2025 IN SUDAN

2025 has been a year of two halves in Sudan’s third year of struggle for sovereignty against the UAE-backed Rapid Support Forces militia.

The year began promisingly as the Sudanese army liberated the central Sudanese state of Al-Jazira, the nation’s breadbasket, ending a year of RSF brutality. By March, the liberation of Khartoum, the capital, signalled a potential end to the nightmare. However, the tide turned politically before it did so on the battlefield.

First, the International Court of Justice dismissed Sudan’s g*nocide case against the UAE on a technicality. Then, echoing the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" lies used to invade Iraq, the US accused the Sudanese Army of using chemical weapons without evidence, thus raising suspicions of a manufactured pretext for foreign intervention.

Army victories in the centre pushed RSF fighters to Al-Fashir - the last remaining state capital of the Darfur region of western Sudan not to fall to the militia. This also made Al-Fashir a place of refuge for the region's non-Arab population seeking to escape the RSF's g*nocidal campaign. Backed by a surge of supplies from the UAE through Libya and Chad, the militia's 18-month siege concluded in October.

This culminated in the slaughter of 60,000 to 120,000 people, thus making the fall of Al-Fashir likely the 21st century’s largest mass murder event. Despite graphic evidence, the Emirati Dirham bought Western silence, with RSF officials even hosted in 5-star Washington DC hotels.

As 2025 draws close, the battle moves to the Kordofan region, the gateway between the army-held East and the RSF-held West. If the army holds, Darfur can be reclaimed. If it fails, RSF g*nocide may spread. Sudan is not just fighting a militia; it is resisting an Emirati imperial project that has bought the complicity of neighbours and Western allies alike. Still, Sudan fights to show that its sovereignty is not for sale.