Ethiopia

An assortment of buses in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa The first bus that comes into frame (the green one) is an EV and is part of a 200-strong fleet owned by a private company. The rest are ICE and are part of different fleets (Sheger bus, Public Service bus, etc.) that are owned by the city government and some other government agencies that had too many buses not to become bus companies.

Dr.Ziesel, please give us some background United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama Haiti, Jamaica, Peru, Republic Dominican, Cuba, Carribean Greenland, El Salvador too. Puerto Rico, Columbia, Venezuela Honduras, Guyana, and still, Guatemala, Bolivia, then Argentina And Ecuador, Chile, Brazil. Costa Rica, Belize, Nicaragua, Bermuda Bahamas, Tobago, San Juan, Paraguay, Uruguay, Surinam And French Guiana, Barbados, and Guam. Norway, and Sweden, and Iceland, and Finland And Germany now one piece, Switzerland, Austria, Czechoslovakia Italy, Turkey, and Greece. Poland, Romania, Scotland, Albania Ireland, Russia, Oman, Bulgaria, Saudi Arabia Hungary, Cyprus, Iraq, and Iran. There's Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan Both Yemens, Kuwait, and Bahrain, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Portugal France, England, Denmark, and Spain. India, Pakistan, Burma, Afghanistan Thailand, Nepal, and Bhutan, Kampuchea, Malaysia, then Bangladesh (Asia) And China, Korea, Japan. Mongolia, Laos, and Tibet, Indonesia The Philippine Islands, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, New Guinea, Sumatra, New Zealand Then Borneo, and Vietnam. Tunisia, Morocco, Uganda, Angola Zimbabwe, Djibouti, Botswana, Mozambique, Zambia, Swaziland, Gambia Guinea, Algeria, Ghana. Burundi, Lesotho, and Malawi, Togo The Spanish Sahara is gone, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, and Liberia Egypt, Benin, and Gabon. Tanzania, Somalia, Kenya, and Mali Sierra Leone, and Algiers, Dahomey, Namibia, Senegal, Libya Cameroon, Congo, Zaire. Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar Rwanda, Mahore, and Cayman, Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Yugoslavia... Crete, Mauritania Then Transylvania, Monaco, Liechtenstein Malta, and Palestine, Fiji, Australia, Sudan

How the UAE kept the Sudan war raging through Uganda? #mrlukwagoswalihliveshow Muhoozi Kainerugaba’s links to Abu Dhabi and Sudan involve a mix of regional geopolitics, diplomatic friction, and military relations. Abu Dhabi (the UAE) faces widespread international accusations of backing Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the ongoing civil war,charges that Abu Dhabi denies. Meanwhile, Uganda and Muhoozi Kainerugaba have navigated a complex and sometimes volatile role in the crisis. Muhoozi’s Controversial Remarks on Sudan Khartoum Threat where Muhoozi posted and later deleted inflammatory remarks on social media threatening to capture Sudan's capital, Khartoum. Diplomatic Row since the comments prompted a sharp rebuke and a demand for an official apology from the Sudanese government, straining relations between Kampala and Khartoum. Uganda and Abu Dhabi (UAE) Relations Military and Defense Ties. Muhoozi has held high-level meetings with Emirati delegations and military counterparts to build bilateral security and defense cooperation. Aerospace and Tech Engagement: Leadership from Abu Dhabi-based firms like MIRA Aerospace have met with the UPDF in Uganda to discuss potential regional aerospace and communication hubs. Regional War Dynamics where International reports and analysts frequently link UAE supply networks running through neighboring states to the belligerents in Sudan's conflict, drawing scrutiny to East African nations maintaining ties with Abu Dhabi. A network of munition supply lines, backing the Rapid Support Forces against the Sudanese army, can be traced to the Gulf via Libya, Chad, Uganda and elsewhere. The RSF’s Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo met with Yoweri Museveni at his country home in Rwakitura, southwestern Uganda, on 27 Dec, 2023, the first stop on the RSF leader’s charm offensive across eastern and southern Africa. A plane carrying unknown cargo was seen on the runway at Hamrat al-Sheikh, an airstrip in Sudan’s North Kordofan state. A handful of local people gathered around it. One of them took a video. Hamrat al-Sheikh is a remote but strategically important site. It’s 250km from el-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan, which was besieged by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in its war with the Sudanese army. The town, which in peace-time has a population of more than 400,000, is also at a key intersection of several roads, linking the RSF’s power base in western Sudan’s Darfur with Khartoum. Details taken from that airstrip video and verified by Middle East Eye, as well as information from flight trackers Flightradar24 and JetPhotos, indicate that the ordinary-looking plane at Hamrat al-Sheikh was a white Beechcraft 1900D with a blue tail and owned by Bar Aviation, a company based in Uganda. The company did not respond to questions from MEE by the time of publication. News of the landing spread to el-Obeid, two sources in the town told Middle East Eye. The