chad helped fuel sudan’s war. the consequences are arriving.
The uae is developing new routes into sudan while chad is left with cross-border attacks, an angry zaghawa establishment and a war moving closer to its territory.
In May of last year, I wrote that Chad was helping fuel Sudan’s war and that its own crisis might be next. Mahamat Idriss Déby had allowed Chadian territory to become part of the supply network carrying Emirati weapons to the Rapid Support Forces. In exchange, his government received money, military support and political protection from Abu Dhabi.
The arrangement always contained a contradiction. Déby and much of Chad’s military establishment are Zaghawa, while the RSF has repeatedly attacked Zaghawa communities across the border in Darfur. As is so often the case in Africa, colonial powers drew borders through existing communities, not around them. Zaghawa families, political loyalties and military networks extend across both sides of the border. Although they make up less than 5 percent of Chad’s population, they hold more power than any other ethnic group in the country. Déby could have used that power to protect Zaghawa communities in Sudan. Instead, his government actively helped sustain the force slaughtering them. (It does not require invading Sudan: Chad could have offered diplomatic, financial or covert support or simply could’ve refused to join the UAE’s war network.)
In March, the Africa Center for Strategic Studies published a report on this contradiction (download report below). The center is part of the US Department of Defense (or now called Department of war I guess) and funded by Congress, so I would normally treat its work with suspicion. But this report does not read like an attempt to manufacture an opposition movement or prepare the ground for American interference in Chad.
The report says open-source evidence suggests that Déby’s government has facilitated support to the RSF since 2023. It describes Chad’s current position as an “alignment with the RSF network” and identifies Amdjarass as a transit point for military equipment entering RSF territory.
It also explains what Déby received in return. The UAE committed $700 million to Chad between 2023 and 2024, equivalent to roughly 15 percent of the country’s annual budget. According to the report, this gave Abu Dhabi “structural leverage” over N’Djamena’s foreign policy.
The report was published on March 9th. Developments since then have strengthened its central warning.
TL;DR: If you don’t want to read the full report, keep going. I’ll cover the important parts below.
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