At a press conference in Brussels in front of the European Parliament, organized by a coalition of international and European organizations alongside human rights and women’s rights advocates, speakers called on world leaders to take urgent action to stop the war in Sudan and implement a sustainable peace plan.
The event, “Act on Sudan Now,” shed light on the country’s deepening humanitarian crisis, one of the largest of our time, and condemned the Sudanese Armed Forces for using chemical weapons against civilians. Participants also denounced foreign support for the Islamist army, particularly by Egypt, warning that such complicity fuels atrocities and undermines peace efforts. The conference marked a pivotal moment, signaling Europe’s growing impatience with silence and inaction in the face of Sudan’s suffering.
As Sudan’s brutal civil war drags into its third year, one truth becomes increasingly difficult to ignore: The conflict is not only a national tragedy but a regional failure, fueled by Egypt’s quiet yet consequential hand and enabled by the West’s silence. Behind closed doors, Cairo has become a key supporter of Sudan’s army, a force rooted in Islamist ideology and responsible for countless atrocities, while Western governments turn a blind eye, prioritizing strategic convenience over human life.
From the earliest days of the war between Sudan’s Armed Forces, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, Egypt has played the role of silent patron. Intelligence from multiple international observers, including Reuters, the Carnegie Middle East Center and independent satellite data analysts, indicates that Cairo has supplied logistical aid, ammunition and even limited air support from bases near Wadi Halfa. Satellite images from late 2024 revealed Egyptian military convoys moving toward northern Sudan as air raids on civilian neighborhoods intensified. Egyptian officials deny these claims; however, the evidence—from cargo manifests to eyewitness accounts—paints a consistent picture of a neighbor propping up one side of a devastating war.
Egypt’s motives are neither secret nor altruistic. For decades, Sudan has served as Egypt’s southern buffer—a strategic shield guarding the flow of the Nile River and Red Sea trade routes. Cairo views the Sudanese army as a controllable partner—one that shares its Islamic background and military structure. Egyptian President Fattah Abdel el-Sisi, himself a general who rose to power via the army, sees Burhan as a stabilizing ally who can maintain Egypt’s influence over the Nile, as well as curb the ambitions of regionals.
In this calculus, Sudan’s civilians are collateral damage.
Yet Egypt’s support goes far beyond politics. Reports from aid workers along the Aswan–Dongola corridor between the two countries show how Egypt’s authorities have used humanitarian routes as tools of leverage. Convoys carrying food and medicine to RSF-controlled areas are frequently delayed, rerouted or blocked outright under vague “security” justifications. Diplomats familiar with U.N. operations describe a pattern of selective obstruction, with supplies to government-held zones cleared swiftly while others languish at the border for weeks. This quiet manipulation of humanitarian aid has turned survival into a bargaining chip, worsening starvation in western Sudan, where millions of people are already trapped.
Even Egypt’s treatment of those fleeing the war has deepened the suffering. Refugees escaping bombardments describe humiliating experiences at border crossings: extortion, detentions and denial of entry. Families have been stranded for weeks in the desert, dying of heat and thirst within sight of safety. Human-rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which have been so critical of Israel’s every move, have documented repeated violations; yet Cairo remains immune to serious international pressure.
The tragedy is compounded by the West’s indifference. The United States and the European Union—fully aware of Egypt’s involvement—have avoided confrontation. Billions in military aid continue to flow to Cairo under the pretext of maintaining regional stability. Western diplomats privately acknowledged that Egypt’s cooperation on migration control and counterterrorism outweighs their willingness to demand accountability. It is the same moral trade-off that has defined decades of Western policy in the Middle East: stability before justice, silence before truth.
This hypocrisy has dire consequences. Every shipment of Egyptian weapons that crosses the border strengthens the Islamist army and extends Sudan’s agony. Every Western handshake with Cairo signals that some wars matter less, some victims are countless, and some crimes can be quietly ignored if committed by an ally. The humanitarian crisis in Sudan, where more than 15 million people face famine and thousands have died in chemical and conventional attacks, cannot be separated from this chain of complicity.
For Egypt, the war offers a strategic advantage and plausible deniability. For the West, it offers the comfort of not choosing sides. But neutrality in the face of injustice is not neutrality at all; it is participation. The refugees on the border, the bombed families in Omdurman, the starving children in Darfur, they all bear the price of decisions made far from their homeland, in Cairo, Washington and Brussels.
History will remember Sudan not only for the horrors inflicted by its warring factions but for the silence that allowed them to continue. Egypt’s hidden role, disguised as diplomacy, has prolonged a war it claims to want ended. And the West’s silence, masked as pragmatism, has turned complicity into policy. If the world truly seeks peace in Sudan, it must start by naming the enablers and breaking the silence that sustains them. Until then, the war will rage on, fed by weapons from the north and justified by indifference from the West.