reason was clear, one of the sources said: the plane’s cargo contained weaponry,possibly Russian Katyusha rockets, destined for the RSF, which has been using the artillery in the area, as it has across the country. The munitions would support the group’s hold on el-Obeid as well as its attempts to control the supply lines running from Darfur to Khartoum. Another source said that the rockets had been used to fire on North Kordofan’s Centre of Peace and Development Studies. According to multiple sources, both local and international, the plane originated from the UAE. The UAE has previously denied “supplying weapons or ammunition to any of the warring factions in Sudan”. But the supply of weapons to the RSF has allowed it to punch above its weight, in a complex network of supply lines and alliances that encompasses not only Sudan but also Libya, Chad and Uganda. The revival of the RSF The war in Sudan is going on. According to the UN, the conflict has displaced 7.3m people and killed more than 12,000. The numbers go up day by day. Death tolls in Darfur are largely unrecorded: the real figure is probably far higher. Both sides have committed atrocities. The army has revitalised the prospects for ultra-conservative groups and figures connected to the autocratic administration of former president Omar al-Bashir, who was removed from power after three decades following a popular uprising in 2019. In Darfur, which has been in an almost permanent state of conflict throughout the 21st century, eyewitnesses have told Middle East Eye of summary executions, rape, and ethnically motivated killings perpetuated by the RSF and its allied Arab militias, targeting the Black African Masalit population. These crimes, denied by the paramilitary, have been recorded by human right. ‘What is coming from the UAE is very substantial. It has kept the RSF in the fight’ On the battlefield and in the diplomatic arena, the RSF, which was brought into the Sudanese state under the auspices of the intelligence services in 2013, following a series of protests that threatened Bashir, is now in the ascendency. When fighting began in Khartoum last April, there was a feeling among many inside and outside Sudan that the SAF’s greater numbers, its air power, status as the national army, and its control of the country’s institutions would eventually see it overcome its ally-turned-enemy. Although the RSF only has about 100,000 men compared to the army’s estimated 200,000, it has been battle-hardened by crushing dissent across Sudan, and fighting for UAE-backed forces in Yemen, Libya and other parts of the Sahel region, making it the more effective outfit. But while the paramilitary force was able to take weapons and equipment from the army, it would need more than that to keep it properly supplied. Cameron Hudson, a former CIA analyst and senior associate at the CSIS Africa Program, told MEE: “At the beginning of the conflict, I and others were saying it will be difficult for the RSF to sustain. And yet we have all been proven wrong and I think the difference…has been external support. “I think what is coming from the UAE is very substantial. It has kept them in the fight, and it has allowed them to sustain this fight with no end in sight.” Sudanese and western officials, diplomats, local activists and human rights lawyers have all echoed Hudson’s view. The support has come primarily from one place, a key US ally: the UAE. It was also, according to the US government, facilitated by the private Russian military group Wagner, which “has been supplying the Rapid Support Forces with surface-to-air missiles to fight against Sudan’s army, contributing to a prolonged armed conflict that only results in further chaos in the region.” Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the leader of the RSF better known as Hemeti, has headquartered his commercial empire in Dubai, one of the emirates. He is reportedly close to the UAE’s vice president, Mansour bin Zayed, and took a long trip to Abu Dhabi last February and March, before the war began, meeting with Sheikh Mansour and the UAE’s president and ruler, Mohammed bin Zayed. The gold that flows out of RSF-controlled mines in Darfur is traded in the UAE, where Hemeti’s youngest brother, Algoni Dagalo, is based. Dagalo also leads some of the RSF’s regional ventures there, including the now-sanctioned Tradive, which the US Treasury defines as “a procurement company that has purchased vehicles for the RSF in the past”. Youssef Ezzat, the paramilitary’s top political adviser, told MEE: “I have said many times that they accuse the UAE and forget that the RSF controlled all military storages and bases. The RSF doesn’t need supply lines from outside. That is what the world doesn’t want to see.” The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to MEE’s requests for comment on reports that it is supplying the RSF. Aside from its relationship with the Dagalo family and its use of RSF fighters in Yemen and Libya, the UAE has other long-standing interests in Sudan. They include buying up agricultural land to address food security issues at home, the import of livestock from Sudan, and a series of port projects along the Red Sea coastline, including one $6bn plan finalised last year for a port north