In what Sudanese and Eritrean sources describe as a quietly evolving regional axis, Transitional Sovereignty Council Chair Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki arrived in Riyadh days apart for talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman on Sudan’s war and Red Sea security.
The axis, sources say, is aimed less at an immediate political settlement for Sudan’s crisis than at managing its spillover, particularly along the Red Sea. The three parties converge around a preference for enforced stability over democratic transition to avert a descent into open-ended chaos in the region, according to a former Sudanese government advisor and a former Sudanese intelligence official.
South Sudan is likewise growing reluctant to leave its interests dependent on an uncertain political process. As Sudan’s war increasingly encroaches on its borders and economic lifelines, the southern neighbor is shifting from a stance of passive exposure to one of active engagement.
A South Sudanese security delegation arrived in Port Sudan this week for talks on direct involvement in security arrangements to protect Sudanese oil infrastructure, which carries Juba’s critical oil exports, according to Sudanese and South Sudanese sources speaking to Mada Masr.
Waiting for a political solution is no longer a viable option, a senior source at South Sudan’s embassy in Port Sudan said, as Juba is increasingly compelled to engage with the realities of Sudan’s war.
Earlier this week, just a few hundred kilometers from South Sudan’s northern borders, six peacekeepers were killed and nine others injured in drone strikes in Kadugli, South Kordofan — attacks that the military and eyewitnesses who spoke to Mada Masr attributed to the Rapid Support Forces.
Kadugli and Dalang were hit simultaneously by artillery and air strikes, with shells landing in residential areas on the outskirts alongside military and logistical sites. Since October 2023, both strategic cities have been under a dual siege by the RSF and its ally, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North led by Abdel Aziz al-Hilu, driving a severe humanitarian crisis and acute food shortages.
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Burhan, Isaias in Riyadh; Sudanese, Eritrean sources: Regional axis in the making
Transitional Sovereignty Council Chair Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman in Riyadh, December 15. Courtesy of Burhan’s X account
Days after Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki traveled to Riyadh for talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman, Transitional Sovereignty Council Chair Abdel Fattah al-Burhan arrived in the Saudi capital on Monday for high-level meetings with the de facto ruler of the kingdom.
Eritrean and Sudanese sources told Mada Masr that the two visits are closely linked and reflect quiet regional coordination over Sudan’s war and Red Sea security. Together, the sources say, they point to Saudi Arabia’s evolving approach to the war — one that prioritizes managing instability and reshaping regional security alignments over pursuing an immediate political settlement at a time when broader Red Sea security is increasingly a site of contest.
Burhan’s trip, a former diplomat in Sudan’s Foreign Ministry told Mada Masr, marks a moment in an unfolding regional trajectory in which Saudi Arabia’s undeclared backing of Sudan’s military intersects with a recalibration of the roles played by regional allies — foremost among them Isaias.
According to a former advisor to the Sudanese government, the Saudis are looking to create a nascent regional axis that can serve as a bulwark against expanding crises in East Africa. At the center of this alliance will be the Sudanese military, with Isaias as a security partner and Saudi Arabia as a cautious patron, the advisor said.
Folding Eritrea into Riyadh’s regional security calculations reflects Saudi recognition that Sudan cannot be disentangled from its eastern neighbor, the former advisor said. Any internal reordering or settlement in Sudan requires understandings with Eritrea.
Since the war broke out, Saudi Arabia has maintained a public stance centered on calls for a ceasefire, civilian protection and support for humanitarian efforts. In practice, however, Riyadh has kept an open and continuous communication channel with Burhan as head of both the military institution and the internationally recognized state, a former official at Sudan’s embassy in Riyadh told Mada Masr.
This support has not taken the form of overt alignment, the former official explained, but has operated on three levels: political recognition, mediation management and “setting the regional tempo” in a way that prevents either state collapse or the takeover of Sudan’s Red Sea coastline by an “unrestrained actor.”
Saudi Arabia, which hosted the 2023 Jeddah platform without succeeding in halting the fighting, is less focused on bringing the warring parties to the table and more concerned with arranging the regional environment surrounding Sudan, a former official from Sudan’s General Intelligence Service at the embassy in Riyadh told Mada Masr.
Isaias and bin Salman in Riyadh, December 10. Courtesy of Al Arabiya
Burhan’s visit comes on the heels of Isaias’s own trip to Saudi Arabia from December 9 to 13 to sit down with Bin Salman.
