Sudan War: The Failure of Regional Mediation and a Closed Horizon

Al-Wathiq Kameer

Introduction

Over the past two years, all regional and international mediation efforts to resolve Sudan’s crisis have failed. Calls for meetings have been repeatedly issued and initiatives launched, yet disputes over who should participate and the absence of coordination have rendered almost every meeting doomed to failure before it even convened.

Once again, a new attempt to bring Sudanese political actors together has stumbled, following the postponement of a meeting called by IGAD and the African Union in Djibouti, scheduled for 16–18 December, with the support of the United Nations, the European Union, and the League of Arab States.

This context highlights a key development: after their representatives attended sessions of the Jeddah Platform in October 2023 (Moussa Faki, then Chairperson of the African Union Commission, and Workneh Gebeyehu, Executive Secretary of IGAD), the two organizations did not merely seek to “take over the file” from Jeddah. Rather, they shifted the reference framework altogether—from a military-focused negotiation aimed at a ceasefire and civilian protection, explicitly detached from the political track by the terms of the statement, to a new framework centered on negotiations between Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti) under IGAD’s auspices, alongside a comprehensive political dialogue to be prepared and organized by the African Union.

No sooner had the mediation announced the collapse of negotiations on 4 December than IGAD moved to convene an extraordinary summit in Djibouti on 9 December, placing particular emphasis on a face-to-face meeting between Burhan and Hemedti—a meeting that has not occurred in two years—as a symbolic locus of direct authority over ending the war.

Reasons for Failure

The persistence of the political process crisis reflects an ongoing dispute over who should be included and who excluded—an issue that has obstructed most meetings over the past two years. In early invitations, the African Union and IGAD struggled to resolve the question of Islamist participation and how to define it. In more recent meetings, the controversy has shifted toward the participation of the “Tasis” alliance or the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), leading repeatedly to postponement or collapse before meetings could even begin.

Tracing the major African Union and IGAD invitations and meetings with Sudanese political actors illustrates the scale of these unproductive efforts:

July 2023: First meetings with political forces to pave the way for the African Union track.

1 September 2023: Meetings held in parallel with the announcement of the Quartet Committee (12 September).

November 2023 – February 2024: Regular meetings with key civilian forces, which stalled due to disagreements over the participant list.

August–September 2024: Renewed attempt to convene parties, with a focus on disputes over Islamist participation.

June 2025: Broad invitation to political forces, which failed due to objections to the participation of the “Tasis” alliance.

16–18 December 2025: The most recent planned meeting in Djibouti, postponed due to the same disagreement over participants.

Against this backdrop, the crisis is no longer merely an internal political one; it has expanded to include conflicting regional and international mediation tracks. The Quartet Committee (the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt) entered the Sudan file through its statement of 12 September 2023, emphasizing an end to the war and the protection of civilians, while the African Union and IGAD focused on launching a comprehensive political process. This divergence in priorities, coupled with the absence of an effective coordination mechanism between the two tracks, has created confusion among both mediators and Sudanese actors alike.

Compounding this is IGAD’s credibility problem with the Sudanese government, particularly as most member states are viewed as either non-neutral or hostile. Eritrea—the sole member that had represented a relative exception—announced its withdrawal from IGAD on 12 December, further weakening the organization’s capacity to play an acceptable and effective role. Under such conditions, it becomes difficult to speak of meaningful mediation, even if meetings continue to be held and initiatives announced.

Historically, despite political disagreements and conflicting interests among member states, the only major exception in IGAD’s mediation record was its role in producing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005. That success, however, was less a result of institutional strength than of exceptional circumstances: the presence of a member state acceptable to both parties at the time—Kenya—a mediator with political weight and decisiveness, General Lazarus Sumbeiywo, and direct, robust international backing from the Troika (the United States, the United Kingdom, and Norway). Today, in the absence of such factors, the repeated failure of IGAD and the African Union appears closer to the rule than the exception.

Challenges to Mediation

A review of the six major invitations and meetings—from July 2023 to December 2025—reveals an evolution in the causes of deadlock: from early disputes over Islamist participation, to debates over civilian representation, and finally to confrontations over the inclusion of current military alliances such as the RSF and the “Tasis” alliance. This trajectory reflects not only the absence of Sudanese-Sudanese consensus, but also a lack of consensus among regional and international mediators themselves, rendering any meeting vulnerable to failure before it begins.

The continued proliferation of platforms without effective coordination, and the clash of priorities between the African Union and IGAD on one hand and the Quartet Committee on the other, ensure that any political process is likely to stall before it even starts. Without (1) clear participation criteria, (2) mediation acceptable to all parties, and (3) the capacity to move from consultation to decision-making, meetings will continue to multiply and failures to recur—while the war on the ground imposes its own rhythm, far removed from negotiating halls.

Conclusion

What IGAD and the African Union are seeking today is not merely to mediate, but to reclaim a file they have lost to the Jeddah track. Yet they face structural constraints that severely limit their chances of success. In the absence of Sudanese-Sudanese consensus, amid deep divisions among political actors on key issues, a weakened regional mediator, and competing initiatives across regional and international tracks, any “comprehensive” political process is likely to remain suspended with no clear horizon—while the war continues to generate new realities that further complicate any future negotiating path.