of Port Sudan. There is also the political dimension. The Sudanese revolution that brought an end to Bashir’s three decades in power aspired to bring back democracy to one of the largest countries in the Arab and Muslim world. Abdullahi Halakhe, senior advocate for East and Southern Africa at Refugees International, told Middle East Eye: “The UAE has worked more than any other country to stifle the emergence of democracy in the region. “They have funded regimes in Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Libya and are now supporting the RSF in Sudan. Chequebook diplomacy works for them.” The messaging has been different. In the months before the war began, according to European diplomats based in North Africa, Emirati officials were briefing that if European countries wanted to support democracy in Sudan, then they should support the RSF, which began to adopt a pro-democracy public relations campaign. The paramilitary has since picked up some backing from leaders in the pro-democracy Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) coalition. Hemeti met with Sudan’s former prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, whom he ousted with army general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan in the military coup of October 2021. Hamdok now lives in the UAE, where his think tank, the Centre for African Development and Investment (Cadi), is registered. At the meeting in Addis Ababa, he and Hemeti embraced. How to get arms into Sudan The army dominates Sudan’s airspace: the challenge for the RSF and its backers once the war began was to secure supply lines. In the early months of the conflict, officials in southern Libya and sources close to the forces of eastern commander Khalifa Haftar, told MEE that the UAE was using Haftar, who it supports, to send military supplies to the RSF in Sudan. Those sources also identified a series of key Libyan air bases, from where cargo would be flown to the Central African Republic (CAR), then driven overland into Darfur. Days before the war began, one of Haftar’s sons, Sadeeq, was in Khartoum meeting Hemeti, and donating $2m to a football club that the paramilitary leader is involved with. It was Ramadan: Haftar’s son returned to Hemeti’s Khartoum residence, where the two men broke their fast together. Jalel Harchaoui, a political analyst and an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), told MEE that the Haftar family were mindful of maintaining the “illicit trade networks that exist between Sudan and eastern Libya”, including fuel, Captagon, hashish, gold, stolen cars, and people trafficking, and began “sending aid” to the RSF. “Hemeti was their preferred belligerent,” Harchaoui said of the UAE and Russia. “They had been supporting him for several years before the war erupted. Both nations knew there was a way of supporting him without being denounced by the international community and they took that path.” As the war raged, supply routes out of Libya shifted because of international monitoring: the UN Security Council has placed an arms embargo on western Sudan, which was renewed later on. Moussa Tehoussay, a member of Libya’s Change Party and a researcher in African affairs, told MEE that the military support running from eastern and southern Libya to Sudan mostly went through the Wagner Group, which had transported advanced weaponry and military equipment, such as SAM-7 missiles and anti-aircraft systems, via air cargo from the town of Kufra. “The modus operandi kept changing,” Harchaoui said. “The volume also varied. But there was always some flow of aid. It never really stopped. The UAE and Russia have always had every intention of making sure Hemeti wins. Since day one.” Making use of Sudan’s neighbours Darfur, the vast region of western Sudan from which the RSF grew out of the Janjaweed militias once employed by the state to crush the rebellion, also borders Chad and the Central African Republic. In CAR, the government of President Faustin-Archange Touadera is dependent on Wagner forces for military support in its fight against rebels. The Russian group also helped Touadera win a referendum that allows him to run for office as many times as he likes. Opposition sources in the country have told MEE that Wagner mercenaries were involved in the transit of weapons across the border to the RSF in Darfur. The supplies are sometimes but not always flown in from Libya. Abdu Buda, a spokesperson for the rebel Union for Peace in the Central African Republic (UPC), said: “Wagner and the CAR government are keen to secure the situation of their ally in Sudan, which is the RSF, so they have handed huge quantities of weapons to the RSF through the Sudanese-CAR borders.” At the same time, the Emiratis were looking to shift the position of Chad’s government, which fears the destabilisation from a war on its borders and sees the RSF as a group that could help regime change in Chad. Mahamat Idriss Deby, Chad’s military leader and transitional president, met with an adviser to Mohammed bin Zayed, and Abdelrahim Dagalo, Hemeti’s brother and right-hand man, in N’Djamena, according to Hudson and the western military analyst. The UAE offered Deby “more than a billion dollars” to “flip Chad towards supporting the RSF,” according