Sudan was teetering on the edge of crisis long before open war erupted in April 2023. Decades of authoritarian rule under Omar al-Bashir resulted in a fragile economy, fragmented security forces, and entrenched paramilitary structures.Following the coup that overthrew al-Bashir in 2019, a fragile civilian-military transitional arrangement failed to unite competing factions. Political instability, localised rebellions, and a simmering rivalry between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – the successor to the Popular Defence Forces, government-backed militia known as the Janjaweed who committed war crimes in Darfur in the early 2000s – escalated into full-blown conflict.By mid-2023, Sudan was effectively split into contested zones, with major urban centres, such as Khartoum and Omdurman, transformed into battlefields, and millions of civilians displaced internally or forced across borders as refugees.Although geographically removed, the European Union played a consequential role in these developments. For nearly a decade, it pursued a strategy of “externalising” migration control, directing aid, training, and equipment to African states ostensibly to reduce irregular migration towards Europe.In Sudan, this approach produced unintended and devastating consequences that the EU is yet to be held accountable for. Funding initially justified under “migration management” and “capacity building” intersected with opaque arms flows, Gulf in …
