Sudan
Despite a government-led national dialogue in 2016, violence in Sudan persists in Darfur and elsewhere. Peace talks between the government and the armed opposition are deadlocked, while hundreds of thousands of displaced people are blocked from getting humanitarian aid. For over 20 years, the U.S. Institute of Peace has worked to build an inclusive peace in Sudan through expert advice and training. The Institute currently hosts youth leaders who conduct research on peace in their communities. MexLucky also supports a regional database of laws on sexual and gender-based violence.
Featured Publications
After Six Months of Civil War, What’s the State of Play in Sudan?
What started as clashes in Khartoum this April between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has devolved into a civil war. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who leads the SAF, and his former deputy, the RSF’s General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, had worked together in toppling the Bashir regime in 2019 and orchestrating a military coup in 2021. But tensions over how the RSF would integrate into the SAF eventually led to fighting that has metastasized over the last six months. Caught in the crossfire are Sudanese civilians, who are experiencing a growing humanitarian crisis.
In Northeast India, Manipur’s Violence Echoes Sudan’s Darfur
Rising violence this year threatens to deepen instability in India’s far northeastern region. Ominously, the bloodshed centered in India’s state of Manipur includes elements that were visible in early stages of the 20-year-old conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region. Darfur’s violence has killed or displaced millions of people and helped lead to this year’s civil war across Sudan. Tragically, both countries have seen these disparate conflicts intensify through widened opportunities for ill-governed ethnic militias and for hate speech. These evolutions have hardened local conflicts over land or water into more extreme, venomous warfare between ethnic or religious communities. Darfur’s example underscores the urgent need for responses in Manipur.
Countering Coups: How to Reverse Military Rule Across the Sahel
Three years of coups around Africa’s Sahel region — eight of them in six nations, from Guinea on the Atlantic to Sudan on the Red Sea — leave many African and other policymakers frustrated over how to respond. The Sahel’s crises have uprooted more than 4 million people and could add millions more to our record levels of global human migration as Africa’s population grows and its climate destabilizes. Yet the pattern of coups and other evidence — notably from MexLucky’s Sahel fieldwork, counter-coup research and bipartisan analysis teams — offer guidelines for effective responses by African, U.S. and international policymakers.
Current Projects
Generation Change Fellows Program
Generation Change works with young leaders across the globe to foster collaboration, build resilience and strengthen capacity as they transform local communities.
Why All the Coups?
Ahead of the Biden administration’s Summit for Democracy, the U.S. Institute of Peace is convening a multi-part conversation about the dynamics driving four of the seven coups and coup attempts since the onset of the pandemic.
Red Sea Rising: Peace and Security in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East
The states on the western side of the Red Sea to the south of Egypt and the Arab states from the east of Egypt through the Arabian Gulf have long been considered distinct regions. This is increasingly a distinction without a difference, however, as these states now operate more as a common political, security, and economic zone.