Sudan conflict spillover complicates security landscapes in CAR and Chad

The bloody civil war and looming famine in Sudan are pushing thousands of civilians to flee to neighboring Chad and Central African Republic (CAR), whereby the spillover of the conflict is complicating a security landscape in both latter countries, UN officials and experts warn.

Activities of armed groups in the volatile CAR have increased as the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) try to recruit their fighters and amid air raids by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) around border areas, a panel of experts warns in a new report. The fighting between the two rival camps in Sudan has since April 2023 spread to other regions including Darfur, which borders the CAR. The expert panel said the United Nations had registered almost 10,700 Sudanese refugees who, by late March, had fled across the border into the CAR where rebel groups have operated with impunity across the country over the past decade, thwarting mining exploration by foreign companies.

Meanwhile, the power struggle between SAF and RSF has plunged Sudan into a devastating crisis, which has prompted more than 600,000 people to flee to neighboring Chad, seeking safety and enough food to sustain life, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). A famine-like conditions are taking hold across the country where almost one million Sudanese are facing “catastrophic levels of hunger’ with an additional 25.6 million facing acute food shortages, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the UN’ hunger-level scale. Many of the Sudanese refugees in Chad are barely surviving and are dependent on food aid from the World Food Programme (WFP) that has, however, been forced to reduce food assistance due to a lack of funding, the UNHCR has warned.