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Two years into Sudan's civil war, the fighting has entered a new phase, with explosions ripping through the Red Sea City Port Sudan.
Sudan has been witnessing over the past two years a crime of transgressions over its sovereignty and the unity of its land and the security of its citizens.
The government has blamed the United Arab Emirates for allegedly arming its rival, the Rapid Support Forces, and has cut off diplomatic ties with Abu Dhabi.
The Security and Defense Council has decided the following first the designation of the United Arab Emirates as an enemy state, second, cutting diplomatic ties with the UAE, Third with during the Sudanese Embassy and Consulate.
The UAE strongly denies any involvement, and last week the ICE dismissed a case brought against the UAE by Sudan. On this week's Next Africa podcast, we look at what this new round of fighting tells us about the state of the war in Sudan and why the government is blaming the UAE for allegedly arming the RSF.
I'm Jennifer's Abasajap and this is the Next Africa Podcast, bringing you one story each week from the continent driving the future of global growth with the context only Bloomberg can provide. Joining me to discuss this this week is Bloomberg Simon Marx, who's based in Nairobi but has been following this story very closely. Simon, thank you so much for joining us. It's great to have you back on the podcast. Let's just start here with a bit of
context before we get into these most recent developments. Tell us about Port Sudan and how strategic this city really is.
So first and foremost, Port Sudan is a vital entry for Sudan. It's also the de facto capital of the country. Since the war broke out there in twenty twenty three, there was no way that the military establishment was going to stay in Khartoum, capital of Sudan, due to the fact that place was completely overrun with conflict, and it has since become really the place where decisions are made
by the Sudanese army. The likes of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, China, Iran, Russia have all set up diplomatic missions in Port Sudan and since the war broke out, have had good relations with the military backed government, and it's a vital place for the country based on the Red Sea, which is obviously a choke point for a.
Lot of trade.
And there's absolutely no way that the country could really survive if Port Sudan is shut down. It's already obviously in a very tricky situation from a humanitarian point of view, with widespread famine in many parts of the country.
So then bring us to what's been happening over the past few days. There's quite a bit of accusations that are being held back and forth talk about what these latest attacks mean and what happened.
I think it's important to note that since the outbreak of war in early twenty twenty three, Ports Sudan has remained unscathed from any of the conflict. The Rapid Support Forces, which is fighting the army, have not touched this place. They've been pretty much lobbied by the international community to take their hands off the city. It's where the UN have all its agencies, it's where the ministries are based, and it's where a lot of displaced people from the
conflict have found some sort of refuge. Both in Port
Sudan and the surrounding area. So it's really that one last little corner of the country where people can actually get work done to try and improve the livelihoods of Since Sunday of this week, we've seen drone attacks hit the city in various locations, and it appears to be barely targeted, looking towards infrastructure that the army is dependent on, be it fuel depots or major sites within the port, the various terminals where the containers are coming in, for example.
So that is basically what's been going on, but as you say, shrouded in some mystery because the RSF have not claimed responsibility for these attacks and the Sudanese governments have blamed the United Arab Emirates for being.
Involved, and Simon, I do want to get to those points and maybe some of the proxies behind these attacks in just a bit, but before that, can we talk about the RSF and what these you just mentioned. They are not claiming that they are involved. But does this suggest that the conflict is far from over?
I think definitely yes. I mean we've seen various rounds and phases of this conflict, the latest being a couple of months ago. When the army managed to take back the capital Cartoon from the RSF, which had controlled the
capital basically since the beginning of the conflict. And there's been several rounds of peace talks, both in Europe and in the Gulf to try and mediate between the two sides, but in the end, the two generals spearheading this conflict have not met face to face, and so really it's just continued to escalate in different corners of the country and now we're really homing in on the real center of power of the army, which no one thought was
going to happen. I don't think this had remained a sort of unwritten rule that the conflict it would not come to this part of Sudan.
Does it signal that the RSF, though potentially or both both the army and the RSF, are still quite strong in this conflict, and as you mentioned, are not willing to back down.
