and civilians

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Attempts to suspend fighting amid serious disruptions between the warring factions.

on both sides of the conflict continued. That the new ceasefire will hold is not at all guaranteed,

There is no guarantee that the ceasefire will last, and many observers believe Sudan is on the brink of all-out civil war.

Despite these challenges, Phee said, the stakes are too high for Sudan and for the region to stop trying.

Sudan may not be at the top of many Americans’ agendas, but the stakes in the northeastern African country are indeed high for the US, as well as for Sudan and the entire region, diplomats and analysts say.

From its strategically critical geography to its long, arduous quest for freedom from military rule, Sudan has proved to be an attractive partner for the US and a potential model for political transition in Africa.

Straddling the mighty River Nile and bordering the Red Sea, Sudan, a country of 46 million people, serves as the artery for more than $700 billion in global ocean trade.

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Since it also borders six countries, Sudan forms a bridge between North Africa, the mainly Arab countries of Egypt and Libya, and the Sahel, a strip that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea, along numerous countries and forms a hotbed for jihadists. terrorist groups. And to the south is Ethiopia.

This makes

fate of

Sudan a pivot in regional peace, trade and political development.

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Aside from the devastating human toll, Sudan’s instability poses a major threat to its economy.

The way Sudan falls will fundamentally determine whether the region is stable or violent, said Susan Stigant, head of Africa programs

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the American Peace Institute. A Sudan in chaos, probably

probably

disrupting maritime security and could generate Islamic extremism

terrorist

Groups such as Somalia-based Shabab are gaining a new foothold in the region.

Neighboring Chad, a strong US ally, would also be vulnerable to spillover violence from Sudan.

Why the conflict in Sudan matters to the rest of the world

The US has invested political capital in the fate of Sudan for decades. US officials pushed for prosecution of the accused

supposedly

war criminals responsible for the genocide in the western Sudanese region of Darfur in the early 2000s, in

in which hundreds of thousands of people died.

In response, Washington imposed tough economic sanctions on Bashir-ruled Sudan and placed the country on a particularly ignominious State Department shortlist: state sponsors of terrorism. In 2019, the people of Sudan rose up in a mass nonviolent protest, risking harsh repression as they demanded freedom, justice and an end to three decades of dictatorship under Bashir.

dictatorship.Bashir

The longtime president was impeached. Democratic change

transition

seemed in the offing, with a new caretaker government at the table and the enthusiastic support of the United States, Europe and other countries.

“As an American value, it’s so rare to have a question so clear and so organized that the U.S. can figure it out,” Stigant said.

US completes embassy evacuation in Sudan amid heavy fighting, Biden says

But two years later, Sudan’s top two

number one and number two

military commanders to stay in power and avoid being held responsible for the atrocities in Darfur staged a coup. Now those two men go head to head,

one against the other

both with outrageous ambitions to lead the country. Gene.

Mohammed Fattah

Abdel-Fattah Burhan leads the Sudanese armed forces,

(SAF)

and his former No. 2 and now arch rival, General Mohamed Hamdan

momdan

Dagalo, known as Hemedti, composes the Rapid Support Forces or RSF. Despite some calls from Washington and elsewhere for outsiders to stay out, Egypt is said to support Burhan, while the United Arab Emirates is behind Hemedti and the RSF.

The generals and other members of the elite are said to have become wealthy from Sudan’s abundance of gold and other valuable mineral resources, while the wealth never trickled down to ordinary people. The resources often inoculate leaders against US sanctions, which in turn prevented Americans from doing so

US

investments in Sudanese mines and infrastructure.

Another risk to US interests in Sudan comes from Russia. For several years now, the infamous Wagner Group has been supported by the Kremlin

mercenary,

private military company, has been active in Sudan, initially supporting

support

Bashir in December 2017 while securing gold exports for a Russian company.

Jeffrey Feltman, the former US special envoy to the Horn of Africa, said “very nefarious” Russian activities continue to be documented during the fledgling democratic transition. The Russians, Feltman said in a comprehensive report last year, “were essentially trying to disrupt a civilian transition.”

New US-brokered ceasefire gets shaky start in Sudan as airlifts continue

Not surprisingly, Wagner, who gained notoriety last year for his brutal front-line fighting in Russia’s war against Ukraine but operated in more than two dozen other countries, supported the 2021 military coup and is now fighting for lasting advantage. Russia has also long longed for a port on the Red Sea.

The Wagner Group has sufficient military resources and a masterful disinformation machine to continue to interfere in the conflict in Sudan while maintaining denial, analysts said.

This poses a new challenge to US interests.

“When we see them [the Wagner Group] engaging in any country, we find that ultimately that country becomes more vulnerable, more prone to destabilization, more prone to threats,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said on Tuesday. “And so we’re working with our allies and partners to the influence of the Wagner Group, of course on the African continent but also elsewhere.”

Washington has lost a lot of diplomatic, political and economic ground to Russia over the past decade and even more to China in places like Africa and Latin America. The Biden administration is trying to make it clear in Sudan and elsewhere that the US should be the partner of choice. But the chaos in Sudan will make that argument all the more obscure.