Saudi Arabia is running recruitment networks for Sudan's war, reports says

Recent media reports have drawn renewed attention to the regional dimensions of the war in Sudan, linking military training camps in Somalia to the deployment of new fighters to the conflict.

The conflict erupted on April 15, 2023, following a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commonly known as Hemedti.

The war has killed an estimated 50,000 to more than 400,000 people through direct violence, disease and malnutrition. More than 21.2 million people face acute food insecurity, famine has been recorded in parts of Darfur, and more than 70 per cent of hospitals have been destroyed or rendered non-functional.

More than 14 million people have been displaced, including about 9 million internally displaced persons and more than 4.5 million refugees. Overall, 33.7 million people, about two-thirds of Sudan’s population, require humanitarian assistance.

According to Voice of Horn, which monitors developments in the Horn of Africa on X, Saudi Arabia is overseeing a military training programme in Somalia to prepare recruits who are later deployed to fight alongside Sudan’s armed forces.

The account said the programme is based in Somalia’s Galguduud region and involves more than 5,000 Somali recruits. It added that the training is being conducted by foreign military contractors from Romania, Ukraine, South Africa and Colombia.

Separately, Addis Standard quoted Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed as saying that networks are recruiting young people, including minors, from the Tigray region and smuggling them into Sudan to fight.

According to the publication, Abiy said the networks are exploiting Tigray’s humanitarian and economic hardships to recruit young people before sending them into a conflict unrelated to them. He described the practice as a security and humanitarian challenge extending beyond Ethiopia’s borders.

The Sudan Times argued that the continuation of the war has enabled networks affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood to re-establish themselves within Sudan’s military establishment. It cited formations including the al-Baraa bin Malik Brigade and said the groups are seeking to restore their political and military influence by exploiting the conflict.

The newspaper also argued that the recruitment of fighters from outside Sudan forms part of broader efforts to reinforce the Sudanese armed forces and reshape the country’s balance of power.

Meanwhile, BML Daily reported that the training programmes in Somalia are funded by Saudi Arabia and that some recruits may eventually be deployed to Sudan’s battlefronts.

Collectively, the reports suggest that training camps in Somalia and recruitment networks in Ethiopia’s Tigray region are creating cross-border supply lines of fighters for the war in Sudan, highlighting what the publications describe as the conflict’s increasingly regional character.

No official comment has been issued by the parties named in the reports regarding the claims.