While global attention is fixed on Gaza and Ukraine, another catastrophe is unfolding largely out of sight — a war tearing Sudan apart and threatening to redraw Africa’s map once again. Sudan now stands on the brink of disintegration, pulled apart by one of the most destructive conflicts the continent has seen in decades.

This is not a clash between equal rivals. It is a war between a national army fighting to preserve the unity of the state, and a rebel militia sustained by gold, foreign backing, and separatist ambitions. Yet many international actors persist in framing it as a political quarrel between “two factions”, placing the Sudanese Armed Forces — an institution rooted in the country’s post-independence identity — on the same moral plane as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

Hemedti’s RSF is a hybrid force of tribal fighters (the Janjaweed), Chadian gunmen and paid mercenaries, mobilised to serve a personal empire far removed from Sudan’s national interest. His ascent has been meteoric. By seizing Darfur’s gold mines,........

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