The Rapid Support Forces’ seizure of the tri-border area, a key trade and smuggling nexus, has brought Sudan’s war closer to Egypt than ever before

In mid-June, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized control of the strategic border triangle area between Sudan, Libya, and Egypt.

A psychological win from one perspective, given recent RSF defeats on the battlefield at the hands of Sudan’s army, it is also a strategic advance, as the tri-border area is a significant trade and smuggling nexus.

The question now is how long the RSF can maintain control of the area, especially following remarks by the Sudanese army that it withdrew from the territory as part of “defence arrangements” aiming at repelling the paramilitary group.

It has since sent major reinforcements to the area, demonstrating its intention to recapture it.

Nevertheless, the RSF’s advance into the tri-border area proves its intent to occupy territories in northern Sudan, near the border with Egypt.

Sudanese analysts say that this strategy can clearly be seen in the intense fighting raging in the Northern State and El-Fasher, the capital of the Western North Darfur State, where Sudanese army troops and the RSF are locked in a battle for control.

“The RSF wants to control the border area with Egypt and Sudan’s northwestern region so that it can control supply routes on the Libyan and Chadian borders,” Sudanese political analyst Osman Mirghani told The New Arab.

“The militia’s control of the border triangle also aims to deprive the Sudanese army of important supplies,” he added.

Control of El-Fasher could be instrumental in the paramilitary group’s push towards other parts of north-western Sudan, including the whole of North Darfur.

The group’s success in occupying these vast territories in northwestern Sudan could also disconnect the war-shattered African country from Libya and most of Chad, creating an RSF-controlled corridor, which Cairo fears for security and geostrategic reasons.

Tough test for Egypt

Egypt has tried to remain militarily uninvolved in Sudan’s civil war since it broke out in April 2023 and has thrown its full political weight behind efforts to find a solution to the conflict.

In the three years since the war started, Cairo has hosted a large number of meetings on the Sudanese crisis, including a meeting of the leaders of Sudan’s neighbouring countries in July 2023.

It also brought Sudanese political forces together in a bid to unite them behind a compromise solution to the crisis.

Egypt had recently taken the place of the UK in the Sudan Quartet, a group of states that work to facilitate mediation between Sudan’s warring parties, signalling its active and deep political and diplomatic involvement in the Sudanese crisis.

And the stakes are high for Egypt, which does not want Sudan’s war to turn its shared 1,276-kilometre-long border into a hotspot for illegal activities.

Unrest on the border with Sudan could also compound the security problems Egypt faces along its 1,115-kilometre-long border with Libya to its west.

“The border with Sudan is stretched over a large area, and securing it has become a hefty mission after the breakout of the war,” Egyptian political analyst Abdel Monem Halawa told TNA.

“Egypt has beefed up security along the border with Sudan, expecting an influx of Sudanese refugees and to address repercussions from the war,” he added.

The border triangle occupied by the RSF has long been a smuggling hotbed, and analysts like Halawa expect the militia’s control of the same area to make things even worse in the coming period.

The unrest in Sudan, long viewed by Cairo as its backyard, has raised fears that the war could spill over into neighbouring countries and create threats to navigation to and from the Suez Canal.

Economically, Egypt has been severely impacted by the war, effectively losing an important trading partner. Hundreds of thousands of Sudanese have also fled the war into Egypt, adding to Cairo’s financial burdens.

Possible Egyptian intervention?

Whether Egypt will be able to maintain its military non-alignment following the RSF’s occupation of the tri-border area is far from certain.

Suspicions are already high between the RSF and Egypt, especially in light of repeated accusations by the militia’s commander, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, that Cairo is supporting the Sudanese army, including by staging airstrikes on RSF positions.

Egypt does not, meanwhile, hide its support for the Sudanese army. Cairo considers support for national armies and state institutions in neighbouring countries a foreign policy tenet. It demonstrates this policy wherever it is politically involved, whether in Libya, Yemen, or Lebanon, shunning non-state actors and restricting its relations to central governments and national militaries.

Cairo rolled out a wide welcome mat for Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, also the head of the ruling Sovereign Transitional Council, several times in the past three years.

Senior Egyptian officials, including the foreign minister and the intelligence chief, are also frequent visitors to Port Sudan, the current political capital of Sudan.

The latest developments on the Egyptian-Sudanese-Libyan border, meanwhile, come as the RSF tries to form its own government.

The militia’s success in controlling north-western Sudan, including the newly occupied border triangle, may embolden it to declare its own state in the areas it controls.

This raises questions about whether Egypt can allow an RSF state along its border.

African affairs specialist Heba al-Beshbeshi referred to what she described as “apparent plans” by the RSF to separate the north-western part of Sudan from the rest of the country.

“These plans are incentivised by the economic and geostrategic importance of this part of Sudan,” she told TNA.

Other analysts say that if the RSF plans to control this part of Sudan near Egypt’s border, the military may have to get involved.

“Egypt cannot allow this militia to establish a presence along its border, given the RSF’s involvement in many illegal activities,” Halawa said.

He noted that the border triangle occupied by the RSF lies in close proximity to mega agricultural production projects in the Egyptian Western Desert.

“This means that this area is not only connected with Egypt’s national security, but also with its food security,” Halawa said.

The tri-border area is also located in close proximity to Jebel Uweinat, a mountain range of the Egyptian-Libyan-Sudanese border, which separates the three countries from each other.

The fear in Cairo is that turmoil in this area will increase the likelihood of smuggling, especially of banned materials and people, into Egypt. RSF control of northwestern Sudan would create a corridor between Egypt, Chad, and other areas of the African Sahel where terrorist activities are rife and extremist groups have a presence.

This is a nightmare scenario for Egypt, which has worked hard in recent years to prevent terrorist groups in the Sahel from teaming up with others in North Africa, including by offering support to some Sahel states’ militaries, analysts in Cairo said.

“The unity of terrorist organisations in the African Sahel with those active in North Africa will be catastrophic to the region, including to Egypt,” Halawa said.

“In the past years, the African Sahel has turned into a beehive of terrorist activity, something that feeds on deteriorating security conditions in the region,” he added.