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By Matthew Tostevin
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In one of the world’s deadliest wars, rickshaw drivers and tea sellers may be doing as much for peace on the ground as international envoys.
President Donald Trump said early this month that he’s "working hard" to end the war that broke out in Sudan in 2023 between rival branches of the security forces and which has been described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. But the conflict in the African country is escalating and the U.N. Security Council this week denounced mass killings, sexual violence and drone attacks on civilians and aid workers. By the estimate of one former U.S. envoy, the war has already killed up to 400,000 people.
Yet, away from the so-far fruitless attempts to get the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to stop fighting, tentative peacemaking efforts between polarized communities are happening.
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"Even in a scenario where a ceasefire in Sudan were agreed at the top level, that would not automatically translate into peace on the ground," Nadja Wuensche, Head of Peacebuilding and Governance of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Sudan, told Newsweek.
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"Political agreements can stop violence between armed actors, but they cannot, on their own, repair the deep social disintegration and accumulated grievances that the war has produced."
The local peace-building doesn’t replace international efforts to end the overall conflict, she said, but the goal is to reduce violence in some areas, to make people’s lives easier and to try to build trust between communities that could ultimately help to stabilize the situation whatever happens with a political deal.
"In Sudan, there are long-standing traditions of mediation, reconciliation, and community dialogue that are uniquely adapted to the social fabric and that, historically, have played a real role in containing and resolving local tensions," Wuensche said.
One of the initiatives the UNDP supports is in the capital Khartoum, now controlled by the Sudanese Armed Forces after devastating combat early in the war. Life there is slowly returning—if not to normal.
"We support a local peace-building intervention that focuses on everyday connectors in urban life—such as rickshaw drivers and women selling tea on the streets," Wuensche said. "Rather than positioning them as formal mediators, they were equipped with basic conversational skills and messaging around peaceful coexistence."
One rickshaw driver had told of how he de-escalated a situation between two passengers from different ethnic groups, she said.
Another example of successful local peacemaking was from Zalingei in Darfur, western Sudan. When the war broke out, youths earlier trained in peace-building had mobilized despite the risks of the fighting. That wasn’t to mediate, but to help move civilians to safety, protect key infrastructure such as hospitals and other initiatives that saved lives.
Who Is Fighting in Sudan?
Trump’s adviser for African and Arab Affairs, Massad Boulos, has called on the factions fighting in Sudan to accept an immediate humanitarian truce. The United States also recently sanctioned leaders of the paramilitary RSF for atrocities. But the RSF is still fighting while the head of the armed forces also said they had no choice but to fight until the enemy surrendered or was eliminated, according to Sudanese media.
"The Trump Administration seeks a lasting peace in Sudan and an end to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis," the State Department said in a statement.
Last November, Trump described Sudan as "the most violent place on Earth" as he said he would try to fix it with regional leaders—some of whom covertly back the rival factions. But in this week’s State of the Union speech, he did not mention Sudan alongside other peacemaking efforts: either the eight conflicts he takes credit for ending or the Russia-Ukraine war that he’s trying to bring to a close.
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Neither Sudan’s foreign ministry nor the RSF responded to Newsweek questions submitted via their websites.
Wuensche said it was encouraging that dialogue efforts between the belligerents had not stopped even if there had not been progress to meaningfully alter the situation yet.
"The fact that different international stakeholders, including the United States at various points, have remained engaged signals that Sudan has not fallen off the diplomatic agenda," she said.
"From a peace-building perspective, the key point is to remain cautiously hopeful while grounded in realism. Continued dialogue is necessary, but it will need to translate into inclusive and context-sensitive political arrangements to have a durable impact. Until then, top-level efforts and ground-level peace-building must proceed in parallel."
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