MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Sudan has been at the center of a deadly, a brutal war since April of 2023. It's the site of the world's largest hunger crisis. More than 4 million people have fled the country since war broke out, and the World Health Organization estimates at least 40,000 people have been killed. Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei, co-hosts of NPR's history show Throughline, tell us the story of how things got so bad.
RUND ABDELFATAH, BYLINE: The roots of today's war in Sudan go back over a century from British colonial rule to a cycle of revolutions and coups that started after Sudan gained independence in the 1950s. In 1989, that cycle turned once more. A man named Omar al-Bashir took control of Sudan in a coup, and as soon as he had power, he turned his attention to trying to keep it.
RAMTIN ARABLOUEI, BYLINE: For decades, he ruled with an iron fist. The average Sudanese person suffered. The economy was poor, and people struggled to find food to eat.
KHOLOOD KHAIR: The protests against Bashir started unsurprisingly in the periphery.
ABDELFATAH: This is Kholood Khair. She's a Sudanese political analyst who runs a think tank called Confluence Advisory.
KHAIR: December 2018, a bunch of schoolchildren who were protesting that their sandwiches at school were too expensive.
ABDELFATAH: The government's response was swift and harsh.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: The government has been using live ammunition and tear gas to disperse the crowd.
KHAIR: And very quickly, that caught the hearts and minds of many, many people.
ABDELFATAH: The protests spread throughout the country. A mood of possibility was in the air.
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LEILA FADEL: Demonstrators who've been met with live bullets and tear gas say they want President Omar al-Bashir's nearly 30-year reign to end.
IBRAHIM ELBADAWI: At the beginning, things were very rosy.
ARABLOUEI: This is Ibrahim Elbadawi. He's a Sudanese economist.
ELBADAWI: And the army switch loyalty to the public, declare that it's actually going to support the revolution.
CHRISTOPHER TOUNSEL: Hemedti and General Burhan, as the kind of two most powerful military figures in the country, work together to kick Bashir out.
ABDELFATAH: This is Christopher Tounsel. He's an associate professor of history at the University of Washington who focuses on the history of modern Sudan. Burhan was a top general in Bashir's armed forces. Hemedti commanded the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF. And Christopher says that after Bashir fell, it seemed like both generals would do as they'd promised and cede their power to a new civilian government.
ELBADAWI: I arrived just one day earlier, before the massacre.
ABDELFATAH: Two months after the triumphant moment of Bashir's fall, Ibrahim Elbadawi came to Khartoum. He was there to support protesters who were staging a sit-in outside the army's headquarters because the generals had not ceded power. They met the protesters with force.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: We're being attacked by Rapid police forces and the police.
ELBADAWI: There was a sense of despair, actually. And the whole country was just devastated.
ABDELFATAH: The Khartoum massacre in June 2019 - Hemedti's Rapid Support Forces opened fire on civilian protesters, killing more than 100. Many more were beaten, raped and violently detained. And the military, led by Burhan, watched it all happen, right on its doorstep.
This was the same military and the same RSF that had seemed so eager to support this democratic revolution a couple of months earlier, to help the starving and impoverished and turn Bashir's 30-year rule over to the people. But now Burhan and Hemedti had turned on the people.
ELBADAWI: But then, shortly after, this triggered a massive outpouring of protests all over the country. And so eventually, they were forced to negotiate with the leadership of the revolution.
ARABLOUEI: Ethiopia and the African Union stepped in to help Sudan set up a transitional government that would eventually hand off to a civilian-elected administration, finally bringing true democracy to Sudan. Both civilians and military officials were chosen to serve on the transition council. Burhan and Hemedti each had a seat at the table. It helped that the U.S. and other Western powers lifted sanctions on the country.
ELBADAWI: Opportunities were open to Sudan, big time - debt relief, political openness and so on.
ARABLOUEI: At first, that seemed to work for Burhan and Hemedti.
ELBADAWI: But I do think, though, that they were reluctant partners.
ARABLOUEI: Reluctant partners who, in hindsight, he says, had never actually committed to the idea that the military would hand power back to civilians.
ELBADAWI: Some Sudanese, they call it a creeping coup.
ABDELFATAH: In 2021, with the country moving closer to the day when the military was supposed to hand control of the government off to civilians, Hemedti and Burhan decided their time had come.
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NOEL KING: Sudan was moving toward democracy, but then today, the military arrested the transitional government's leaders and put the acting prime minister under house arrest.
ABDELFATAH: Burhan took over control of the country, and both generals were amassing wealth and power. But even as they appear to be working together, the two men were on a collision course because there was one big thing they couldn't agree on.
TOUNSEL: And this was the future role of the Rapid Support Forces...
ABDELFATAH: The paramilitary force Hemedti still controlled.
TOUNSEL: ...Whether the Rapid Support Forces would be incorporated sooner or later into the army. Burhan wanted it to be incorporated sooner - two years. Hemedti wanted it to be 10 years. It would obviously kind of protect him longer.
ABDELFATAH: Neither Burhan nor Hemedti was willing to budge.
ELBADAWI: And that would put the country on a path to this tragic war.
TOUNSEL: What happens in April 2023 is the beginning of the trauma and the hellscape.
ELBADAWI: And then once the fighting broke out, it could never be stopped.
ABDELFATAH: There's one more layer to this conflict, and it's the most tragic one. Kholood Khair says both generals, Burhan and Hemedti actually share a common enemy in this war - the people of Sudan and the dream of democracy many have held for decades.
KHAIR: It is a war against civilians. And so while they are fighting each other, they're also fighting the civilians of Sudan, who they recognize as the true change agents in the country. And what's interesting about Sudan's history, that has such a long history of armed conflict - it has always been nonviolent action by a large proportion of different groups of Sudanese people that have brought down military dictatorships.
KELLY: That was Sudanese political analyst Kholood Khair, Sudanese economist Ibrahim Elbadawi and University of Washington professor Christopher Tounsel. You can hear the full episode on the war in Sudan and more from Throughline hosts Ramtin Arablouei and Rund Abdelfatah wherever you get your podcasts.
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