By The European Times | Created at 2026-08-29 11:21:44 | Updated at 2026-09-05 14:33:47
1 week ago
The war in Sudan is no longer merely an internal confrontation between rival military formations. It has become a regionalised conflict sustained by foreign interference, competing geopolitical agendas and the re-emergence of Islamist networks associated with the former regime of Omar al-Bashir.
At the centre of this dangerous evolution is the coalition assembled around General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Sudanese Armed Forces. Although the army cannot be reduced to a single ideological movement, it has increasingly relied on Islamist political, military and administrative networks that survived the fall of Bashir in 2019. These forces now see the war as an opportunity to recover the power they lost during Sudan’s democratic uprising.
This development has consequences far beyond Sudan. It threatens neighbouring states, destabilises the Red Sea and creates new displacement routes towards Europe. European governments must therefore recognise that the Sudanese crisis is not simply a humanitarian emergency. It is also a struggle over whether Sudan will return to authoritarian political Islam or eventually move towards credible civilian government.
The Return of Bashir-Era Islamist Networks
Omar al-Bashir came to power through an Islamist-backed coup in 1989. During the following three decades, Islamist networks became deeply embedded in Sudan’s armed forces, intelligence services, bureaucracy and economy. They were weakened after Bashir’s removal, but they were never completely dismantled.
Since the beginning of the present war in April 2023, former officials, ideological cadres and Islamist fighting formations have regained influence within the broader military coalition supporting Al-Burhan. This does not mean that every officer or soldier in the Sudanese army belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood. It does mean, however, that Islamist organisations have obtained renewed political and military leverage through their participation in the conflict.
In March 2026, the United States formally designated the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood—also identified as the Sudanese Islamic Movement—as a terrorist organisation and added it to its sanctions list. The decision underlined the growing international concern surrounding the movement’s mobilisation of fighters and its involvement in Sudan’s war.
Al-Burhan’s dependence on these networks creates a fundamental contradiction. He seeks international recognition as the representative of Sudanese state institutions while forces associated with the former Islamist regime operate inside or alongside his wartime coalition. This risks transforming the army’s territorial gains into a political restoration of the system overthrown by the Sudanese people in 2019.
Europe should not mistake military control for legitimate government, nor should it accept the rehabilitation of Bashir-era structures under the language of sovereignty and state preservation.
Foreign Interference and the Perpetuation of the War
Sudan’s conflict is also sustained by external military, political and logistical assistance. Regional powers view the country through the prism of Red Sea security, agricultural resources, gold, trade corridors and their wider rivalries.
Support reaching the belligerents has increased their ability to continue fighting while reducing incentives to negotiate. The result is an increasingly fragmented country in which civilians remain exposed to air strikes, massacres, ethnic violence, sexual violence, forced recruitment and deprivation.
The Rapid Support Forces and their allied militias have themselves been accused of atrocities, including ethnically targeted violence in Darfur. Condemning Islamist influence within the Al-Burhan coalition must therefore never amount to excusing crimes committed by the opposing camp. Accountability must apply to all perpetrators.
Nevertheless, the political ambitions of the Islamist networks surrounding the army require particular attention. Their objective is not simply military survival. It is the reconstruction of an ideological state apparatus that could once again provide political space, resources and regional connections to radical movements.
The United Nations has repeatedly called for an end to the external assistance fuelling the war. Without effective pressure on foreign sponsors, a monitored cessation of hostilities and a genuinely civilian political process, Sudan risks prolonged division and further radicalisation.
A Displacement Crisis Reaching Europe
Sudan was the world’s largest displacement crisis at the end of 2025. Approximately 12.9 million Sudanese were internally displaced, refugees or asylum-seekers worldwide. Millions fled to Egypt, Chad, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Libya and the Central African Republic, placing immense pressure on countries already facing severe economic and security difficulties.
Neighbouring countries continue to receive the overwhelming majority of displaced Sudanese. But deteriorating living conditions, insufficient international assistance, insecurity and restrictions on legal residence are pushing a growing number of people towards Mediterranean routes.
According to the International Organization for Migration, 12,684 Sudanese migrants and refugees arrived in Europe by sea and land between January and November 2025. This represented a 3.3-fold increase compared with the corresponding period in 2024.
Around 65 per cent arrived in Greece and 31 per cent in Italy, with smaller numbers reaching Spain. Particularly significant was the rapid development of the maritime corridor connecting eastern Libya with Crete, alongside the established Central Mediterranean routes towards Italy.
Although these figures remain modest compared with overall migration into Europe, their sharp increase is an early warning. If the Sudanese conflict continues, if neighbouring host countries receive inadequate support and if Islamist forces consolidate their position within Sudanese institutions, Europe should expect sustained displacement rather than a temporary increase.
Some of those arriving in Greece and Italy subsequently move towards countries such as France, Germany, Belgium and the United Kingdom, although the scale of these secondary movements is difficult to measure precisely.
In France, asylum applications are examined by the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons, OFPRA. In Belgium, the competent body is the Office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons, known as the CGRA/CGVS.
Protection rates for Sudanese applicants are understandably high because of the intensity of the conflict. In 2025, approximately 70 per cent of first-instance decisions concerning Sudanese applicants in EU+ countries resulted in refugee status or subsidiary protection.
Distinguishing Refugees from Extremist Networks
Europe must avoid two equally serious errors. The first would be to deny that extremist organisations can exploit failed states, trafficking routes and poorly coordinated asylum systems. The second would be to treat Sudanese refugees collectively as a security threat.
Most Sudanese asylum-seekers are escaping war, forced recruitment, persecution and the very Islamist structures that are attempting to regain power. Civilians fleeing territories controlled or attacked by Al-Burhan’s coalition should not be confused with the political and armed networks responsible for their displacement.
No credible evidence demonstrates that Sudanese refugees as a group constitute a high-crime or extremist population in Europe. Security screening must therefore be precise, intelligence-led and based on individual conduct—not nationality, religion or demographic profile.
At the same time, European authorities must improve their ability to identify individuals connected to sanctioned organisations, war crimes, extremist recruitment or transnational financing networks. Humanitarian protection and rigorous security oversight are not contradictory. A credible asylum system must be capable of protecting victims while excluding perpetrators.
Inadequate reception, prolonged inactivity, housing shortages and exclusion from employment can also aggravate marginalisation among young displaced people. Effective integration is therefore not simply a social policy. It is part of a serious preventive security strategy.
Europe Must Confront the Crisis at Its Source
Europe cannot address the consequences of Sudan’s collapse solely at its external borders. A sustainable strategy must combine humanitarian responsibility, targeted security measures and political action at the source of the crisis.
European governments should:
• Oppose the political restoration of Bashir-era Islamist networks.
• Enforce targeted sanctions against organisations and individuals supporting extremist mobilisation.
• Strengthen investigations into the financing and recruitment activities of sanctioned Sudanese networks in Europe.
• Increase pressure on states supplying weapons and logistical assistance to the belligerents.
• Support neighbouring countries hosting the vast majority of Sudanese refugees.
• Establish coordinated screening procedures that distinguish victims from individuals implicated in extremist activity or international crimes.
• Support independent Sudanese civil society and a credible transition to civilian government.
The central threat is not the Sudanese refugee seeking protection in Paris, Brussels, Berlin or London. It is the continued collapse of Sudanese state institutions and their possible capture by armed ideological networks with a long history of authoritarian rule and regional destabilisation.
Ignoring that distinction would be both morally wrong and strategically disastrous. Europe must protect those fleeing Sudan while confronting the forces—including the Islamist networks operating around Al-Burhan’s military coalition—that are helping to destroy it.
