Will South Sudan Get Dragged Into Sudan’s Civil War?

The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) captured more than 10 South Sudanese nationals fighting alongside the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in central Sudan’s Kordofan region last week, SAF sources told Al Jazeera. The incident highlights growing tensions between the SAF and South Sudan, which the former has accused of supporting the RSF in Sudan’s civil war.

The ongoing siege in Kordofan risks further drawing South Sudan into the conflict, even as the country is on the cusp of civil war itself, facing an ongoing power struggle between President Salva Kiir and opposition leader Riek Machar.

South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in July 2011, ending decades of civil war. Two years later, another civil war erupted in South Sudan after Kiir sacked Machar, his vice president. The conflict killed around 400,000 people and ended with a 2018 power-sharing deal, which deteriorated last March.

Since late 2024, the SAF has alleged that armed groups from South Sudan are fighting alongside the RSF. Last February, the RSF formed an alliance with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu—an offshoot of South Sudan’s SPLM, which spearheaded the country’s independence push and now runs the government under Kiir.

Last March, then-Sudanese Minerals Minister Mohamed Bashir Abunommo accused South Sudan of allowing the United Arab Emirates—a key RSF backer—to establish an “aggression base” under the guise of a field hospital in Aweil East near the Sudanese border. Abunommo also alleged that the South Sudanese government was ignoring the recruitment of its citizens into the RSF and facilitating Sudanese gold smuggling to the UAE. South Sudan denied the claims.

In July, the RSF and SPLM-N formed a parallel Sudanese government along with other armed supporters. Sudan’s military believes that Kiir is backing this new RSF alliance.

Analysts fear that oil may further drag Juba into Sudan’s conflict. Landlocked South Sudan relies on oil for more than 90 percent of government revenue, and its oil passes through pipelines in Sudan’s bordering Heglig oil field in West Kordofan state.

After the RSF announced that it had seized Heglig on Dec. 8, Juba reached a rare tripartite agreement with the SAF and RSF to allow South Sudanese troops to secure the facility and guarantee exports of oil via Heglig to Port Sudan. The facility processes about 130,000 barrels of South Sudanese oil per day. By deploying its army to Heglig, South Sudan is now directly involved in managing a strategic flashpoint in Sudan’s civil war.

Meanwhile, in Sudan, intense fighting in South Kordofan has driven more than 1,500 civilians into the city of Kosti in neighboring White Nile state. Camps in the city’s outskirts are overcrowded amid mass displacement and an international aid shortage.

The United Nations World Food Program announced last month that it would cut back on food rations in Sudan due to a lack of funding, even as the country is gripped by famine.

In November, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification confirmed famine in the country for the second time in less than a year, noting that an estimated 21.2 million people—nearly half of the population—face acute food insecurity. Around 825,000 children are projected to suffer from severe malnutrition in 2026, according to UNICEF.

U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk has said the Kordofan region could face a wave of atrocities similar to the widespread sexual abuse and killings documented in El Fasher last year.

Source: https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/01/07/south-sudan-sudanese-armed-forces-conflict-rsf-oil/