Is Sudan emerging from the Yemeni quagmire?

During the period following the announcement of the formation of the Sovereign Council in Sudan, it was clear that the withdrawal of troops from Yemen did not issue a unified and final position by the Council and specifically the military side, and considers the various statements by officials in Sudan, that they come within the framework of evasiveness and try to escape the popular pressure demanding a decisive and final position of absurd involvement in the war on Yemen, which enters its sixth year, and led to the death and wounding of tens of thousands of Yemeni civilians and pushed the country to the biggest and most dangerous disaster Humanitarian worldwide according to reports of international humanitarian organizations.

It is believed that the decision to withdraw troops or not has not yet been issued, and the situation can only be defined by the actual ruler of the Sudan, in the sense that the military participating in the Sovereign Council (president and deputy) are in fact directly involved in sending Sudanese troops to Yemen, and therefore the survival of the forces is linked to the agenda of those who sent them.

It is noteworthy that the statement of the Minister of State of the Sudanese Foreign Ministry, Omar Qamaruddin, that his government succeeded in returning the majority of Sudanese soldiers sent to the war in Yemen, was not the first statement in this context, as some of the sudanese media leaks have already emerged that the vice president of the Sudanese Sovereign Council, Mohammed Hamdan Hamidti, gave orders to withdraw 10,000 Sudanese troops in Yemen.

In this context, political analyst Hassan Barkia said that the decision to withdraw Sudanese forces from Yemen or reduce them is linked to “internal and external” factors, with regard to internal factors. “The external factor will be decisive in the withdrawal of troops and is specifically linked to international pressure on Saudi Arabia to find a peaceful solution to the Yemeni issue,” Barkia said, adding that a number of observers believe that there is a clear link between the announcement of the withdrawal of both Sudanese and Emirati forces during the past few months, and that the withdrawals were not random.

It is noteworthy that the beginning of the Sudanese intervention in the War of Yemen was in mid-October through the arrival of the first batch of troops to the city of Aden, and many observers believe that the participation of Sudanese forces and land specifically, came after it was found that thousands of air strikes of the forces of the so-called Arab coalition are not enough to achieve the goals announced since the beginning of the war on March 26, 2015.

According to a report in the New York Times, 40% of Sudanese troops participating in the war are children and they were trained near the Yemeni-Saudi border, and the report indicated that the fighters receive salaries equivalent to $480 per month for the novice, and about $530 per officer, and the American newspaper added that the ages of the children recruited between the ages of 14 and 17.

There are many reports about the type of Sudanese forces participating in the war on Yemen, but most of these reports indicate that they are formed in large numbers from the Rapid Support Forces of semi-tribal composition, which are local militias known for the name “Janjaweed”, and the Rapid Support Forces have previously been accused of committing war crimes and crimes against Humanity is widespread when used by the Sudanese regime during its war in Darfur, in addition to the participation of special forces and support forces belonging to the Navy, but they are in limited numbers, compared to the vast majority of the Rapid Support Forces.

As the years of war passed, it became clear that the participation of the rapid support forces in Yemen was not a coincidence or an act, but was intended by the coalition forces “Saudi Arabia and the UAE” for what is known as the fact that they are distinguished from the rest of the military formations with their ability to move fast and sudden and fight from the SUV and with medium and light armament, which by nature are offensive forces that do not rely much on the defensive tactics of the regular armies and move quickly in the open areas, and this method of fighting may be more suitable for the manner in which the Yemeni wars are conducted, and may be more suited to the way of the Yemeni wars. Often rely on similar tactics.

According to the U.S. Intelligence Center, if there is a ground attack on one of the sites, the coalition is based on Sudanese groups in the confrontation, which explains the increasing number of Sudanese deaths throughout the years of war, and during interviews with a number of fighters returning from the war, they indicate that the officers — Saudis or Emiratis — are not directly on the battlefield, but maintain a safe distance from the front lines and the fighting, and lead Sudanese fighters remotely through communication devices.

The figures are mixed in figures on the number of Sudanese army deaths in the Yemen war, with the official lying of 412 killed, including 14 officers, as of September 2017, while a Sudanese government source estimates that 850 officers and soldiers have been killed as of June 2018.

In November 2019, authorities in Sanaa announced that the number of Sudanese forces killed was estimated at 4,253 and more than 4,000 wounded.

During the years of Sudanese involvement in the Yemeni quagmire, the number of troops involved remained unannounced, until the commander of the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces, Lt. Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Hamidti, revealed that the strength of his country’s forces involved in the War in Yemen reached 30,000 soldiers, most of them rapid support forces.

Apart from official Sudanese statements, we must point out the growing popular rejection in Sudan over participation in the war in Yemen, especially with the increasing number of deaths among their country’s forces, “The Sudanese forces bear the full cost of the fighting, whether in the lives, equipment or sufferings of those who lose loved ones,” said Mohamed Jumah, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Al-Sahafa. “I am with the withdrawal of our forces, and those who have lost their legitimacy in Sana’a will face ways to regain their king, and the Saudis will guard their borders,” he said.

In this context, a group of journalists, writers and intellectuals in Sudan launched a popular campaign to pressure the government to withdraw Sudanese troops participating in the War in Yemen, calling on participants to “align the people in a unified movement that rejects the war in Yemen, refuses to participate in the fighting there, and calls for a positive and creative contribution to help the Yemeni people achieve security, tranquility and peace in their country”.

The regimes that ruled Sudan have never intervened militarily in an internal war in any country, especially since Sudan has been suffering for many years from the civil war, which has claimed thousands of lives, displaced millions, caused humanitarian disasters in Darfur and eventually led to the secession of South Sudan.

Thus, it is clear that the various Sudanese statements on reducing the number of troops in Yemen are not as serious as required, because they avoid the most important thing, which is to end their presence completely, which confirms that power-sharing between the military and civilians is still a formality, while the de facto ruler in Khartoum and the controller has not changed, especially with regional support from the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and the end of external adventures and the dilemma of engaging in the absurd war in Yemen and interfering in the Libyan conflict remains a formality, while the de facto ruler in Khartoum and the controller of the matters has not changed, especially with regional support by the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and the end of external adventures and the dilemma of involvement in the absurd war in Yemen and interference in the Libyan conflict remain with the military, the actual decision makers.

Source: Saba

Y.A