to Hudson. And during summer 2023, the remote Chad town of Amdjarass, which is where the Deby family hails from, turned into a “boom town”, according to a source close to local officials, who also confirmed Hudson’s observations. The flight tracker Gerjon recorded 109 cargo flights coming from the UAE, stopping briefly at Entebbe in Uganda and then flying on to Amdjarass. Gerjon has since deactivated their account following what they described as “a recent incident” which, they said, meant they “no longer feel safe”. Amdjarass became, according to the New York Times, the heart of an “elaborate covert operation” being run by the UAE to back the RSF, “supplying powerful weapons and drones, treating injured fighters and airlifting the most serious cases to one of its military hospitals”. But flights from Uganda to Chad can be tracked, and so the RSF and its backers have been trying to bring cargo into Sudanese airspace, where it cannot be followed. Uganda, flights and the president The culmination of Hemedti’s shuttle diplomacy was his extraordinary inclusion at the IGAD Heads of State Summit in Kampala in January 2024. The 6 August flight into North Kordofan, which MEE tracked at either end with the help of the video supplied by local sources, appears to have been part of this effort to fly supplies directly into Sudan. Though that flight landed, army air strikes a few days later put an abrupt end to this route until the middle of November, when the army once again started bombing Hamrat al-Sheikh because it believed the RSF was again flying in supplies. Bar Aviation, the owner of the plane in the video, is headed by its CEO, Barak Orland, an Israeli businessman who has lived in Uganda for almost two decades. He is close to the family of Yoweri Museveni. On its website, the company, which is based at Entebbe International Airport and Kajjansi Airfield, where the flight into Sudan is believed to have come from, describes itself as the “leading service-orientated Ugandan airline”. There are also local and industry news items in which Orland is described as a “visionary”, or in which the man himself heralds the successful air transport of 18 rhinos from South Africa to Congo. But this view is not shared by everyone. “I have spoken to several people who know Orland as an arms dealer,” Nicholas Opiyo, a Ugandan human rights lawyer, told MEE. Neither Bar Aviation nor Barak Orland responded to Middle East Eye’s requests for comment on the allegations and events presented in this article. Ehud Yaari, an Israeli analyst who has served his country as an adviser on Sudan, told MEE that Orland was “a small operator who found a niche for himself in Uganda… He’s a sort of an unguided missile, he’s close to Museveni.” Asked about reports that Orland had been involved in selling Israeli arms to Uganda, Yaari said: “I don’t think Israel needs him for that.” Married to a Ugandan, Orland is the co-owner of a host of security companies and previously ran a communications operation called Roke Telekom, which he later sold. The Israeli is particularly close to Muhoozi Kainerugaba, a Ugandan general and son of Museveni, who has held power in Kampala since 1986. Kainerugaba, who is portrayed as being groomed to succeed his father, is known for his erratic behaviour, once tweeting that it would take two weeks for him and his men to conquer Kenya,a comment Museveni then had to apologise for. Muhoozi posted pictures of him and Orland together on social media and has thanked him publicly for his work as vice president of Uganda’s Federation of Motorsport Clubs. Yaari told MEE that Bar Aviation had also made flights from Uganda to eastern Chad. “The suspicion is that they were bringing in supplies from the UAE,” he said. The analyst added that there were “business dealings between Hemeti and the Ugandans which fit in with the financial assistance the UAE provided Chad.” Museveni, who with his wife Janet brokered a ground-breaking 2020 meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sudanese army chief al-Burhan, which was seen as beginning normalising relations between the two countries, has maintained communications with both sides in Sudan’s war. ‘I think Museveni is playing a behind-the-scenes role in this conflict, as he always has done, primarily to boost his military economy’ Nicholas Opiyo, Ugandan lawyer He visited Abu Dhabi at least twice last year and has allocated more and more Ugandan farmland to the UAE as part of a “plan to take advantage of the civil war in Sudan to turn the country into a hub for Emirati trade in the region”. In May, Museveni received Ezzat, the RSF adviser, who “provided a comprehensive explanation” for the reasons behind the war in Sudan and “conveyed a message” to Museveni from his boss Hemeti. “Actually, Uganda is not an ally,” Ezzat told MEE. “When I visited Museveni he was the president of the African Union Peace and Security Council. We needed to brief him about what happened in Khartoum.” Ezzat said Museveni was an “important African leader” who knew the Sudanese conflict well. “Uganda is an African country, and we are African. We need African solutions to our conflict,” the RSF adviser said. Opiyo said that if Bar Aviation’s planes were being used to fly weapons into Sudan, they