There is a question the international community should answer.

The US and European governments are increasingly engaging with Abdalla Hamdok as a principal civilian interlocutor on Sudan. He is now leading the Somoud coalition and has been meeting international diplomats in Washington and New York.

But when did engagement with one civilian political figure become a substitute for asking a much more fundamental question:

Do Sudanese people themselves want him to lead them?

Hamdok was Sudan’s Prime Minister during the transitional period. After the October 2021 military coup, he was briefly reinstated following an agreement with General Burhan, before resigning in January 2022 amid continuing protests and demands for a fully civilian government.

That history matters.

It does not make Hamdok illegitimate as a political actor. Nor does it mean he should be excluded from discussions about Sudan’s future.

But neither should his previous position automatically confer a mandate for the future.

Sudan has changed profoundly since 2021.

Millions of Sudanese have been displaced. Political alliances have changed. New civilian voices have emerged. The country has been transformed by a devastating war.

So the question is not whether Abdalla Hamdok should have a seat at the table.

The question is who gets to decide who speaks for Sudan — and ultimately, who leads it.

If the international community genuinely believes Sudan’s political future must be determined by Sudanese people, then that principle must apply to the civilian political leadership too.

Sudan does not need its future chosen for it.

It needs a process through which Sudanese people can choose it.

Dear Secretary Rubio,

You have described Sudan’s war as a tragedy in which several countries are directly supporting the opposing sides — a proxy conflict in which external actors are helping to sustain a war that Sudanese people have already paid an unbearable price for.

You have also said that some countries are allowing their territory to be used to move weapons into Sudan.

And you have made clear that the United States is deeply engaged in trying to bring this war to an end.

So Sudan Futures would like to ask a simple question:

If you know who is helping to fuel this war, why is the international pressure not focused more directly on those external actors?

Why are they not being engaged with at the highest level?

Why are those facilitating weapons, financing recruitment and military support not facing consequences proportionate to the role they are playing?

The United States has imposed sanctions on individuals and networks involved in procurement and recruitment for the war. That is important. But the evidence emerging from international investigations points to something larger: transnational networks and states operating beyond Sudan’s borders are helping to sustain the capacity of the belligerents to continue fighting. (U.S. Department of the Treasury⁠ )

If the war is being sustained from outside Sudan, then pressure on Sudanese actors alone cannot be enough.

There is another question that deserves an answer.

Why should the Sudanese state and its people bear the consequences of measures that can further weaken the country’s institutions, economy and ability to function, while the external networks that help sustain the war remain able to operate?

Sudan is not simply a battlefield.

It is a sovereign country whose people are trying to survive a war that has destroyed homes, livelihoods, infrastructure and communities. The Sudanese economy is collapsing, the currency is under extraordinary pressure, and millions have been displaced. (Reuters⁠ )

The answer cannot be to weaken Sudan further without simultaneously cutting the external supply lines that allow the war to continue.

If Washington believes that there is no military solution to this conflict, then the international community must address the machinery that makes continued military escalation possible.

That means following the money.

Following the weapons.

Following the logistics.

Following the recruitment networks.

And engaging directly with the states and entities that enable them.

The United States has considerable diplomatic and economic leverage. Secretary Rubio, you have said that those supporting the warring parties must use their influence to bring them towards a peace agreement. If that is the case, why should the same principle not apply to those who are helping to sustain the war?

Sudan Futures therefore asks the United States to match its recognition of the international dimensions of this war with a corresponding diplomatic strategy:

Engage those who enable the war.
Pressure those who sustain it.
Sanction those who profit from it.
And protect Sudanese people from measures that further weaken the country they are fighting to keep alive.

Sudan does not need another cycle in which the international community focuses on the symptoms while the sources of the war remain intact.

If you know who is fuelling this war, Secretary Rubio, the question is not whether they should be part of the solution.

It is why they are not already under sufficient pressure to become part of it.

Sudan Futures

Sudan has had no shortage of statements. What it has lacked is sufficient alignment behind them.

For more than three years, governments and international institutions have called for an end to the war, humanitarian access, respect for Sudan’s sovereignty and an end to external interference.

Yet the war continues.

On 21 September, something potentially more consequential took place in New York.

Egypt, Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan — the four countries that make up the R4 — met on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly and issued a joint position on Sudan.

