Political developments threaten to reignite fighting in Nuba Mountains
SPLM-North leader aligns with RSF at Nairobi conference
Deepening political ties between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu, threaten to widen and intensify Sudan’s ongoing civil war, reigniting fighting in the Nuba Mountains, a region that has remained relatively quiet.
Al-Hilu’s participation and speech at an RSF-affiliated political gathering in Nairobi on Tuesday, which proclaimed a ‘parallel government’ to the military-led government in Port Sudan, signals an emerging partnership between the two armed groups.
The Nuba Mountains suffered two long wars from 1987 to 2002, and from 2011 to 2016 (when a ceasefire was signed, but no peace deal that ever formally ended that war), pitting Nuba rebels against the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). These wars left the region partly under control of Al-Hilu’s SPLM-North, which is a breakaway faction of the SPLM, the ruling party of South Sudan.
In the latest civil war, which erupted in April 2023, the region was largely spared fighting, even as battles raged in western and central Sudan.
Speaking at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre in the Kenyan capital, Al-Hilu declared, “The State must be stripped of the machinery of violence, and power and sovereignty belong only to the Sudanese peoples.”
He referred to the RSF Commander-in-Chief Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo as a “comrade” and stood alongside Dagalo’s brother, Abdelrahim, during the event.
Al-Hilu’s speech was interrupted several times by chants from the crowd calling for the toppling of “56” and “Port Sudan,” shorthand references to the military government that is now based in Port Sudan. “We want to build a new state, that is different from the old Sudan, which was based on separation, discrimination, hatred, corruption, and so on,” Al-Hilu said.
Although the SPLM-North leader postponed the signing of a formal political charter with the RSF, he declared that the Nairobi meeting was “an important political event in the history of Sudan.” Politicians from several civilian opposition parties, tribal leaders from Darfur, and leaders of two Darfur rebel splinter groups joined the Nairobi conference. The event marks a major political milestone for the RSF, even as it loses ground militarily in central Sudan, and faces fresh accusations of atrocities.
The RSF leader himself, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, was seen in Nairobi during the conference, but did not make a public appearance, preferring to keep a low profile and keep his movements secret, as he has done throughout most of the conflict. He let his brother, Abdelrahim, represent him at the event. Another brother, Algoni Dagalo, also took part in the conference. All three brothers are sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury for their role in leading the RSF and fueling violence in Sudan.
Background: Quasi-Neutrality of the SPLM-North
SPLM-North has largely stayed out of the fighting between RSF and the SAF since 2023, though it did take advantage of the conflict to seize some SAF-controlled areas early in the war, and occasionally clashed with SAF more recently.
During the first year of the war, the SPLM-North held talks with the anti-war, pro-democracy coalition known as Taqaddum, which consists of opposition parties and civil society groups. This signaled that the rebel group wanted to avoid siding overtly with one side or the other in the war, whether SAF or RSF.
Simultaneously, however, SPLM-North troops occasionally shelled Kadugli, the SAF-controlled capital of South Kordofan, and they effectively imposed a siege on that city, together with the RSF, which had cut the road to North Kordofan.
On the other hand, some SPLM-North troops—possibly acting without political direction—fought alongside SAF troops in December 2023 and January 2024, helping to repulse an RSF attack on the city of Dilling.
Throughout the nearly two-year civil war, the relationship between SPLM-North and the two main warring parties remained complex and uncertain. Last year, Al-Hilu’s faction held talks with SAF on several occasions, both on humanitarian access and military issues, including the delivery of supplies to Kadugli, the besieged state capital. Thus, relations between the SPLM-North and SAF appeared to be thawing.
‘We will fight them in every inch of Sudanese land’
The latest political developments appear to reverse that trend, souring relations between SAF and SPLM-North and risking a major escalation in the Nuba Mountains, likely not immediately, but once SAF can free up forces to deploy to the area.
Members of the Sudanese military and supporters responded to the latest political developments with vows to take over the entire country militarily, as well as inflammatory statements against the SPLM-North.
Lieutenant General Yasser Al-Atta, speaking to troops in Al-Dabba Locality in Northern State, said, “To those who say that they will be a parallel government, we say, we will fight them in every inch of Sudanese land, and let them know that the Sudanese nation has lions with strong fangs and claws, and that they will continue until victory is complete.”
For now, it is too soon to say if the RSF-SPLM-North relationship could develop into a more formal political pact or military alliance. Al-Hilu has backed out of previous written agreements on other occasions, including with Taqaddum last year.
