Sudan’s Al Burhan meets Egypt’s El Sisi in Cairo amid shifting war dynamics

Talks focus on Sudan’s future after army's recent gains against Rapid Support Forces

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, right, and Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan in El Alamein in 2023. Egyptian Presidency / AFP

Sudan’s army chief and de facto leader Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan met Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El Sisi in Cairo on Monday following recent gains by the Sudanese army against their rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the collapse of international mediation efforts this month.

Mr El Sisi and Gen Al Burhan held closed-door meetings which addressed, among other things, the “progress made by the Sudanese Armed Forces in the field and its recent retaking of the capital Khartoum”, according to a statement from the Egyptian presidency.

Gen Al Burhan was accompanied by ٍSudan's acting Foreign Minister, Hussein El Amin, who told the Sudan News Agency the army chief received an invitation to Cairo from Mr El Sisi on April 15, the second anniversary of the start of the war.

On the same day, 22 countries and a coalition of NGOs working on war relief efforts in Sudan met in Britain's capital for the London Sudan Conference, the latest in a series of international mediation efforts that have ended without a breakthrough.

The war has claimed more than 100,000 lives, by some estimates, and displaced nearly 13 million people. Some areas of the country are facing famine as aid agencies struggle for access to deliver relief supplies.

Monday’s meeting also comes two weeks after RSF leader Gen Mohamed Dagalo announced the formation of a rival Sudanese government with plans to issue a new currency and ID cards, and exercise full administrative control over the regions it holds.

Cairo is opposed to any division of control over Sudan and views the new rival government as a threat to its national security due to the borders it shares.

“We categorically reject any attempts to undermine the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Sudan, including the rejection of any endeavours to establish a parallel government,” President El Sisi said during a speech in Djibouti last week.

Gen Al Burhan, in a speech on Saturday in Khartoum, said the army had "shifted from a defence strategy to an offence strategy”.

He pledged to retaliate twofold to any RSF attacks and to put an end to the drone strikes the paramilitary has been accused of launching on civilian areas since its defeat in Khartoum last month.

Analysts say the military’s recent victories have tipped the scales in its favour and that Cairo aims to build on these gains by boosting the army's international profile.

“This visit comes as the army is seeking to solidify its recent victories and determine the path forward after it regained the capital and large parts of the country. The fact that Al Burhan went to Egypt at this critical time sends a strong message that the Sudanese establishment welcomes Cairo’s input," Ahmed Ismail, director of Mashad, an NGO in Paris that monitors the war, told The National.

“Egypt and El Sisi have enjoyed an exceptionally high international profile lately because of the central role it has played in both the mediations of the conflicts in Gaza and Sudan," he said. "So hosting Al Burhan now, while there is attention, will also send a message to the world that all political manoeuvring in the Horn of Africa will have to go through the military establishments of both Egypt and Sudan."

Cairo has so far been one of the Sudanese army's main allies in the civil war, and Mr El Sisi, a former military general, has maintained strong ties with Gen Al Burhan, whom he has hosted in Cairo several times since the outbreak of the war, most recently for an Arab summit on Gaza in early March.

Mr Ismail said that with divisions among the regional stakeholders becoming increasingly apparent, the meeting between Gen Al Burhan and Mr El Sisi “strongly suggests that Khartoum and its military de facto ruler will now move further into the orbit of Cairo”.

The Sudanese military-dominated government is the UN-recognised representative of the people of Sudan.