Sudan: The Consolidation of Partition

Parallel Authorities, the El Fasher Precedent, and a War the Region Cannot Mediate Alone

6 August 2026

Executive summary

Sudan's war is increasingly evolving from a contest for control of one state into the construction of two rival territorial and administrative orders. The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) hold the centre, east, and the Red Sea seat of government at Port Sudan. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) hold most of Darfur and much of Kordofan and are building institutions of separate rule. These systems are unequal, internally contested, and not internationally recognised, but their consolidation is narrowing the space for restoration of a unitary political order.

The fall of El Fasher was a major hinge in this trajectory. It strengthened RSF control over Darfur and was accompanied by atrocities that human-rights investigators assess may rise to the gravest categories of international crime. The focus on RSF conduct in El Fasher should not be read as absolving the SAF or SAF-aligned forces of responsibility for civilian harm. Rather, El Fasher is examined here as a precedent for the demographic, political, and humanitarian consequences of RSF territorial consolidation.

The most likely near-term outcome is not formal partition, nor necessarily the emergence of two viable sovereign states, but an entrenched system of dual authority connected by an active and unstable Kordofan front. External support enables both belligerents to resist compromise, while overlapping mediation initiatives allow them to avoid processes, they consider unfavourable. The African Union's mid-August field visit can still advance humanitarian access and diplomatic coordination, but it is unlikely by itself to produce a comprehensive settlement.

Analytical scope and confidence

This brief distinguishes territorial control, administrative consolidation, and formal statehood. It assesses with high confidence that parallel governing orders are emerging; with moderate confidence that the east-west division will persist in the near term; and with lower confidence that de facto separation will become internationally recognised partition. Frontlines remain fluid, and several external-support claims are contested or difficult to verify independently.

1. The military map: an emerging east-west partition, not a settled border

The territorial logic of the war has increasingly stabilised into division. The SAF has recaptured Khartoum, while the RSF controls much of Darfur, where attacks on non-Arab ethnic groups have drawn genocide accusations. With the seizure of El Fasher, the RSF gained stronger control over Darfur, including access to gold-producing areas and a critical supply route to Libya and Chad, and can redirect troops and equipment elsewhere.

Kordofan is now the decisive theatre: the principal zone connecting and separating the rival territorial blocs. The SAF holds El-Obeid, the most strategic city in North Kordofan, which the RSF is besieging. The RSF, aided by its alliance with the SPLM-N under Abdelaziz al-Hilu, retains much of West and South Kordofan, giving it cross-border access toward South Sudan. Control of Kordofan will determine whether the RSF's Darfur bloc can threaten the SAF's central heartland or whether the SAF can isolate and contain it.

Military possession should not be equated automatically with durable governance. Territorial control can provide the basis for taxation, administration, and political authority, but it does not by itself produce legitimacy, economic viability, or stable local consent. The emerging partition is therefore best understood as a hardening system of rival control rather than a completed division between two functioning states.

2. The El Fasher precedent: what RSF conquest means for civilians

El Fasher is not merely a captured city; it is a warning about the civilian consequences of territorial conquest. Amnesty International concluded that the RSF committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing during its campaign to seize the city, and that documented acts, alongside others under investigation, may be relevant to the crime of genocide. The UN described El Fasher as a 'crime scene' after gaining access to the largely deserted city following the RSF takeover.

This matters strategically as well as morally. Ethnically targeted violence, mass displacement, and property dispossession make political reintegration substantially more difficult. They deepen fear, grievance, and demands for local security guarantees while creating territorial and demographic facts that future negotiations may struggle to reverse.

The concentration here on RSF conduct does not imply that civilian harm is attributable to only one belligerent. The wider war has also generated serious allegations against the SAF and SAF-aligned forces. The analytical distinction is that El Fasher provides the clearest current precedent for the consequences of RSF territorial consolidation in Darfur.

3. The parallel-state project: two unequal governing orders

The RSF is no longer behaving only as an armed force seeking leverage over the national government; it is behaving as a government-in-formation. At the same time, the SAF-aligned authorities in Port Sudan rely on the surviving institutions, bureaucracy, and international continuity of the pre-war state. Mediators accustomed to negotiating ceasefires between armed factions increasingly face two rival systems of authority, each with territory, revenue sources, external relationships, and administrative structures.

The two orders are not equivalent. The SAF retains greater institutional continuity and access to established state structures. The RSF's project is newer, less recognised, and burdened by the consequences of its conduct in Darfur. Yet the growth of separate institutions on both sides is transforming the diplomatic problem: the bargaining space for a unitary outcome is contracting as each authority develops interests tied to continued autonomous rule.

The construction of military administrations should not be confused with the political preferences of Sudanese society. Civilian coalitions, displaced populations, local communities, and actors outside the two principal blocs may reject both authorities. Their exclusion could make either reunification or partition unstable.