But regardless whether it is a formal agreement or not, Al-Hilu signaled broad alignment with the RSF, describing the ongoing conflict as essentially a war between the “marginalized” people’s of Sudan’s peripheral regions, and the Islamist military government whose base of support is in the center and north of the country.
This rhetoric echoes that of John Garang, the South Sudanese leader who founded the SPLM, and who succeeded in fomenting rebellion in large parts of rural Sudan during the 1983-2005 civil war.
Al-Hilu referred to Darfur and the Nuba Mountains as “the New South.” He explained that the SPLM sees the ongoing conflict as on between a center and a periphery, asserting that the center has monopolized power, sovereignty, prestige, and social superiority, while the periphery has remained deprived of everything.
He recalled the Sudanese government’s jihad in South Sudan in the 1990s, citing “jihadist and takfiri slogans and fatwas,” claiming the Sudanese Armed Forces are now applying the same approach in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains, and Blue Nile.
Timing of the decision
Political observers have speculated as to Al-Hilu’s motivations for aligning himself politically with the RSF at this time. On social media, the SPLM-North leader came under a withering criticism from SAF supporters, with some characterizing him as anti-Islam (pointing to his secular politics), while others speculated that he had been paid by the RSF or its Gulf sponsor, the UAE.
The long-time rebel leader may have calculated that conflict with SAF was inevitable anyway. In terms of timing, the decision comes as SAF gains ground on several fronts, particularly in the capital region, but also in North Kordofan.
On Monday, SAF reclaimed Ar-Rahad, a town on the road between North Kordofan and White Nile. This advance builds on previous successes on this axis, including the recapture of Um Ruwaba on January 30.
Five cities in greater Kordofan—El Obeid, Dilling, Babanusa, Al-Fula, and Kadugli—remain under siege. SAF is likely to try to relieve these cities, including by clearing SPLM-North troops from areas around Dilling and Kadugli.
Mubarak Ardol, a Nuba politician aligned with SAF, commented on social media, “We congratulate our people in Kordofan in general for the liberation of the city of Ar-Rahad Abu Dakana. The road has become passable and soon the siege of the city of El Obeid, the capital of [North] Kordofan, will be lifted, and from there to the south of the state, the Nuba Mountains and western Sudan in general.”
Below: Video of the SPLM-North leader Abelaziz Al-Hilu and the RSF Deputy Leader Abdelrahim Dagalo entering the conference in Nairobi side-by-side, met by cheers from the audience, February 18, 2025 (via RSF influencer on social media).
Quiet hills, haunted by war
Large parts of the Nuba Mountains are essentially at peace, despite raging conflict elsewhere in Sudan. Last month, The Economist profiled the region, referring to it as “a hidden refuge in Sudan that the internet, banks—and war—can’t reach.”
The people of the region rely mostly on subsistence farming, at least in SPLM-controlled areas, while mechanized agriculture predominates in some government-held areas. Food insecurity and malnutrition have spread in the cities of South Kordofan, and in certain rural areas, due to the general collapse of the Sudanese economy, trade routes, and major markets, as well as an influx of war-affected people seeking shelter from violence elsewhere. The UN Word Food Programme is trying to assist vulnerable people in South Kordofan as a whole, but logistical and security challenges have impacted made it hard to reach many of those in need.
Ethnically, the residents of the region are called “Nuba,” though this is actually a collective term more than 50 different ethnicities and many languages. Persistent cultural, military, and economic ties with South Sudan, Uganda, and Kenya make the Nuba Mountains region distinct from other parts of Sudan. A substantial proportion of the Nuba are Christians, though there are also many Muslims.
The SPLM-North is ideologically secular, rather than Islamist, which puts it at odds with the Sudanese military, whose leaders were trained and promoted under the National Islamic Front (later, National Congress Party) government, headed by Omar al-Bashir, the ousted and now aging dictator.
Years of peace threatened by new war
Following a fragile ceasefire in 2016, hopes for lasting peace in the Nuba Mountains grew after the Sudanese Revolution of 2019, which toppled Al-Bashir and temporarily sidelined other leading members of his government. In January 2020, the interim Prime Minister, Abdalla Hamdok, visited the SPLM-North capital on the 15-year anniversary of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, in a major gesture of peace.
Ultimately, however, hopes for a formal peace deal dissipated. Al-Hilu declined to sign the Juba Peace Agreement of October 2020, which other leading rebel commanders signed, including the Darfur-based Sudan Liberation Movement (led by Minni Minawi) and the Justice and Equality Movement (led by Jibril Ibrahim), among others.