could not be doing it without Museveni’s knowledge. “I think Museveni is playing a behind-the-scenes role in this conflict, as he always has done, primarily to boost his military economy. I wouldn’t be surprised if businessmen like Orland are conduits for these deals because he has the infrastructure,” the Ugandan lawyer said. Bar Aviation company is affiliated with Mossad and under the cover of being a company that provides safari flights within the continent. Barak Orland the face of the (Israeli-Emirati) entity in Africa, owner of the aircraft company that serves the Rapid Support Forces to transport Emirati military supplies through intermediaries to Sudan, met with the Dqlu brothers in Entébè accompanied by an Emirati "Aircraft owner who appeared in Hamra al-Shaykh in August last". He is the CEO of YAMASEC, SPARTASEC and SWAT Private Security Companies. He is also the owner of Busiika Motorcross Arena, Barak Orland. Museveni’s office did not respond to Middle East Eye’s request for comment on the allegations. Sudan’s army hits out at UAE Back in action: After months out of the limelight, Sudan Armed Forces chief, Gen. Abdul Fatah al-Burhan inspected the 44th Brigade on 30 Jan, 2024. Throughout the war, Sudanese army officers and officials aligned with the army,spoken in private about what they perceive to be the main influence of the UAE and its support for their enemy. General Yasser al-Atta blasted the Emirates in a speech to members of the General Intelligence Service in Omdurman. “We have information from intelligence, military intelligence, and the diplomatic circuit that the UAE sends planes to support the Janjaweed,” al-Atta said, referring to the RSF by the name of the militias from which it emerged. Atta accused the UAE of funnelling its supplies through Uganda, CAR and Chad. The general praised Russia for dismantling the Wagner Group, which he said had facilitated supplies through CAR. “We warn any country that participates in supporting this rebellion that what goes around comes around,” he added. Responding to the accusations, an Emirati official said that the UAE had “consistently called for de-escalation, a ceasefire, and the initiation of diplomatic dialogue” in Sudan, as well as providing humanitarian support. According to the lawyer in el-Obeid, “many civilians were injured, and some killed as a result of the bombings”. Cop 28, the United Nations Climate Change Conference began in the UAE, one of the ten largest oil producers in the world. “The Gulf countries have mastered the soft power thing,” Halakhe told MEE. “Qatar hosted the World Cup, COP28 was just in the UAE, which owns Manchester City Football Club, the Saudis have LIV Golf, and so on.” Sudan’s army-aligned government expelled 15 Emirati diplomats. Days later, the RSF attacked el-Gezira state, pushing into central Sudan for the first time and sending the army and hundreds of thousands of civilians scattering before them. As 2023 drew to a close, the UAE continued to deny that it was supporting the RSF, emphasising its “active role in de-escalation efforts in Sudan” in a letter to the UN’s panel of experts. Khartoum was shrouded in darkness. The sound of gunfire and artillery rounds echoed across the city. “As we welcome the new year, let us stand united and pray for peace and progress for all people in the UAE, region, and world,” posted Mohammed bin Zayed. Meanwhile Hemeti, clad in a suit and tie, was off on a diplomatic tour of Africa, travelling in an Emirati jet and meeting Museveni and other heads of state in Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa and Rwanda. His tour ended there, in Kigali, where he visited the memorial to the Rwandan genocide. “As Sudanese, we must learn from Rwanda,” the former Janjaweed commander wrote. “The war our country is experiencing today must be the last, and we should work toward creating a just and sustainable peace for ourselves and for the prosperity of our future generations.” Not long after, Hemeti repeated at length his calls for a “democratic and peaceful Sudan”. His statement came on 16 January, on the eve of a summit convened by IGAD, a group of east African nations that has sought to broker talks between the Sudanese army and the RSF. Sudan’s army-aligned foreign ministry suspended its involvement with IGAD, accusing it of “violating” Sudan’s sovereignty by inviting Hemeti. The summit was held in Entebbe, the Ugandan city in which Bar Aviation has its main hub. Sudan’s army chief, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, says the Sudanese Armed Forces remain committed to defeating the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) but are open to “genuine” peace initiatives. Speaking during the SAF’s 72nd anniversary, Burhan said peace must begin with the RSF laying down its weapons, gathering in designated areas and allowing security and normal life to return. He rejected any peace deal that would allow the RSF or its leaders to return to power. Burhan also called for a purely Sudanese political dialogue involving political and social groups to help restore state institutions, including the legislative council. Sudan has been at war since April 2023, with the conflict killing tens of thousands and displacing nearly 13 million people.

