Description: The president of Chad, Mahamat Deby, ordered approximately 15 thousand soldiers to secure the Sudan – Chad border after a drone strike killed 17 people in the cross – border town of Al Tine. The town is considered to be under the control of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) although much of the Darfur region, where the town is located, is currently controlled by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The civil war in Sudan has entered its third year as the conflict threatens to cause expanding destabilization across central Africa with the threat of civil war is also raging in neighboring South Sudan where more than 70 people were killed by government forces in the mining area of Jabel Iraq. Chad has been previously accused of colluding with the Libyan National Army under General Khalifa Haftar in providing the RSF with logistical support, munitions and other operational assistance.
Impact: The expansion of the Sudanese civil war across the Chadian border signifies a prolonged security, humanitarian and refugee crisis. South Sudan’s destabilization and attacks such as the one on the Jebel Iraq mining area would likely escalate the stoking of tensions between the government forces and militias pertaining to the SPLM – IO which could create another front for the expansion of the civil war. The governments of Chad and South Sudan have both been accused of supporting the RSF, which could exploit the focus of regional powers such as Egypt and Turkey on the war in Iran to mobilize and consolidate a larger cross – border opposition force in the upcoming months. The ongoing war in the Middle East and the economic reverberations caused by it limit the potential for the international community to invest any diplomatic capital in Sudan’s civil war which signals indefinite continuation of the conflict.