Their language was clear. They reaffirmed Sudan’s sovereignty, unity, independence and territorial integrity. They rejected parallel entities that undermine Sudan’s sovereignty and unity. And, significantly, they called for an end to the illicit flow of weapons, mercenaries and foreign fighters into Sudan.

The statement itself is not a strategy. It does not, on its own, change the dynamics of the war.

But it does raise a question that deserves much closer attention:

Could regional alignment finally begin to turn diplomatic consensus on Sudan into meaningful political action?

That is the question Sudan Futures is interested in.

Beyond another statement

Sudan has accumulated no shortage of statements.

Governments, regional organisations and international institutions have repeatedly called for an end to the fighting, humanitarian access, respect for Sudan’s sovereignty and an end to external interference.

Yet the war has continued.

The reason is partly that Sudan’s conflict cannot be understood solely as a conflict between Sudanese armed actors. External relationships, weapons, financing, political support and regional calculations have all become part of the environment in which the war is sustained.

That is why the R4 statement matters.

Not because four governments have said something entirely new about Sudan’s war, but because four countries with significant regional relationships have now placed external military flows directly into their joint statement.

The question is what follows.

Why the R4 matters

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan do not have identical interests in Sudan, nor identical relationships with the parties to the conflict.

That is precisely what makes their coordination worth watching.

The R4 has been meeting since 2025 and has developed into a broader regional consultation mechanism. Its fourth meeting, held in Cairo in June 2026, brought the same four foreign ministers together to discuss regional developments and strengthen coordination.

Its latest meeting in New York therefore represents continuity rather than a new Sudan initiative.

But Sudan has now become an explicit part of that conversation.

This creates an opportunity — if the words can be translated into policy.

What would action look like?

If the flow of weapons, mercenaries and foreign fighters is recognised as part of the problem, then addressing it requires more than repeating that it should stop.

It requires asking:

Where are these flows coming from?

How are they financed and transported?

Which networks facilitate them?

What diplomatic, financial or political leverage can be used to disrupt them?

And, perhaps most importantly:

Are regional governments prepared to use that leverage when doing so conflicts with their own interests?

These are uncomfortable questions. They are also unavoidable ones.

Sudan Futures has argued before that international engagement must move beyond expressions of concern towards policies that alter the incentives sustaining the war.

The R4 statement gives that argument another point of reference.

A regional opportunity — but not yet a strategy

There is a danger in reading too much into one diplomatic statement.

The four governments have not announced a joint enforcement mechanism on Sudan. They have not set out a common sanctions policy. Nor have they announced a new mediation framework.

What they have done is establish a shared position on several fundamental questions — including Sudan’s territorial integrity, opposition to parallel entities and the need to stop external military flows.

That is significant.

But a shared position is not the same as a shared strategy.

And a shared strategy is not the same as implementation.

The distance between the three is where Sudan’s international diplomacy has repeatedly struggled.

The question for the international community

The emergence of stronger regional coordination should not be viewed as a substitute for international action.

It should be used to strengthen it.

If Egypt, Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are prepared to coordinate around Sudan, there is an opportunity for governments beyond the region to engage with that alignment rather than creating yet another disconnected diplomatic track.

There is also an opportunity to test the seriousness of the commitment.

If the four governments agree that weapons, mercenaries and foreign fighters are helping sustain Sudan’s war, then the next step should be to identify the networks involved and consider what can realistically be done to disrupt them.

That is where diplomacy becomes consequential.

Sudan does not need another declaration that its sovereignty matters.

It needs the international and regional politics surrounding the war to begin changing the calculations that allow the war to continue.

The R4 has put the issue on the table.

The question now is whether it is prepared to do more than name the problem.

Sudan does not lack statements. It needs alignment — and action.

Reports today that the United States has not yet issued General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan a visa to attend the UN General Assembly raise a much larger question.

Reuters reports that the visa may be linked to Burhan accepting a proposed 90-day ceasefire. The US has not confirmed that linkage, while the UN says it has raised the matter with Washington.

If confirmed, this would be significant.

For more than three years, Sudan has heard statements, appeals and calls for restraint while the war has continued and external support has helped sustain it.

Diplomacy is not only about statements.

It can also be about leverage.