There should be no such thing as a "One Africa" it would be terrible to Botswana Yes you read that right. One Africa would be terrible to the advancement of Botswana. Before you misunderstand me, I support African countries trading more, investing in each other, and building infrastructure together and generally helping each other out. But Being ONE literal country? HELL NAH. Africa isnt one culture. We are Africans, yeah true, but we're also very different people. Southern Africa isnt West Africa. Botswana isn't Nigeria. Ghana isn't Ethiopia. we have completely different histories, languages, cultures, values and much different ways of seeing our world. Pan Africanism mindsets are self destructive in this current state. The current idea that African unity automatically should mean complete unification, open borders everywhere, and putting being “African” above your own country, sounds nice til you actually think about how it would really work. Africa has a big differences in development some nations are much more developed than others. If you suddenly created one completely open environment, people from undeveloped areas would flock to the places with better lifestyles, safety, infrastructure, and opportunities, countries like Botswana could face insane pressures like for example if 3 million Africans from impoverished areas with different mindsets and cultures from Batswana came to Botswana on the Go to find "opportunity" they would immediately outnumber Batswana and would cause tensions between natives. and if this pattern goes on. Botswana wont be Botswana anymore. I'd rather see strong African countries cooperating with each other than one big structure struggling to manage its wayy different societies. Let Botswana be Botswana, Nigeria be Nigeria, Ethiopia be Ethiopia. Our cultures have different values and uphold different mindsets. And I especially reject the idea that questioning Pan Africanism automatically makes someone Anti African. NO. I can love Africa and still say some African political ideas are terrible**.** I can want Africans to prosper without believing Africans need one government. I can support African trade without supporting unlimited immigration. I can support cooperation without supporting complete unification. I can want Botswana to work with the rest of Africa while still saying Botswana must remain Botswana I think the priority should be developing Africa first before dreaming about unification. Build the economies. Build and Maintain the infrastructure. Build functioning institutions. improve education. Build independent industries. And Build stable societies. Before any further communication can occur and YES all that is possible without unification. Pan Africanism in the term Africans can be free to move to other nations, uncontrolled has already failed me. We have different cultures, views, and society and lets keep it that way. While we trade and help each other be better. The moment Africa fully develops in Mind, culture, and economy. Then maybe it should loosen up a bit (but not unity). There are a lot of destructive cultures in certain parts of Africa i wont name, and will not want many of those people to bring them here at home. We are already dealing with our demons. The idea that we should tolerate anything just because we share the same skin color, is just beyond me. Well respectfully.

Sudan: Civilian Sieges and the Slow Descent into an Africa Mega-War Ruth Hanau Santini ResetDoc.org 7 August 2026 Since April 2023, Sudan has entered a brutal war with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) fighting the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), both hitting civilians across the country, manipulating and weaponizing pre-existing communal tensions. The power struggle between the two former allies, which removed the Al Bashir regime in 2019, was in the making since 2021, when they derailed the civilian-led transition. A key aspect of this rivalry tends to be neglected in the West and in media representation and revolves around the self-perception and performative narratives of both parties: SAF considers itself the bearer of the Sudanese state and its defender, identifying the RSF with a predatory rogue militia that needs to be eliminated. The RSF’ governance ambitions—which predate the war—are premised on a strong Arab pastoralist identity, a profitable extractive political economy, and powerful patrons, the United Arab Emirates first and foremost. While the two sides cooperated in the past, after more than three years of all-out war and intense violence within a zero-sum game logic between their elites, their reciprocal demonization and their transformation into existential enemies seems hard to reverse. The victimization of civilians has been a consistent feature since the early days of the conflict, from both sides. The numbers of civilians affected by the conflict are staggering: as of July 2026, there are more than 33 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, over 12.7 million women and girls suffered from gender-based violence, 8.8 million internally displaced, and 5 million people face emergency or catastrophic hunger levels, with over 100,000 experiencing famine-like conditions. Conflict is compounded by other crisis factors: the closure of the Hormuz Strait is increasing the price of fertilizers, desperately needed by Sudanese farmers during the current planting season. Funding shortcuts and the dismantling of the international humanitarian architecture inaugurated by the second U.S. Trump administration also weigh heavily on the fate of millions: suffice it to consider that due to extreme funding shortfalls, the World Food Programme has reduced its assistance from 5 million Sudanese to 3,5 million people, while simultaneously reducing rations. The conflict is shaped not just by military dynamics on the ground, but by the conflict’s increasingly complex transnational political economy. Only recently, both the European Union and the British government adopted sanctions on gold export industries—Sudan possessing one of Africa’s largest gold reserves—which are deemed to be supporting the war effort, as is the gum arabic industry, on both sides, and whose exploitation by both parties to the conflict makes