According to Eritrea’s Information Ministry, the visit included discussions on developments in the Nile Basin, the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Gulf, and the role Saudi Arabia could play across these regions and in Eritrea’s “immediate neighborhood.”
Both the former intelligence official and a former Eritrean security source said that Burhan played an important role in persuading Isaias.
Eritrea has looked to court alliances in the Red Sea in recent months over its fears that Ethiopia’s bid to regain access to the Red Sea, which it lost when Eritrea won its independence in 1993, through the forcible acquisition of its territory.
To this end, Isaias urged Burhan in a visit to Port Sudan earlier this month to accelerate progress on the Russian logistical and technical support center on Sudan’s Red Sea coast, a TSC source told Mada Masr at the time.
Saudi Arabia, however, is staunchly opposed to Russian presence in the region, the former Sudanese intelligence official told Mada Masr.
While in Riyadh, Isaias took up his concerns about Ethiopia’s “escalation” and Red Sea security in general with Bin Salman, the former Sudanese and Eritrean security sources said.
For Saudi Arabia and Sudan, courting Eritrea serves multiple purposes, according to the former Sudanese government advisor, an Eritrean media source in Asmara and the Eritrean security source. Asmara, the sources said, is an influential security state, hostile toward rapid political change and capable of exerting leverage along maritime corridors and its borders with Ethiopia and eastern Sudan.
Isaias’s relationship with Burhan deepened after the 2018 Ethiopia-Eritrea peace deal and the ouster of Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir in 2019, as both sides converged around confronting civilian political transitions, limiting Ethiopian influence and containing cross-border armed movements, the former intelligence official said.
Riyadh’s concern over Red Sea security comes as the Yemeni separatist Southern Transitional Council took control of the strategic port city of Aden in southern Yemen earlier this month from Saudi-backed government forces.
Although pragmatic, Saudi Arabia’s attempt to form a regional bloc centered on strong security states carries risks for Sudan, the former advisor cautioned. Tethering Sudan’s future to narrow regional arrangements that sideline civilian forces and defer the question of popular legitimacy may produce a fragile stability, liable to unravel. Still, Riyadh and its allies appear to judge that this option is less costly than total chaos, the advisor added.
The invitation for Burhan’s visit was delivered on Sunday by a Saudi Foreign Ministry delegation that arrived in Port Sudan without prior public announcement, a senior diplomatic source at Sudan’s Foreign Ministry told Mada Masr.
The delegation held swift consultations with officials from Sudan’s Foreign Ministry, the General Intelligence Service and the TSC to prepare the agenda and framework for the talks.
While US Senior Advisor for Arab and African Affairs Massad Boulos was also in Riyadh at the time, a senior TSC source told Mada Masr that Burhan did not meet him. This, the source stressed, was not due to Burhan’s personal stance toward Boulos, but rather reflects his reservations toward the US-Saudi track on Sudan.
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Sources: South Sudanese security delegation in Port Sudan to discuss securing Sudan’s oil infrastructure
South Sudanese President Salva Kiir gives a written message to Burhan in Port Sudan, December 14. Courtesy of the Transitional Sovereignty Council – Sudan on Telegram
A South Sudanese security delegation arrived in Port Sudan on Sunday in the wake of the RSF’s capture of the Heglig oil field in West Kordofan last week — Sudan’s largest oil field and a critical hub for processing and exporting South Sudan’s crude.
The takeover triggered a rapid chain of developments on the ground. South Sudanese forces were dispatched to Heglig to secure the facilities under an arrangement with Khartoum and the RSF, according to South Sudanese and RSF sources who spoke to Mada Masr last week.
Engineers have since returned to the site and oil production has resumed, a security source at the field said.
The South Sudanese delegation’s visit unfolded within a clearly defined oil-and-security framework, moving beyond diplomatic formalities to the management of a strategic risk threatening one of South Sudan’s most critical revenue streams — and one of the few remaining files binding Juba and Khartoum in a relationship of necessity despite the war, a Sudanese government source told Mada Masr.
South Sudan’s heavy dependence on a complex network of pipelines and facilities running through Sudan to Port Sudan makes any disruption along this chain an immediate threat to an economy almost entirely reliant on oil for foreign currency.
The delegation included South Sudan’s National Security Advisor Tut Galuak, Foreign Minister Monday Semaya Kumba and several senior security officials. During the visit, they met Transitional Sovereignty Council Chair Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who received a written message from South Sudanese President Salva Kiir. The delegation also held meetings with Prime Minister Kamel Idris, as well as senior figures from Sudan’s military and General Intelligence Service.
