When a War Needs a Rear Base

Sudan’s war is no longer contained within Sudan’s borders

Wars are sustained by more than weapons.

They require people, training, money, logistics, transport, territory and the ability to move resources across borders. When those networks become established beyond a country’s borders, the war itself begins to change.

Recent reporting on Ethiopia raises precisely this question for Sudan.

In February, a Reuters investigation reported that Ethiopia was hosting a camp in the Benishangul-Gumuz region, close to Sudan’s border, where thousands of fighters linked to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were reportedly being trained. Reuters also identified new infrastructure at nearby Asosa airport, including facilities associated with drone operations. Sources told Reuters that the United Arab Emirates had financed the camp and provided trainers and logistical support. Reuters said it could not independently verify the UAE’s involvement, and the UAE denied being involved in the conflict.

That might have been viewed as an isolated and deeply concerning development.

The evidence now suggests we should ask a bigger question.

Is Ethiopian territory becoming a rear base for the RSF’s war in Sudan?

In April, Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab reported with high confidence that activity consistent with military assistance to the RSF was taking place at an Ethiopian National Defense Force base in Asosa. Its subsequent assessment found continued activity consistent with support for the RSF, including the movement and modification of light technical vehicles and the presence of transport containers and commercial carriers.

Further reporting has added to the picture.

A March investigation into cargo flights found repeated journeys between the UAE and Ethiopia, while reporting linked the activity to the Ethiopian territory where the RSF training infrastructure had been identified.

And in September, a Sudanese official in Kurmuk alleged that four RSF training facilities were operating inside Ethiopia, including sites allegedly being used for foreign recruitment, drone operations and logistical support. Those specific allegations have not been independently verified, and both Ethiopia and the UAE have rejected previous accusations of facilitating RSF military activity.

But taken together, these developments raise a question that should concern anyone serious about ending Sudan’s war:

What happens when external support stops being a shipment and becomes a system?

A training camp can produce fighters.

A logistics network can move equipment.

An airfield can support operations.

A rear base can allow a force to regroup, rearm and return to the battlefield.

These are not separate questions. They are parts of the infrastructure that can allow a war to continue.

This matters particularly in Blue Nile, where the RSF and allied forces have opened a significant new front along Sudan’s border with Ethiopia. The geography matters. So does the proximity of training, logistics and military infrastructure to an active battlefield.

The issue, therefore, is not simply whether one country is “supporting” one side.

It is whether Sudan’s war is acquiring an external infrastructure capable of sustaining it.

That distinction matters for international policy.

If governments genuinely want to alter the incentives that keep this war going, looking only at the battlefield inside Sudan is no longer sufficient.

They need to examine the routes by which fighters are recruited and trained, the aircraft moving between countries, the bases from which equipment can be staged, the companies and intermediaries facilitating logistics, and the territory that allows combatants to operate beyond Sudan’s borders.

This is what cutting the oxygen of war means in practice.

It means following the war beyond the battlefield.

It means identifying the networks that sustain it.

And it means asking the governments involved — directly or indirectly — what responsibility they bear for allowing those networks to operate.

Sudan’s war does not stop at Sudan’s borders.

Neither should the international effort to stop it.