If diplomatic access can be used to influence the parties to the conflict, then we should also ask what other forms of leverage are available — over arms, financing, political support and the external networks that continue to sustain the war.

Sudan does not lack international engagement.

The question is whether that engagement is being used strategically enough to change the incentives sustaining the conflict.

The tools exist. The question is whether the political will exists to use them.

General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan is in New York this week to address the United Nations General Assembly.

That matters.

Not because appearing at the UN automatically confers legitimacy. The United Nations does not itself recognise governments. But because of the way the international system continues to engage with Sudan.

The UN has repeatedly met Burhan in his capacity as President of Sudan’s Transitional Sovereignty Council. Its Secretary-General has described him in those terms and engaged directly with the Sudanese authorities through him.

Reuters is now describing him as Sudan’s head of state and head of the Sudanese Armed Forces.

So perhaps we need to ask a more fundamental question:

If the international community recognises the Sudanese state and engages with its established state authorities, why does so much international language continue to place the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces on the same institutional footing?

The distinction matters.

The Sudanese Armed Forces are Sudan’s national armed forces.

The Rapid Support Forces are a paramilitary organisation.

That does not mean that every action of the SAF is legitimate or beyond scrutiny. It is not.

Allegations of violations by the SAF must be investigated, and where responsibility is established, accountability should follow.

But accountability for conduct is not the same thing as institutional status.

Nor should condemning violations by one side require us to erase the distinction between a state’s national armed forces and a paramilitary force fighting against the state.

This distinction becomes particularly important when international policy is being designed.

If both are simply described as “the warring parties”, it becomes easier to construct policies that treat them as interchangeable.

But they are not interchangeable.

Their origins are different.

Their institutional status is different.

Their relationship with the Sudanese state is different.

And the implications for international policy are different.

This is not an argument for giving the SAF a free pass.

It is an argument for precision.

The international community should be capable of holding the SAF accountable for violations while simultaneously recognising the distinction between Sudan’s national armed forces and the RSF.

It should be capable of demanding humanitarian access from both sides without pretending that both organisations occupy the same constitutional or institutional position.

And it should be capable of imposing targeted consequences on those responsible for atrocities without adopting measures that inadvertently weaken the institutions of the Sudanese state as though they were simply another armed faction.

The distinction also matters beyond the battlefield.

Sudan will eventually have to rebuild a functioning state.

That requires institutions.

It requires an army.

It requires civilian government.

It requires accountable security structures.

And it requires a political settlement that Sudanese people themselves can shape.

If international policy continually treats the state and a paramilitary organisation as equivalent, we risk losing sight of what we are ultimately trying to preserve and rebuild.

A state is not the same thing as an armed group.

And accountability should never require us to pretend that it is.

Burhan’s presence at the United Nations provides an opportunity to ask a wider question.

If the international community continues to engage the Sudanese state through its recognised authorities, shouldn’t its policies and language reflect that distinction more clearly?

Sudan needs accountability.

It needs pressure on those sustaining the war.

It needs protection for its people.

But it also needs a functioning state capable of surviving the war and rebuilding after it.

Those objectives are not contradictory.

They should be part of the same strategy.

This video from the British Office Sudan, filmed at the damaged British Embassy in Khartoum, is a stark reminder of what three years of war has done to Sudan.

The destruction is visible. The human cost is immeasurable.

But the question now is not simply whether the international community recognises the devastation. It is whether international policy can help change the conditions that allow the war to continue.

The UK has repeatedly called for an end to the conflict, protection of civilians and a political process.

The next question is what happens beyond statements.

Who is supplying the weapons?
Who is financing the war?
Who is facilitating the movement of arms and fighters?
And what leverage can governments use to make continuing the war more difficult and more costly?

For the UK Government, this means looking beyond humanitarian response and diplomatic statements towards the external enablers of the conflict.

Sudan Futures has called this cutting the oxygen of war.

Not as a slogan, but as a policy question.

If we want the war to end, we must examine what is allowing it to continue.

Sudan has been discussed in Parliament again.

That matters.

In yesterday’s Westminster Hall debate on Sudan, Sir Iain Duncan Smith made a point that should not need repeating, but clearly does: Sudan has not received enough attention.

He also called on the Government to use every lever available to increase the urgency and help stop the bloodshed.

Those are important words.

But they raise a more difficult question.