A security source in Juba described the trip as a preemptive move aimed at containing the war’s spillover into the oil sector, particularly as production and transport sites are increasingly getting caught up in active combat zones. Discussions in Port Sudan, the source said, focused on securing oil fields, facilities and pipelines, as well as establishing mechanisms for field-level coordination in areas surrounding Heglig.
South Sudanese officials voiced concern that these areas could turn into an open conflict zone or a magnet for armed groups seeking to use oil as leverage, a diplomatic source at Sudan’s Foreign Ministry said. This fear, the source said, prompted discussions on intelligence-sharing mechanisms, enhanced field coordination and the possible approval of undeclared security arrangements aimed at insulating the oil fields from the conflict as much as possible — an approach that has already been applied in Heglig.
The talks also addressed the future of oil flows should the war persist, including scenarios of partial or complete shutdown and the limited alternatives available to Juba, according to the source. These discussions, the source said, reflected a shared understanding that prolonged disruption would deepen Juba’s economic crisis and risk triggering internal political and security instability.
A source at South Sudan’s Foreign Ministry said the core message carried by the delegation was clear: securing Sudan’s oil facilities is no longer a purely Sudanese sovereign matter, but a shared concern directly tied to South Sudan’s own stability. This framing, the source said, signals a shift in Juba’s posture — from passively absorbing the repercussions of Sudan’s war to actively protecting its interests through direct security arrangements.
A senior source at South Sudan’s embassy in Port Sudan told Mada Masr that dispatching a high-level security delegation amounts to a tacit acknowledgment by Juba that the authority in Port Sudan retains, at least partially, influence over the fate of South Sudan’s oil. While pragmatic, this acknowledgment also underscores the narrow range of options available to South Sudan, which is increasingly compelled to engage with the realities of Sudan’s war rather than wait for an uncertain political settlement, the source said.
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ٍArtillery shelling, drone strikes hit besieged Dalang, Kadugli in South Kordofan
RSF strikes on a United Nations site in Kadugli, South Kordofan, December 13. Courtesy of @sport6780 on Telegram
Dalang and Kadugli have returned to the forefront of Kordofan’s military escalation, following a series of attacks earlier this week military sources and eyewitnesses speaking to Mada Masr attributed to the RSF.
In Kadugli, three eyewitnesses said multiple explosions were heard on the city’s outskirts at dawn on Saturday. One witness said the blasts coincided with the movement of drones they believe to have been used in the strikes.
The shelling hit areas close to military positions and logistical facilities, including sites used by the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA), another witness said.
A medical source at Dalang hospital said the attack killed members of the peacekeeping force and wounded others. The United Nations stated that six Bangladeshi peacekeepers were killed and nine injured.
A third eyewitness described scenes of widespread panic in Kadugli, saying residents now live under the threat of drone strikes and heavy artillery operated by the RSF and its ally, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) led by Abdel Aziz al-Hilu.
In parallel, Dalang came under intermittent artillery and aerial bombardment on Saturday and Sunday, according to a source in the city’s local government. Shells struck residential neighborhoods on the outskirts and areas near the main road linking Dalang and Kadugli, triggering panic and limited displacement.
The renewed shelling comes against the backdrop of severe shortages of food and medicine, after both cities have endured years of siege. Supply routes have been repeatedly cut since an RSF and SPLM-N blockade began in October 2023, pushing Dalang and Kadugli to the brink. Conditions deteriorated sharply by the end of June, when the two allies sealed the Kadugli-Dalang road, bringing supply chains to a halt.
A source at the Humanitarian Aid Commission warned that targeting or disabling UN logistical facilities could lead to a near-total halt of relief operations, especially as the dry season sets in and food insecurity worsens.
Last month, the global authority on food insecurity declared famine in Kadugli.
The TSC held the RSF responsible for the attacks in Kadugli. The RSF, in turn, issued two statements denying involvement and rejecting accusations that it had targeted civilians or international facilities.
The RSF is pursuing in South Kordofan the same strategy it employed in Fasher, where the prolonged siege and the city’s fall in late October sealed RSF dominance in Darfur, according to a government source in Port Sudan. Kadugli’s role as an administrative center and Dalang’s position as a key transport node give both cities strategic weight that extends beyond their immediate military value, meaning their loss would alter control dynamics across Kordofan, the source said.
For now, tensions remain high around both cities, according to a source in South Kordofan’s local government, with intermittent drone activity and no clear signs of de-escalation.
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