the conflict financially sustainable. Three dynamics are particularly worrisome for Sudanese civilians, but also for the Horn of Africa more broadly. The first dynamic is the risk of a shift from the current regionalization of the conflict to the deterioration in one Horn of Africa conflict ecosystem, or an Africa mega-war. The 2023 war in Sudan is far from being “just” an intra-Sudanese affair. The two Sudanese sides not only benefit from the financial, military, logistical and political support of regional and extra-regional actors but also provide the ground for their proxy fights, in a typical Cold War modality, even in the Arab world. Sudan namely provides an unfortunate theater for geopolitical rivalries to play out: from the intra-Gulf one, between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, to the current Ethiopia-Eritrea fallout; to the deteriorating relations between Egypt and Ethiopia since Cairo hosted Tigray fighters and SAF supported Cairo in the GERD dispute, leading Addis to stand with the RSF. On top of that, there are interest-driven regional states, such as Kenya with regard to trafficking Sudanese gold and Chad signing cooperation agreements with the UAE enabling the swift transfer of weapons to the RSF in Sudan. Overall, a mix of motives accounts for regional and extra-regional states’ involvement in the conflict: material incentives (gold trafficking to name one), political incentives (SAF is a safer bet for Cairo Nile security concerns), ideological reasons (the Emirati anti-Islamist agenda driving their anti-SAF stance, among other aspects), infrastructural reasons (the Emirati wish to develop Port Sudan). The overlay of material and immaterial incentives, shaping fragmented external proxy agendas, together with the proliferation of state and non-state actors involved, a difficult aspect to tackle in negotiations. In addition to regional actors, the conflict has been amplified by the engagement of international state actors such as Russia and of international private non-state actors such as Colombian mercenaries fighting for RSF, as in the siege of El Fasher in North Darfur in 2025. This leads to the second dynamic: the dearth of attempts at effective mediation for the management, if not resolution, of the conflict. For once, the involvement of so many regional players diminishes the chances of identifying an honest broker or one considered such by both parties to the conflict. The limited engagement of the African Union speaks volumes to the ongoing fragility of the regional organization whose mandate is first and foremost about maintaining and/or restoring peace on the continent. The two key financial patrons and backers of the Sudanese rivals, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, made only one attempt at mediation with the Jeddah Talks in 2023 and then broadened the format to include the U.S., Egypt, and the Quad, which last met in autumn 2025. In April 2026, the third Sudan conference in Berlin did widen participation to include the country’s civil society organizations and pledged US$1 billion in humanitarian aid, but fell short of charting a viable path for mediation. Western actors and most mediators start from the assumption that the unitary nature of the Sudanese state must be preserved in any future agreement, despite the current de facto governance partition in two entities, one controlled by the RSF in the south-west, including most of Darfur and Kordofan, the other by SAF over the east and north. Frontlines continue to shift in Blue Nile and in the Abyei region, but overall demarcation lines have become geographically relatively stable and many increasingly openly speak about partition either as a de facto reality that risks entrenching or as a likely outcome. For the time being, in terms of wartime political order, sovereignty in Sudan is mostly segmented, as the two political actors exercise full sovereignty over distinct parts of the territory, rather than exercising limited sovereignty over the same part of the territory. Violence is particularly acute in contested areas, where fighting is not merely intended to win over the adversary but the local civilian population. This leads us to the third and last dynamic: the victimization of civilians through blockades and sieges, especially by the RSF. This was the case with the capital of North Darfur, El Fasher, in 2025—when RSF slaughtered over 6,000 people, after an 18-month siege during which they denied civilians access to food, water, medical supplies and humanitarian assistance—and the ongoing 18-month siege of El Obeid. In the case of El Fasher, the ethnic dimension of the targeted population was visible, as the rhetoric deployed explicitly identified non-Arabs as the population to be eliminated, signaling intent, which led international experts to formulate the accusation of genocide. According to survivors’ reports, RSF fighters would explicitly ask: “Is there anyone Zaghawa among you? If we find Zaghawa, we will kill them all”; and “We want to eliminate anything black from Darfur.” The current siege of El Obeid seems less ethnically induced and more logistically driven. El Obeid is the capital of North Kordofan, with a population of 500,000 and still under SAF control, which keeps control over an eastern corridor, while the RSF has encircled the city from north, west and south and, especially since June, has been hitting the city with heavy drone attacks, which are the hallmark of this siege. It sits between the RSF-Darfur, central states and the areas controlled by SAF in North Kordofan. Even more significantly, from El Obeid, a main road gets to Khartoum and Omdurman, the capital twin city, representing a key supply route for the army. Especially after having lost Khartoum, imposing their control over El Obeid would empower the RSF and severely damage prospects for the SAF to hold out. At the humanitarian level, residents have nowhere to flee; the city is undergoing a fuel and electricity crisis due to attacks, food prices have surged up to 300 percent, and water prices have doubled. As was the case with El Fasher, the international community is made aware in real time of rapidly deteriorating humanitarian conditions, as well as of the military and political consequences should El Obeid fall under the control of the RSF, and yet, little political will, especially among those countries that could hold sway over key parties to the conflict, such as the U.S. and Egypt, is employed to prevent further atrocities. *Cover photo: Women and children queue to receive free food being distributed in al-Mohayra camp for displaced people, near the city of El-Obeid in the southern Kordofan region, on June 29, 2026. (Photo by AFP)