This decision split the SPLM-North, with a faction led by the long-time Blue Nile commander, Malik Agar, signing the Juba Agreement and joining the Sudanese government. (Agar subsequently was rewarded with an appointment as deputy chairman of the Sovereignty Council).
The military coup of 2021, which ousted Hamdok and the civilian component of the transitional government, soured relations and dashed hopes for a formal peace agreement, which would have ended one of Africa’s longest recurring conflicts.
In spite of that, fighting did not escalate in the region, apart from sporadic clashes. From 2023-2024, the Nuba Mountains were “a haven of relative security, but far from untouched” by the war, due to its economic and humanitarian impacts, according to Refugees International. The aid group stated in an August 2024 research report,
“Despite some limited battles between the SPLM-N and both the SAF and RSF on the edges of its territory, the two main belligerents have largely focused on each other, avoiding engaging the SPLM-N. This has transformed the Nuba mountains into a destination of refuge for people across Sudan.”
Signs of fresh conflict emerged last month, even before the latest political developments in Nairobi. In mid-January, fighting erupted near Dilling, after which the army claimed to have seized several areas controlled by SPLM-North.
In another development, SAF mobilized troops in Blue Nile to prepare for attacks against both the RSF and SPLM-North. In Blue Nile, Al-Hilu’s faction controls a corner of the state bordering Ethiopia and South Sudan.
Two weeks ago, the Deputy Chairman of the Sovereignty Council, Malik Agar, paid a visit to troops at the headquarters of the 4th Infantry Division in Damazin, where he delivered a speech calling for an offensive against Al-Hilu’s forces.
Agar, who hails from Blue Nile and split from Al-Hilu’s SPLM-North to join the government in 2020, described his former comrades in the SPLM-North as “a rebel force in the southern part of the state… which has allied with the RSF.”
Both the RSF and the SPLM-North “must be defeated in order to bring stability and peace to the country,” he said.
Foreign Ministry protests Kenyan involvement
Meanwhile, Sudan’s Foreign Ministry, which is aligned with the military government in Port Sudan, published a statement complaining against Kenya for allowing the RSF and its political affiliates to host a conference in Nairobi.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs regrets the Kenyan government’s disregard for its obligations under international law, the Charter of the United Nations, the Constitutive Act of the African Union, and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide by hosting the event of signing a so-called ‘political agreement’ between the terrorist Janjaweed militia—responsible for ongoing acts of genocide in Sudan—and its affiliated individuals and groups.
“Given that the stated objective of this agreement is to establish a parallel government on part of Sudanese territory, this move promotes the dismembering of African states, violates their sovereignty, and interferes in their internal affairs…
“Furthermore, hosting leaders of the terrorist RSF militia and allowing them to conduct political and propaganda activities—while they continue to perpetrate genocide, massacre civilians on an ethnic basis, attack IDP camps, and commit acts of rape—constitutes complicity in these heinous crimes.
“Equally, this action by the Kenyan government not only violates the principles of good neighborliness but also contravenes the pledges Kenya has made at the highest levels not to allow hostile activities against Sudan to be carried out on its soil. It is, therefore, tantamount to an act of hostility against the entire Sudanese people. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs affirms that this propaganda stunt will have no impact on the ground, as the Sudanese Armed Forces, along with joint and supporting forces—backed by the Sudanese people—remain resolute in their determination to liberate every inch of Sudanese territory desecrated by the terrorist militia and its foreign mercenaries. Their swift and continuous progress toward this goal remains unabated. While the Ministry calls on the international community to condemn this hostile act by the Kenyan government, it affirms that it will take all necessary measures to redress the balance.
“Issued on Tuesday, February 18, 2025.
For its part, the Kenyan government did not officially take a position on the conference, nor yet respond to the Sudanese Foreign Ministry statement. However, The East African, a leading paper in Kenya covering international affairs, reported that the RSF-led conference happened “on the backing of Nairobi.”
The leading headline in Kenya’s The Star newspaper today is, “Diplomatic tiff looms as Kenya hosts Sudan’s Hemedti group,” with the subhead, “Khartoum rebel faction launches ‘government.’”
In the coming days, meetings to form the ‘parallel government’ are expected to continue in Nairobi. The signing of a joint charter, paving the way for the so-called government, was delayed until February 21 at the request of SPLM-N, reportedly to allow time for consultations with Abdelwahid al-Nur, leader of another neutral armed group, SLA-AW, which controls the Jebel Marra massif of Central Darfur.
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