Humanitarian corridors in Sudan: A lifeline caught in the crossfire of civil war

SAF and RSF clash over access as famine and conflict worsen

Aid lorries carrying relief material for Sudan's Darfur region, at the border of Chad and Sudan. Reuters

As progress towards a ceasefire in Sudan's civil war slows during talks in Geneva this week, negotiations have instead turned to the creation of three humanitarian corridors.

The war has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people, displaced eight million and put more than 25 million in danger of starvation, according to the UN, with warnings of widespread famine.

Three paths have been identified by negotiators as likely to deliver the best assistance to the most people, if they are allowed to open.

Two are controlled by the Rapid Support Forces, a coalition of rebel militia fighting a war with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) since April 2023.

They are the Adre crossing in western Sudan, on the country’s border with Chad, and one in Sinnar State, in the country’s south-east near the border with South Sudan, according to Hatim Dirdiri, a Sudanese analyst of African affairs.

For the first time in four months, aid lorries entered Sudan through the Adre crossing last week, US State Department Spokesman Vedant Patel said on Wednesday.

The third crossing, controlled by the SAF, runs from Port Sudan on the country's Red Sea coast (which has been serving as the SAF's main base of operations after they lost Khartoum to the RSF earlier this year), to Al Dabbah in Sudan's northern province, to allow deliveries into the Darfur region, where there is a humanitarian crisis brought on by civil war.

The corridors could provide life-saving aid to more than 20 million people who are without food and medical supplies, said US envoy to Sudan Tom Perriello in an online briefing from Geneva on Monday.

The latest round of ceasefire talks between warring factions and international mediators started last week in the Swiss city without official participation from the SAF or the country’s ruling Transitional Sovereign Council (TSC).

The SAF insisted on returning to the terms of the Jeddah Declaration, a US-Saudi-brokered ceasefire agreement signed between both sides in May 2023, and said it would send a delegation to Cairo to hold talks on returning to the agreement but did not say when.

International organisations have accused both sides of not honouring the agreement.

Worsening hunger crisis

The SAF has blamed the famines in Sudan on disruptions to the agricultural sector by the RSF, which controls the agricultural provinces of El Gezira and Sinnar, Mr Dirdiri said.

He said that most of the farmers in both provinces have been banned from working the land.

“White corn, sesame, sunflowers, hibiscus, all of which are regular crops planted by Sudanese farmers during the summer months, have all stopped,” Mr Dirdiri told The National, “This is entirely the RSF’s doing and it has made hunger much worse.”

SAF leadership views the RSF’s farming ban as intentionally worsening the food shortages, claiming the rebels want to widen the scope of the famine and use aid shipments as a means of smuggling weapons to fight the SAF.

The opening of the RSF-controlled Adre border crossing with Chad, which was approved by the Sudanese government last week for a period of three months, is seen by the SAF as another track of this illicit arms trade, which UN monitors said was taking place along the Chadian border.

The delivery of weapons has been denied by the RSF.

In Geneva, the RSF’s calls for humanitarian corridors and increased aid deliveries have met with scepticism.

“When the militia which is deliberately reducing food production issues such loud calls for food and aid deliveries from outside the country, that is seen as suspicious by many in Sudan,” Mr Dirdiri said

This is one of the main reasons that, until last week, the Sudanese army, led by General Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, had refused to agree to corridors in regions under RSF control, said Mona Omar, a member of the UN's Advisory Committee for Human Rights and Egypt's former assistant minister of foreign affairs for Africa.

“The Sudanese Army has expressed to the Egyptian side that they have no problem with aid deliveries, but they have insisted on searching the shipments and putting controls in place,” Ms Omar told The National.

“But their primary concern is to ensure that no weapons are smuggled through the aid routes to bolster the ranks of the RSF.”

The RSF had also rejected the opening of the SAF-controlled Al Dabbah crossing near the border with Egypt, an SAF ally, when the idea was proposed by the UN in March.

At the time, the rebel militia said it was concerned that the SAF would use the corridor to strengthen its arsenal.

Ms Omar said that another of the SAF’s conditions is to control the distribution of aid to prevent the RSF from using it to buy loyalty, which is why “Al Burhan has thus far insisted on an official government agency distributing the aid shipments.”

“If the RSF distributes the aid, that would be a political win for them which the SAF will not indulge for too long,” she said. “The SAF wants to ensure that the aid is not used by the rebel militia to reward supporters and punish those aligned with the government forces.”

However, the SAF approved the opening of the Adre crossing despite not receiving any of these assurances from the RSF, said Mr Dirdiri, and that Gen Al Burhan’s hand was forced by mounting criticisms from civil society that he was refusing to allow aid in to end the famines and was therefore complicit in the suffering of the Sudanese people.

“Criticism towards Al Burhan for refusing to co-operate on opening humanitarian corridors have increased over the past few weeks, so his decision to co-operate on the Adre crossing is a message to the Sudanese people that the Armed Forces are with the people’s well-being and that it is the RSF that is depriving them of food and essential goods,” he said.

As the humanitarian crisis deepens, the international community has urged both factions to protect aid workers.

A joint statement issued by the UAE, US, and UN mentioned the “immense risks” faced by relief teams operating in Sudan.

The conflict has also led to a cholera outbreak, prompting Egypt to tighten border controls and increase surveillance measures at airports and seaports.

However, the success of these humanitarian corridors remains to be seen and will depend upon the co-operation and compromises of the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces, as well as international mediation efforts.