Sudanese Refugees in Southern Egypt Face Deepening Humanitarian Crisis as Support Declines August 2026 More than three years after the outbreak of war in Sudan in April 2023, thousands of Sudanese refugees remain stranded in southern Egypt, where they continue to face growing humanitarian challenges, uncertain legal status, and diminishing opportunities for rebuilding their lives. The Egyptian city of Aswan, located near the Sudanese border, became one of the first destinations for civilians fleeing violence after conflict erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). While many initially viewed Aswan as a temporary stop before moving elsewhere, thousands of families remain there with few options for the future. A City of Temporary Refuge Becomes Long-Term Limbo During the early months of the conflict, Aswan received a continuous flow of people escaping violence, insecurity, and destruction inside Sudan. Refugees filled railway stations, bus terminals, inexpensive hotels, and temporary shelters while trying to recover from the trauma of war. Many hoped to return home once the fighting subsided or expected to be resettled in another country. However, as the conflict entered its fourth year, those hopes have largely faded. Today, Aswan has become a place where many displaced Sudanese families remain trapped in prolonged uncertainty. Humanitarian Assistance Continues to Shrink One of the most pressing concerns facing refugees is the reduction in humanitarian assistance. International humanitarian agencies have struggled with funding shortages, forcing many organizations to reduce food assistance, cash support, healthcare services, and educational programs. For vulnerable families who rely entirely on humanitarian aid, these reductions have made daily survival increasingly difficult. Many refugees report struggling to afford: * Food and clean drinking water * Rent and basic housing * Medical treatment * School supplies for children * Transportation * Essential household needs As assistance declines, some families have been forced to adopt negative coping strategies, including reducing meals, withdrawing children from school, or borrowing money to survive. Legal Challenges Increase Vulnerability Legal uncertainty remains another major challenge. Many refugees face difficulties obtaining or renewing legal documentation required to remain in Egypt. Without proper documentation, access to employment, education, healthcare, and other essential services becomes significantly more difficult. The lengthy refugee registration process and administrative requirements have also contributed to prolonged uncertainty. Families often live with constant anxiety about their legal status and future. Limited Access to Education Children have been particularly affected by the prolonged displacement. Although Egypt has made efforts to expand educational opportunities for refugees, many Sudanese children continue to encounter obstacles, including: * Limited school spaces * Transportation costs * Language differences * Documentation requirements * Financial hardship As a result, many children have experienced years of interrupted education since fleeing Sudan. Humanitarian organizations warn that prolonged school interruptions may have lasting consequences for an entire generation of displaced children. Healthcare Remains Difficult to Access Access to healthcare has also become increasingly challenging. Many refugee families cannot afford medical consultations, medication, or specialized treatment. Pregnant women, elderly refugees, persons with disabilities, and individuals suffering from chronic illnesses face particularly serious difficulties. Mental health needs have also grown as many refugees continue to cope with trauma caused by war, displacement, family separation, and uncertainty about the future. Economic Hardship Finding stable employment remains difficult for many refugees. Without reliable income, families struggle to pay rent and purchase basic necessities. Rising living costs have further increased financial pressure, leaving many refugees dependent on humanitarian assistance that continues to decline. Conflict in Sudan Shows Little Sign of Ending The ongoing conflict inside Sudan remains one of the world’s largest displacement crises. Millions of people have been forced to flee their homes, with neighboring countries—including Egypt, Chad, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, and the Central African Republic—hosting large refugee populations. Although the number of new arrivals in Aswan has slowed compared to the early months of the conflict, people continue to cross the border seeking safety. Growing Need for International Support Humanitarian organizations continue to call for increased international funding to support refugees in Egypt and throughout the region. Experts argue that sustained assistance is needed to provide: * Food security * Healthcare * Education * Legal protection * Livelihood opportunities * Protection for women and children * Durable solutions, including voluntary return when conditions permit, local integration where appropriate, or third-country resettlement for the most vulnerable. Conclusion The situation facing Sudanese refugees in southern Egypt illustrates the long-term consequences of prolonged conflict. What began as an emergency displacement has evolved into a protracted humanitarian crisis marked by legal uncertainty, shrinking humanitarian assistance, limited economic opportunities, and an uncertain future. As the conflict in Sudan continues, humanitarian agencies warn that greater international solidarity and financial support will be essential to prevent conditions from deteriorating further and to ensure that displaced families can live with dignity while durable solutions are pursued.