Sudan’s battle has started to spill into the Central African Republic as both flanks of the fight conduct functions along Sudan’s southwest border. According to the United Nations, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) undertook air raids on militia positions along the boundary, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have drafted fighters from rebel groups in the CAR.
Meanwhile, the CAR, which stays embroiled in its 11-year violent conflict, has become a shelter for more than 31,000 Sudanese residents escaping the fighting in their own country. Many of those Sudanese are harbouring in remote areas of the CAR’s Vakanga and Haute-Kotto prefectures, where they are beyond the government’s security. Observers said that deposed Sudanese are living without clean water, medicine and food. Local CAR authorities have called on the administration to do more to help.
The spillover impact of the conflict in the Sudan has significantly influenced the situation in the Central African Republic. The RSF controls border junctions with the CAR in Central Darfur and South Darfur. RSF leader Gen. Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo demanded that the border be closed in 2022 to prevent a suspected attempt at overthrowing CAR leadership.
Hemedti reopened the barricade and Um Dafuq in January 2023, three months earlier than the April 15, 2023, outbreak of battle with the SAF. Since then, the border with the CAR has become a transit significance for the unfettered movement of weapons and fighters feeding battles in the CAR and Sudan. “Opposition armed companies from the Central African Republic have been reported to have actively drafted for and sent members of their bodies to fight in Sudan under the RSF,” the Panel of Experts conveyed.
Among those recruits are revolutionary fighters from the Popular Front for the Renaissance of Central Africa (FPRC), which contains parts of Vakanga prefecture in northern CAR along the Sudanese frontier. In turn, FPRC fighters are operating in Sudanese territory to establish their attacks in the CAR. Spectators note that the RSF’s connection with FPRC is at odds with Hemedti’s support for the CAR administration in Bangui. Both groups share a long-running association with Russia. Africa Corps, the mercenary company formerly known as the Wagner Group.
The U.N. report recognises RSF figure Habib Hareka as one of the recruiters who forces fighters across the boundary from Am Dafok, Sam Ouandja, the Ndah mining area and Haute-Kotto prefecture. Fighters eventually end up in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur and a strategic connection between the CAR and Sudan. The RSF has handled Nyala since October 2023.
Beyond the RSF’s recruitment steps, the spillover from the fighting in Sudan is having other consequences for the CAR. The Am Dafok-Um Dafuq border area is a crucial point for transporting goods from docks in Sudan to the eastern regions of the landlocked CAR. Sudan’s war is disrupting that trade, dramatically raising the price of food and other aids in Vakanga and elsewhere.
The U.N.’s CAR experts suggested the Bangui government stop RSF recruiters and foreign fighters in their domain and shut down the discharge of weapons being conducted by the Sudanese conflict. The movement of soldiers and weapons across the CAR-Sudan border and the SAF’s air attacks in response pose “a crypt and enduring threat to regional stability,” the experts said.
