Previously, we reported on two conflicts that exploded into reality in less than a month. Today, we will give a brief update on both conflicts.

SUDAN

As the civil war in Sudan enters its sixth week, the fighting is expanding beyond the capitol city of Khartoum, spilling into war-ravaged Darfur, scene of a decade-long, genocidal ethnic cleansing carried out by the factions now fighting each other.

Although both sides have agreed to a week-long ceasefire, set to begin in about 36 hours as we go to press, there is little movement in meaningful talks between the two sides, the nominal “government forces” of army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary “Rapid Support Forces (RSF)” led by strongman Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo.

In the swirling morass that is the politics of the region, one of the looming crises – and possible causes – impacting the fighting is the question of Ethiopia’s massively over-sized hydroelectric dam, that the country is constructing to corral the Blue Nile River, with potentially disastrous ecological ramifications, as well as impacting the availability of water and agriculture downstream, which would impact both the forty-nine million people of Sudan, as well as the more than one-hundred million people of Egypt.

PAKISTAN

Following the shocking arrest of ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan on May 9 2023, and his subsequent release at the order of the nation’s highest court, tensions in the unstable and economically troubled Indian Ocean Region state remain high. Military commanders are still feuding, now over an announcement that those arrested – many arbitrarily – after attacks on military and police offices following Khan’s arrest are to be tried under military law, a fact far more worrying than a simple clash over personal issues, because it remains unclear who is actually in control of the country’s nuclear weapons arsenal.

It remains unclear which direction the current course of events may take, and that is a very worrying situation, especially in concert with events throughout the wider world.

Michael Cessna

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