The War in Sudan

Sudan Offers Russia First Naval Base in Africa

Sudan’s military junta has offered Russia the right to build a naval base on the Red Sea coast, Sudanese government sources told the Wall Street Journal.

It would be Russia’s first naval base in Africa and give the Kremlin excellent opportunities to monitor commercial shipping through the Suez Canal. It would also be a major strategic setback for the United States, which has fought to keep Russia and China out of African ports in the region.

The military junta is proposing a 25-year contract that would allow Russia to station 300 soldiers and four warships at the port. The Kremlin would also be offered lucrative mining contracts. In exchange, the junta wants Russian weapons systems at a discounted price to fight the paramilitary RSF in the ongoing civil war.

They fled the massacre: “The road was full of death”

During the siege of al-Fashir by the paramilitary force RSF, 62-year-old Abdulqadir Abdullah Ali suffered serious nerve damage in his leg because he could not get his diabetes medicine. Although he usually limps badly, he was so panicked that he ran without feeling any pain as he fled for his life.

He tells the BBC, who visited a refugee camp in northern Sudan, about what it was like when the RSF took the city. People were beside themselves with fear and ran in all directions to escape the gunfire, he says.

“Some of the RSF came in their cars. If they saw anyone still breathing, they ran over them.”

Another who managed to escape is Mohammed Abbaker Adam. He grew a beard to look older, hoping that would lead to more lenient treatment.

“The road was full of death,” he says of the escape.

He says that militiamen shot people in front of his eyes and that dead bodies were scattered along the road.

The massacre in al-Fashir – the point is this

• The paramilitary group RSF took control of al-Fashir, the Sudanese army's last stronghold in Darfur, at the end of October 2025, after an 18-month siege.
• After the takeover, mass killings, ethnically motivated executions, sexual violence and mass graves were reported, with thousands of civilian casualties according to the UN, Yale University and several aid organizations.
• Satellite images and testimonies showed that RSF blocked escape routes, killed fleeing people and committed abuses against women and children. Only a fraction of the city's residents managed to escape.
• The United Arab Emirates has been identified as the largest financier and source of weapons for RSF, which has led to demands for a halt to Swedish and European arms exports to the country.
• Despite international condemnation and RSF's declared ceasefire, the fighting has continued, and the UN Human Rights Council has decided on an independent investigation into suspected war crimes in al-Fashir.