What happens when concern is no longer the problem — but action is?

There is now little doubt that Sudan’s war has an external dimension.

The latest findings from the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission have documented foreign weapons, military technology, fighters and logistical support sustaining the conflict. The Mission has identified networks involving the UAE, Chad, Libya and Somalia in support benefiting the RSF, while also noting that its investigation into external support for the Sudanese Armed Forces remains at an earlier stage.

This matters because external support changes the nature of the policy response.

If weapons are crossing borders, investigate the supply chains.

If money is sustaining armed groups, follow the money.

If foreign fighters are being recruited and deployed, identify those networks.

If military technology is being supplied, show who is providing it and impose consequences where the evidence supports them.

And if governments or companies are facilitating these networks, they should expect serious scrutiny.

The UK has already taken some steps.

The Government has sanctioned Colombian mercenaries suspected of involvement in atrocities in Sudan, as well as individuals suspected of supplying weapons to the RSF. It has also recently targeted actors connected to illicit gold networks.

These measures are welcome.

But the question is whether they are enough.

They are not.

Sanctions are most effective when they form part of a wider strategy.

That means identifying the financial architecture behind the conflict, disrupting supply routes, increasing pressure on those facilitating military support and using diplomatic relationships to demand consequences rather than simply expressing concern.

This is where the UK has an opportunity.

Britain has diplomatic relationships, financial influence, intelligence capabilities and a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

Those are not insignificant tools.

The question is whether we are prepared to use them with sufficient determination.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith has been raising concerns about the relationship between the UAE and the RSF for some time. In Parliament earlier this year, he argued that without external support, the scale of the continuing war would be very different.

That argument deserves serious consideration.

The issue is not whether the UK should abandon diplomacy.

It is whether diplomacy is being used to its full potential.

If the UK has influence, where is it being used?

If the evidence is growing, what further action follows?

And if sanctions are available, why should those sustaining the war believe that the consequences will remain limited?

Sudan does not need another expression of concern.

It needs a strategy that changes the incentives sustaining the war.

The international community now knows considerably more than it did three years ago.

It knows that the conflict is not sustained only by what happens on Sudanese territory.

It knows that external networks matter.

It knows that weapons, money, technology and people cross borders.

And it increasingly knows where some of those networks lead.

The question is no longer simply whether the world knows.

The question is what it is prepared to do with what it knows.

Sudan Futures welcomes every serious effort to keep Sudan on the political agenda.

But keeping Sudan on the agenda cannot be the end point.

Concern must eventually become leverage.

And leverage must eventually produce consequences.

Sudan does not lack attention.
It continues to lack alignment.

A new report from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Sudan and South Sudan, following its visit to eastern Chad, provides a stark picture of the consequences of Sudan’s war beyond its borders.

More than 12 million people have been displaced. Chad is now hosting more than 1.5 million refugees, while humanitarian organisations are struggling with severe funding shortages.

But the report makes a more important point.

Humanitarian assistance cannot substitute for political action.

Three years into this war, people need more than food, shelter and emergency healthcare. They need education, livelihoods, infrastructure and a future. Around 40,000 people have already moved northwards in search of opportunities.

The UK and the international community must continue humanitarian assistance — but they must also intensify efforts to end the war.

One cannot replace the other.

Sudan does not need the world to become better at managing the consequences of war. It needs the world to do more to change the conditions that are allowing the war to continue.

That is where the focus must remain.

Sudan’s war is increasingly difficult to describe as an internal conflict.

A new report from the UN Security Council’s Panel of Experts on Sudan provides further evidence of how deeply the conflict has extended beyond Sudan’s borders. The Panel states that Ethiopian territory has been utilised by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) as part of the conflict’s wider regional networks.

Now, new satellite analysis from Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab has identified a significant build-up of military equipment at an Ethiopian National Defense Forces base in Asosa, close to Sudan’s Blue Nile region. Reuters

Between 23 and 28 August, Yale identified approximately 100 newly present light technical vehicles, around 15 vehicles consistent with armoured personnel carriers, mounted weapons and significant transport equipment. The researchers assessed that the vehicles could transport between 750 and 1,000 personnel.

The timing and location matter.

Asosa sits close to a Sudanese battlefield that has become increasingly important. Yale also notes previous claims that the RSF was resupplied through Asosa Airport during attacks around Kurmuk and Geisan.

