Op-eds

Sudan’s civil war fuels a new regional conflict economy

8 Jan 2025

The conflict has catalysed the region’s illicit markets as people turn to smuggling networks for essential goods.

Sudan’s civil war continues to rage, with no sign that either the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) or Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) are close to a military victory or open to a ceasefire.

According to the UN Refugee Agency, more than 10 million civilians are displaced within Sudan or into neighbouring countries. The country’s economy is in ruins, its business centres transformed into battlefields. Severe hunger afflicts half the population, with famine emerging in Darfur.

The war has also had a catalytic effect on regional illicit markets, as civilians and combatants turn to smuggling networks for key goods. Illegal businesses have boomed, especially in the historically marginalised borderlands between Chad, Libya and Sudan.

Sudan and neighbouring countries

Although many smuggled goods feed the conflict economy, food, fuel and arms stand out as especially important in and around Sudan’s northern and western borders.

Food smuggling into Sudan predates the war, but the conflict has supercharged it. Recent Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime research recorded a marked increase in the clandestine movement of food over the past eight months, as hunger has worsened.

Interviewees said food smuggling in Sudan’s borderlands was highly decentralised, with many relatively small smugglers plying the routes between southern Libya, northern Chad, and northwestern Sudan.

Like food, fuel smuggling on Sudan’s borders is not new. A high-volume trade in contraband petrol and diesel from eastern Libya to Sudan emerged the year before the war, reportedly controlled by the Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF) and the RSF. The disruption of legal fuel supplies in Sudan since the civil war started has expanded trade values and volumes.

The main route remains through eastern Libya. On it, a few LAAF-linked actors smuggle fuel from coastal depots to the southern city of Kufra and across into SAF-controlled areas in Sudan. One research contact estimated that 500,000 barrels of petrol and diesel were smuggled weekly via this route.

Over the past year, another smuggling route has emerged between LAAF-controlled southwestern Libya, northern Chad, and Sudan’s western Darfur region. While initially ad hoc and driven by low-level smugglers, it has reportedly become more tightly organised, controlled by LAAF and RSF officials.

Weapons trafficking has also been boosted by the war. Most international reporting focuses on gun running to Sudan by nations supporting either the RSF or the SAF. This fuels the conflict, but is just one part of the picture.

The civil war is reinvigorating and partially reshaping the human smuggling ecosystem in Sudan and neighbouring states.

A more decentralised arms trade has emerged, primarily concentrated around the Chad-Sudan border. It mostly draws on weapons and ammunition already in Libya or other regional conflict zones. However, in the tri-border region, a recent seizure of four trailers of weapons imported through Benghazi’s port headed for Chad shows that international trafficking pathways could be emerging.

The weapons trade across the Chad-Sudan border is bidirectional, with Sudanese traffickers exporting arms stolen from or abandoned by SAF personnel in Darfur to networks in eastern Chad, which move them to other regional markets. This reveals the evolution of important countercyclical markets in goods – primarily weapons, stolen vehicles, plundered consumer goods and hashish – smuggled out of Sudan.

The conflict has also driven a rise in human smuggling along Sudan’s borders. This is dominated by refugees whose avenues for legal and safe movement out of the country have shrunk over the past 20 months. Smuggling networks have expanded existing operations or developed new routes along the Egyptian, Libyan and Chadian borders. The civil war is reinvigorating and partially reshaping the human smuggling ecosystem in Sudan and neighbouring states.

Crucially, these markets aren’t static and will probably continue evolving and expanding as the war continues. Experience from other regional conflicts, notably Libya, shows that shifts in illicit markets and war economies can have an impact long after the guns have stopped firing.

International actors working to end Sudan’s war need to understand and monitor the conflict’s intersection with these markets.

The trafficked arms flowing into Sudan now could well reverse in the future, fuelling regional instability and violence.

First, combatants increasingly rely on weapons and fuel trafficked in from abroad, and smuggled food is critical for starving civilians. Understanding how these flows are evolving can provide early warning about emerging risks and help stakeholders tailor their responses.

Second, the conflict has led to a growing intersection of illicit and state actors. Interviewees said smuggling often occurred with the knowledge and protection of RSF- and SAF-affiliated actors in Sudan and officials in neighbouring states.

Officials financially vested in the conflict economy could be disinclined to make peace. Even if peace comes, such connections could subvert the rule of law, eroding public institutions’ capacities and worsening citizens’ trust in the state.

Third, this could impact the evolution of illicit economies in Sudan. Even a quick end to the war would leave the country with a wrecked economy and overwhelmed law enforcement. Countering illicit economies probably wouldn’t be prioritised.

Last are the regional consequences. Strong illicit markets and criminal networks could escalate corruption and weaken government capabilities in neighbouring countries. The trafficked arms flowing into Sudan now could well reverse in the future, fuelling regional instability and violence.

Most international focus on Sudan is likely to be geared towards negotiating a ceasefire and building peace. However, given the risks, the conflict economy and its tie-ins with regional markets need more attention. Three interlinked policy areas stand out.

First, tracking and analysing the conflict economy, with an eye on how it could fuel instability or corruption in Sudan or neighbouring states. Second, countering the worst harms of the war economy, such as human smuggling and weapons trafficking. This could also mitigate the risk that crackdowns on smuggling food and fuel unintentionally worsen vulnerable populations’ situations.

Targeted financial and travel sanctions on key members of the criminal ecosystems fuelling Sudan’s war economy could help deter the involvement of political and business elites.

A number of measures could be used in tandem with prosecutorial approaches, law enforcement capacity building, and diplomatic pressure on regional states and non-state actors facilitating illicit flows. Development aid to communities harmed by the war and war economy is also vital. DM

Matt Herbert, head of research, north Africa and the Sahel, GI-TOC.

ENACT is funded by the European Union and implemented by the Institute for Security Studies in partnership with Interpol and the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime.

First published by ISS Today.

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