The civil war has devastated Sudan
In 2018, protests broke out across Sudan. They quickly gained revolutionary momentum, and by April 2019 the regime of dictator Omar al-Bashir had fallen.
The protests continued. But in August a “power-sharing” agreement was made between the Transitional Military Council, which took over from al-Bashir, and the movement.
Protests demanded an end to military rule and the creation of a civilian-led government.
In October 2021 the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) launched a military coup leading to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan seizing power. Millions of people poured onto the streets in opposition, with strikes across Sudan.
Thousands of resistance committees sprung up to organise struggle and meet everyday needs.
Until 2023, the military ruled Sudan. But in April 2023, the SAF and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia plunged Sudan into civil war to preserve the decaying system.
Over 14 million have been displaced, and over 150,000 killed.
What are things like in Sudan right now?
It’s been a very tough couple of years since the war started and things are still very difficult.
The SAF have taken more land from under the control of the RSF including the capital Khartoum. The takeover of the capital revealed a lot about the situation that people have been suffering under the control of the Rapid Support Forces.
Prisoners of the RSF that were found were very malnourished. There is footage of grown men weighing 40kg or less.
But unfortunately, what the SAF has brought is not exactly peace and tranquility. It’s actually a more well-strategised kind of violence with extrajudicial killing and torture of people that they deem collaborators with the RSF.
Sudan was always a very centralised country. So, when you have a war in the capital, the entire system collapses.
The economic situation is horrible. Every life is impacted by the war, regardless of where you are.
Almost everything in Khartoum is done by volunteers, whether it’s cleaning, removing dead bodies from the streets or feeding the people.
The army has been saying that it is the legitimate side, because it protects the state. Well, that state is not providing anything for the people. It’s just people supporting each other.
You have written about grassroots resistance. How have people organised to support each other?
Some of the emergency rooms appeared on the first day of the war, literally.
They are a new form of grassroots organising that built on the tools and on the capacity of resistance committees. You would find calls on social media that this group of volunteers will be operating an existing healthcare facility in the area.
Or they have turned some house or a shop into a healthcare centre to provide for the people.
There was clearly a sense that this is a short-term solution for a short-term escalation between the RSF and the SAF.
They will call upon people with healthcare experience, people who have medications or whatever available in their house to bring them to this place. These rooms would contact shop owners to open the shops and take food items to provide for the people.
Again, with a sense of an emergency measure—we will take it now and once everything is fine, we will settle the balance and pay for it.
These initiatives grew, they started linking and connecting themselves. They collaborate and coordinate their spending.
They’ve shown a model that is way more efficient than what we saw from the state. They operated healthcare facilities that were not even working at times of peace.
They showed a clear interest in psychological support—you couldn’t even dream of expecting the state to provide psychological support for people in war zones.
It is very unfortunate, however, that there is still this temporary mindset about it.
The Sudanese revolution tells us that people have amazing innovations and capabilities to find solutions for immediate problems. The state has failed us. This is our chance to build something different.
The people involved in these mutual aid efforts are not fully aware of the potential of what they’re doing. But it’s these kinds of communal initiatives that the new power will be most violent against.
They know that this is an alternative, a people-centred and people-led alternative to the services of the state.
Why would people be cheering the army if they see a better alternative available and attainable?
Do you have much hope? Have the militias crushed the revolution?
There’s always a way forward. There was always a possibility. It’s just a question of probability.
After the war, there’s a possibility of building on grassroots organising, even more than before the war. Before the war when you talked about grassroots organising and grassroots governance, you would be told this cannot be done without the state.
This argument is gone, because we saw that actually it is done better without them.
We were caged in an elitist framing of how change needs to come—by having a new prime minister or a new cabinet.
The state has failed us. This is our chance to build something different
But no, something that starts from actual local governance and control of our services and resources, this is the only way out.
The probability of that happening is very low without the revolutionary party. We lacked a socialist voice that says we should not go for accepting a compromise with the military.
Unfortunately, we prioritised protecting the transitional government, from 2019 until 2021, over the revolution.
It’s also the voice we needed during the war. Some say right now we need to protect the state. And then once this war is over, we go back to our revolutionary ways and fight the state that we protected. That just makes no sense.
These voices actually reflect the interests of the bourgeoisie, of the upper middle class.
Those are the groups from which we get most of the intellectuals of the resistance. Those are the people with access and knowledge and resources. It’s very normal for people to let their class interests take over their analysis.
And the propaganda of the state has been there since the state of Sudan was created.
Without a coherent narrative from the resistance, the public would go for the more coherent narrative of the military versus the RSF. We lacked the revolutionary party that can bring in some scientific analysis and clarity to the people.
How to build a revolutionary party is the million dollar question.
What can people in other countries do in solidarity with Sudan?
Of course, the solution for Sudan needs to come from the Sudanese people. But I think the best form of solidarity now is to enable each other to advance our revolutionary projects.
One of the best things would be to provide the people of Sudan with information. We need information about how the Global North is intervening.
There are a lot of interventions, whether they come directly from diplomatic relations or aid and development.
These are negotiations that deeply impact our country, but are clearly funded by external actors and we have no idea who they are.
Whenever one militia wins the war, there are international partners who will sit down and negotiate with them, who will provide them funds.
Another thing is to provide information about us. In Sudan there has been a legitimisation of violence. This led to having two armed forces fighting over power with zero regard for the life of the people.
Any framing that favours either side of these two is basically rewarding the other side. And giving them a reason to further this war.
This is not a framing that is helpful for us. I’m seeing a lot of this happening in the Global North. There’s an attempt to frame the situation in Sudan strictly in terms of neo-colonialism. People will say it is a proxy war with other states like the United Arab Emirates intervening and backing the RSF.
Yes, there are international and regional interests. But there are two internal armed powers that have been Sudanese for quite a while.
Calling it a neo-colonial proxy war seems to resonate with people who perhaps know more about Ukraine. But it does not reflect the reality of what’s happening in Sudan.
There is a focus that comes with that on the RSF crimes, which are horrible crimes. But they didn’t start in 2023.
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