What, then, is happening across this border?

This is not the first indication that Ethiopia may have become part of the conflict’s wider military infrastructure. Earlier reporting by Reuters described a covert facility in Ethiopia allegedly used to train RSF fighters. Yale has also previously documented military logistics activity at Asosa.

Taken together, these developments point to something Sudan Futures has repeatedly argued:

Sudan’s war cannot be understood solely by looking at what happens inside Sudan
.
The networks sustaining the conflict cross borders.

Weapons cross borders.
Money crosses borders.
Military technology crosses borders.
Fighters and logistical support cross borders.

And increasingly, the evidence suggests that some of the infrastructure supporting the war may sit outside Sudan itself.

That raises a wider question about international scrutiny.

Much attention has rightly been directed towards the Gulf, particularly allegations concerning external support for the RSF. But if the international community is serious about understanding and disrupting the networks sustaining Sudan’s war, scrutiny cannot stop at the most politically convenient places.

If military infrastructure on a neighbouring country’s territory may be connected to the conflict, what questions are being asked about it?

And perhaps more importantly:

If Sudan’s war is being sustained through networks that cross its borders, what responsibility do neighbouring states have to explain what is happening on their territory?

These are not questions about assigning collective blame to Ethiopia.

Nor should evidence be stretched beyond what it can establish.

They are questions about transparency, scrutiny and responsibility.

Sudan does not need more assumptions. It needs better questions.

The international community increasingly recognises that external support is helping sustain the war. The next step is to examine the networks behind that support with the same seriousness, wherever they lead.

The battlefield may be in Sudan.

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

And if that is true, neither should international scrutiny.

Resources,
1) UN Final report of the Panel of Experts on the Sudan Brigade-Size Support Assembled at Asosa
2) ENDF Base Associated with RSF Activity – Yale School of Public Health

A new investigation by Africa Intelligence has reported that senior figures linked to Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces travelled to Tel Aviv during the war and met Israeli officials, including representatives of the Foreign Ministry’s Africa Division and Israeli intelligence personnel. The reported visits took place in May 2025 and February 2026.

The significance of this report goes beyond the meetings themselves.

It raises a broader question about how the international community engages with the actors sustaining Sudan’s war.

The reported contacts are said to form part of a relationship that predates the current conflict. That history matters. But so does the timing: these contacts reportedly continued while Sudan was experiencing some of the worst violence and displacement in its modern history.

Sudan Futures is not suggesting that a meeting constitutes endorsement, nor that every contact between a government and a conflict actor amounts to complicity.

Diplomacy requires communication.

But diplomacy also requires clarity.

When governments maintain relationships with armed actors during an active conflict, the international community should be entitled to ask what those relationships are intended to achieve, what leverage they provide, and where the boundaries lie.

If governments have access to the parties to Sudan’s war, what are they doing with that access?

This is particularly important when the organisation involved is the RSF, a paramilitary force facing extensive allegations of atrocities against civilians and which has been the subject of international sanctions.

The question is therefore not simply:

Who is talking to whom?

It is:

What is being discussed, what influence does that relationship create, and is that influence being used to reduce the capacity for war?

That distinction matters.

Sudan’s conflict has repeatedly demonstrated that the war cannot be understood solely through events inside Sudan.

Weapons move across borders. Money moves across financial systems. Fighters move across countries. Political relationships operate far beyond the battlefield.

And now, once again, we are reminded that the diplomatic relationships surrounding Sudan’s war are equally international.

This is precisely why Sudan Futures has argued for greater scrutiny of the external architecture of the conflict.

Engagement with Sudanese actors is necessary.

But engagement should not become a substitute for accountability.

Nor should diplomatic relationships become so politically sensitive that difficult questions are left unasked.

There is also a wider lesson here.

The international community has repeatedly called for Sudanese parties to negotiate and end the war. But if influential external governments maintain channels to those same parties, they possess something potentially valuable: leverage.

The question is whether that leverage is being used.

If it is, what results are being demanded?

If it is not, why not?

And if external relationships can provide access to the people capable of prolonging the conflict, can they not also be used to press them to stop?

Sudan does not need the world to stop talking to those who hold power.

It needs the world to use those conversations more effectively.

The war has no borders. Accountability should not have them either.