4. The internationalisation that sustains the war

Sudan's war persists because both belligerents benefit from external resources and relationships, and external competition increasingly maps onto the domestic conflict. The UAE is widely accused of providing material support to the RSF, which also benefits from networks spanning the Central African Republic, Chad, Libya, Kenya, South Sudan, and Uganda. The UAE denies supplying the RSF. Saudi Arabia aligns more closely with the SAF, which is also backed by Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey. The nature and intensity of these relationships vary: direct supply, political alignment, transit, finance, and diplomatic support should not be treated as interchangeable.

The RSF's acquisition of longer-range drone capability has widened the geography of the war and forced SAF adjustments, including the reported relocation of aircraft to a neighbouring state. These developments increase the capacity of each side to absorb battlefield setbacks and continue fighting.

This is the hard limit on any AU role. A conflict fuelled by multiple external patrons cannot be resolved by mediators without leverage over those patrons. Each belligerent can decline unfavourable terms because external relationships help underwrite continuation.

5. Why the AU field visit is structurally constrained - but still consequential

An AU field mission can generate presence, access, and political attention. Whether it generates leverage depends on variables the mission does not fully control. The first is access to both sides: a visit confined to Port Sudan is a visit to SAF territory and will be read by the RSF as evidence of alignment, limiting its mediation value. The second is the crowded-mediation problem. Sudan suffers not from too few diplomatic tracks but from too many overlapping regional, continental, and external initiatives, allowing belligerents to select among forums and avoid processes they consider unfavourable.

Unless the AU visit consolidates rather than adds to this field, it risks becoming another track to be leveraged. Yet structural constraint does not mean irrelevance. The AU can still coordinate diplomatic initiatives, articulate common humanitarian demands, seek reciprocal access, maintain contact with both authorities without recognising partition, and strengthen civilian participation.

The realistic objective is therefore bounded but important: not an immediate comprehensive settlement, but a humanitarian floor and a more coherent diplomatic framework.

Alternative interpretation

The emergence of parallel administrations may prove to be a wartime bargaining structure rather than durable state formation. Sudan's legal unity, economic interdependence, institutional centre, and the absence of recognition for an RSF-led government could eventually pull the country back toward a unitary framework. This report nevertheless assesses hardening dual authority as the most likely near-term trajectory because territorial consolidation, separate administrative interests, external support, and accumulated communal violence are advancing faster than reunifying political mechanisms.

Scenario assessment

Most likely - entrenched dual authority

Neither side achieves decisive victory. Separate administrations, revenue systems, and military zones deepen around an unstable Kordofan front. Sudan remains legally unified but operates increasingly as two rival territorial orders, at sustained civilian cost.

Plausible - renewed war for the national centre

A major shift in Kordofan, including the possible fall of El-Obeid, opens a route toward the capital region and renews a contest the SAF believed it had closed with the recapture of Khartoum. This would escalate the war rather than settle it and could weaken the current partition pattern by restoring a nationwide military contest.

Plausible - fragmentation beyond two blocs

Internal fractures, local armed actors, and peripheral movements prevent either the SAF or RSF from consolidating a coherent territorial state. Instead of two durable authorities, Sudan develops multiple zones of military and civilian control.

Cross-cutting possibility - a mediated humanitarian floor

External sponsors, under sufficient pressure, converge around humanitarian corridors, reciprocal access, or a partial cessation of hostilities. This would not constitute a political settlement, but it could reduce civilian catastrophe and is the most realistic near-term outcome an AU visit could advance.

Indicators to monitor

Indicators of consolidation: Separate fiscal, banking, or monetary arrangements

Indicators against consolidation: Loss of territorial continuity by either bloc

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Indicators of consolidation: Durable taxation and customs systems

Indicators against consolidation: Major coalition fragmentation

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Indicators of consolidation: Independent appointments and service structures

Indicators against consolidation: Restoration of national fiscal systems

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Indicators of consolidation: Sustained control of Kordofan corridors

Indicators against consolidation: Meaningful power-sharing negotiations

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Indicators of consolidation: Growing diplomatic treatment as separate authorities

Indicators against consolidation: Reduced external military support

Closing note

Sudan increasingly resembles two state-building projects contesting a shifting territorial seam, even though the country's legal unity and the military contest have not formally ended. The El Fasher precedent shows the grave consequences that RSF territorial victory can carry for populations in its path, while the parallel-government project indicates where the wider trajectory may lead.

For the AU, the honest measure of the field visit is not the communiqué but the follow-through: whether it improves humanitarian access, coordinates competing diplomatic tracks, and engages both authorities and Sudanese civilian actors without legitimising permanent military partition. Given the constraints imposed by the itinerary, the belligerents, and their external relationships, a bounded humanitarian gain is more realistic than a settlement for which the parties are not yet prepared.

African Security Analysis (ASA) maintains continuous monitoring of the Sudan file, including frontline shifts and foreign supply chains, and remains available for tailored analytical engagement.