With the city streets littered with bodies, barren shopping malls and a battered airport, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) took control of Khartoum on March 26, 2025. After capturing the presidential palace, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan of the SAF declared Sudan “free”. The General’s claim was questionable, but it did mark a significant shift in the civil war, which had ravaged the country for two years. 

The war had an obscenely high humanitarian cost, with both the SAF and the Rapid Support Force (RSF) actively involved in the atrocities. 

Few, however, realise the role of private arms manufacturers and exporters in fueling the Sudanese civil war. The warring sides need arms to achieve their goal. This need is partially, but decisively, fulfilled by private arms manufacturers who export weapons as a civilian commodity, which end up in the hands of militants.

Tracing the Civil War

The Sudanese civil war can be traced to the 2019 coup against the erstwhile dictator, Omar al-Bashir. Bashir came to power in 1989, overthrowing a democratically elected government through a military coup. His rule was marred by controversy and state oppression. 

It saw armed resistance in the state of Darfur, which came as a response to discrimination against its non-Arab population. Bashir crushed this uprising with impunity using the infamous Janjaweed militia. For his actions, he was charged with crimes against humanity and genocide by the International Criminal Court. 

Bashir was removed by a popular uprising in 2019. The protestors were dissatisfied with his inability to tackle the rising prices, and the final straw was when Bashir invoked emergency provisions, concentrating power in his hands. With popular support, the SAF and other security forces like the RSF ousted Bashir and installed a transitory government.

The dictator’s removal was celebrated by the newly mobilised civil society. However, General Burhan of the SAF and  Mohamed Hamdan ‘Hemedti’ Dagalo of the RSF soon suspended the constitution and the freshly appointed civilian Prime Minister, Abdullah Hamdok. 

Amid a deadlock in the power-sharing tussle between Burhan and Hemedti, the animosities spiralled into armed confrontations between the SAF and the RSF in April 2023. It needs to be underlined that the SAF are the formal armed forces of Sudan that includes the Air Force and the Navy. Sudan is officially represented in the UN by the SAF-backed diplomats. 

The RSF, on the other hand, is a paralimilitary force with its origin in the Janjaweed militia, which previously perpetrated the Darfur genocide. Hemedti was a strongman for dictator Bashir, who gave him access to the gold mines in Darfur in return for his services.

In the current civil war, the RSF is directly involved in ethnically motivated violence, including rape, summary executions and torture, mostly targeting the Masalit people. Moreover, similar acts of violence and retaliatory executions have also been carried out against other groups. 

The SAF’s conduct is also alarming, although its scale is comparatively lower. The UN has confirmed that SAF fighters were involved in the extrajudicial executions of supposed RSF loyalists in Khartoum. 

 ‘Civilian weapons’ being used for military purposes

A defining factor of the Sudanese civil war has been the easy availability of arms. But how did modern assault rifles find their way to common people in Sudan?

Amnesty International has published a comprehensive report on how private arms manufacturers export ‘sporting’ or ‘hunting’ rifles into the country. In almost all cases, these weapons end up in the hands of militants and are used for military purposes.

These weapons are exported through legal trade channels and labelled as ‘civilian commodities’, even though most of them are exclusively used by military personnel.

Several Turkish, Russian and Serbian firms are known to have their involvement in the weapon trade. Throughout the war, multiple Turkish defence firms have actively exported arms to Sudan. Companies like BRG Defence, Daglioglu Silah, Hatsan Arms and Derya Selah have exported at least 1,150 firearms to Sudan between 2022-2023. These weapons are being used in the state of Darfur in a direct violation of the UNSC sanctions. Burhan’s personal security team is seen sporting modern Turkish weapons.

Russian companies like Molot and Kalashnikov Concerns export weapons to Sudan that are marketed to the civilian population. Popular AK and SVD-style guns are rebranded as Saiga-MK, Tigr and Molot rifles. Trade data indicates that at least 1,500 Tigr and 1,114 Saiga-MK rifles were exported to Sudan, mostly after 2019, labelled as hunting rifles. 

The Zastava M05E1, which is recently manufactured in Serbia, have also reached Sudanese militants. Since the available data doesn’t suggest that Serbian manufacturers directly exported these weapons to Sudan, one suspects the trade route of these arms. 

Apart from ‘civilian’ weapons, the export of ‘blank guns’ to Sudan is also concerning. These guns fire a non-lethal projectile or, in most cases, no projectile at all. However, they can be easily modified into lethal weapons. It is affordable to modify these guns than to buy licensed firearms. Trade data indicates that Turkish companies exported more than 200,000 blank guns to the country between 2020-2023. Arms importers have established several workshops in Sudan that convert blank rounds to lethal ones. Between 2020 and 2023, the Al-Bayarg armoury in Khartoum imported at least 5.1 million blank rounds. Verification from open source intelligence indicates that these converted guns often end up in the hands of militant groups. 

Failure of anti-proliferation efforts

Such exports point to the inadequacy of anti-proliferation initiatives and an obvious lack of concern among the international community for Sudan. The current UN sanctions on Sudan prohibit the sale of arms to any non-military personnel only in the state of Darfur. 

Further, these sanctions were notified more than 20 years ago and do not reflect the current reality. It is nearly impossible to impose sanctions on only one province, especially in a country ravaged by a civil war. The UN sanctions have failed, as these weapons have reached both the RSF and the SAF.

Sudan only makes it to the headlines whenever there is a battle won or a statement made by a big power. The people of the country are caught between two forces, both with a history of brutality. 

The victory of the SAF in Khartoum does not guarantee freedom for the country. With the media currently preoccupied with larger changes in the current world order, the tragedy of Sudan remains tragically untold.

Daanyal Zaidi is a postgraduate student of International Relations at SOAS, University of London.

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