Five things you need to know about RSF creating a parallel government

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces group, which is fighting Sudan’s national army in a devastating civil war, is seeking to set up a parallel government.

Here are 5 things you need to know about the RSF’s latest move:

1. The RSF wants to sign a charter in Kenya to set up a breakaway government

RSF hosted a political event on Tuesday titled “The Founding Alliance of Sudan” in Kenya’s Nairobi, drawing widespread speculation about its intentions.

The event was organised to sign a charter that would provide for a "Government of Peace and Unity" to govern the territories the force controls, but the motion was delayed for Friday, February 21, according to Fadlallah Burma Nasir, the leader of National Umma Party, an entity split over joining the RSF alliance.

2. Who is part of this alliance?

The conference, organised by opposition forces and armed groups fighting the Sudanese army, was attended by leaders of several armed groups and political figures, including Abdelrahim Dagalo, deputy commander of the RSF and brother of the paramilitary group’s leader General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo.

The charter's signing was postponed to allow for greater representation from rebel leader Abdelaziz al-Hilu's Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), according to Nasir.

The SPLM-N is a large military faction that controls wide swathes of South Kordofan bordering South Sudan and had previously refrained from taking a firm position in the conflict between the army and the RSF.

3. The army rejects the move

Sudan’s government has vowed to “fight anyone who seeks to establish a parallel government,” according to Yasser Al-Atta, a member of the country’s Sovereign Council and assistant commander-in-chief of the Sudanese Army.

“To those who say they will form a parallel government, we will fight them on every inch of Sudanese land,” Al-Atta told Anadolu Agency.

The push for a parallel government is backed by factions that split from the Sudanese Coordination of Civil Democratic Forces (Taqaddum), formerly led by ex-Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok. This includes most factions of the Revolutionary Front – armed groups that signed the 2020 Juba Peace Agreement – as well as the Democratic Unionist Party.

Opposition to the initiative comes from pro-army political groups within Sudan and entities operating abroad, including Taqaddum, which was once the country’s largest civilian opposition coalition. Under Hamdok’s leadership, Taqaddum rejected the idea of a parallel government on February 10, leading to a split within the coalition. One faction went on to call for the Nairobi conference while Hamdok set up a new coalition called “Resilience”.

4. The meeting comes as RSF has been losing territory

If signed, the charter could mark a turning point in the nearly two-year-long war, solidifying a split along battle lines even as the war for control over some areas rages on – with the army now gaining the upper hand.

The RSF controls most of the west of Sudan and parts of the capital, Khartoum, but has lost control of the Greater Khartoum area and the cities of Omdurman and Khartoum Bahri. The RSF has also been losing ground in central Sudan, including Wad Madani, the capital of the Al Jazirah state, to the army. The Sudanese military also regained control of the country’s largest oil refinery in the city of Bahri near Khartoum.

But what the RSF does hold is eastern, western, central, and southern Darfur. Analysts say further loss in Khartoum could spurn the paramilitary group to concentrate its forces on taking El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur. This would bring the entirety of the resource-rich Darfur under RSF control, a region that borders Chad, South Sudan and Libya.

5. Analysts say the move would fracture the country

Such a development would pave the way for a cleaner break for the RSF and, in a sense, even for the army.

Kholood Khair, the founder of Sudanese political think tank Confluence Advisory, said that would be a “scenario which [the army and RSF] would be happy with because it allows both to have a military victory and the other scenarios do not”.

Nevertheless, Khair cautioned that such a division would be “the beginning of the end for Sudan.”

The war has killed more than 24,000 people and driven over 14 million people – about 30 percent of the population – from their homes, according to the United Nations. An estimated 3.2 million Sudanese have escaped to neighbouring countries.