I think so.
But it also represents a slight shift in military tactics from the RSF, which have been very reliant on ground forces, heavily mobile units, often traveling using Toyota high luxters around especially western parts of Duff Or where they know the terrain very well an artillery, and I think more and more as this conflict has moved forward, they've become more dependent on drone technology to achieve their objectives. There's no way, really they were going to get soldiers to pource you
down just due to the terrain there. It's very flat leading to the coast and the army are defending it very well, and so these drones obviously give it that strategic advantage where they can just fly in quickly undercover and take out key infrastructure sites such as the port and the fuel depots, etc.
Stick with us, Simon when we come back. We're going to dig into this turning point as you mentioned in the conflict, and more about what you were alluding to earlier, who's potentially supporting the rival sides, and what attempts there are two broker piece deal. We'll be right back.
Welcome back.
Today. We're talking about the Sudanese Civil War as new explosions rip through the Red Sea city of Port Sudan. Our reporter Simon Marx is still with us and has been covering this story. The Sudanese government is blaming the UAE for allegedly arming the RSF what evidence is there that this is the case, though.
Well, since the beginning of the conflict, you've had a number of outfits investigate these claims, including investigators working for the UN who released a report last.
Year where they said that ever that the UAE were backing the RSF is quote unquote credible. They have used a whole host of different elements to back that up, including like data, including sources on the ground, particularly in Chad and Darfur, who are telling them that flights have come in from the UAE and other countries also with military equipment allegedly from the United Arab Emirates, but Abu Dhabi has repeatedly denied this and said they don't back
any side. It's very difficult obviously to track weapons deliveries, especially when third parties are involved, companies traffickers, so that
the debate is ongoing. However, UN investigators, the European Union, Amnesty, International, top US politicians, and also many of my diplomatic and international intelligence sources all say that the United Arab Emirates point during this war did help facilitate bring arms to the rss That's, of course, something Abu Dhabi sternly denies and has repeatedly pointed out is not true.
Considering all of this, Simon and all of the various players that may or may not reportedly be involved, what does this mean for peace talks and ultimately what does this mean for the Sudanese people and the humanitarian crisis that is already the situation at this point.
Well, as we speak, there are efforts once again for the unpteethed time from the Saudi Arabia and the US to try and get peace talks back on the road again. They've so far proved quite infamous. A lot of people expected to change in tactics under the new Trump administration and the officials that he's appointed. So far though we've not seen a huge amount of focused actually from the US. Obviously, things have been very focused.
On Ukraine, on Israel.
Gaza, and even the Democratic Republic of Congo with a potential minerals deal. So the focused honestly on Sudan has once again fallen by the wayside to some extent, and really it's anyone's guess when one of these sides will realize that the game's up. But if proxies continue to fuel it, it could honestly go on and.
On and on, Yeah, which means for the people on the ground, it's even more and more dire of a situation. Yeah.
Absolutely.
I think the number of areas under famine according to the UN, there.
Was ten regions last month and that's expected to almost double to seventeen in just a few weeks.
So it's extremely dire.
And you know, access for humanitarians journalists is pretty limited, especially in the west of the country where there's a lot of conflict, so the public aren't even being exposed to really die a situation to put pressure on the generals to stop this war.
And you can read more of our reporting on Sudan on Bloomberg platforms right now. Here's some of the other
stories we've been following across the region this week. South African President Sira Ramaposa has unveiled the second phase of a reform program aimed at firing up an economy that's grown by an average of less than one percent annually over the past decade, and Nigerian senators on Wednesday backed four tax bills that are part of President bullet To Naboo's efforts to lift government revenue, but join lawmakers in the Lower National Assembly in rejecting his plan to increase
the value added tax rate. You can follow these stories across Bloomberg platforms, including the Next African Newsletter. We'll put a link to that in the show notes. This program was produced by Adrian Bradley and tiwa Adebayo. Don't forget to follow and review this show wherever you usually get your podcasts, But for now, I'm Jennifer Zabasanja. Thanks as always for listening.