Sudan. From Black Pharaohs to Warlord Gold

Welcome to The Deep Dive, a podcast from The Levant Files.

When the world’s headlines turn to Sudan, the story is often reduced to a simple, brutal equation: two generals, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan of the official army and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, or ‘Hemeti’, of the paramilitary RSF, locked in a devastating struggle for power. But this framing, while convenient, misses almost everything that truly matters. The roots of today’s war are not shallow; they run deep through centuries of history, shaped by powerful empires, colonial manipulation, and a uniquely dangerous political economy.

In this episode, we connect the dots from an ancient past, when Sudanese pharaohs ruled Egypt, to the modern catastrophe. We explore how the British colonial strategy of ‘divide and rule’ cemented deep-seated tensions between the country’s center and its vast peripheries. We trace the post-independence cycle of military coups that entrenched the army’s power, and the desperate ‘coup-proofing’ strategy of former dictator Omar al-Bashir, who deliberately created rival security forces to protect his own rule.

Crucially, we uncover the story of how the loss of oil revenue with South Sudan's secession gave birth to a parallel warlord economy. This new system, built on the country's vast gold reserves, transformed Hemeti’s militias from a brutal counter-insurgency force into an independent military and economic empire. The current war is the inevitable collision of these two forces—the old state and the new shadow state—in a fight not just for political control, but for the very resources that sustain them. Join us as we unravel the complex history that made Sudan’s war almost inevitable.

Some academic works used for the needs of this podcast:

Berridge, Willow, Justin Lynch, Raga Makawi, and Alex de Waal. Sudan’s Unfinished Democracy: The Promise and Betrayal of a People’s Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022.

Cockett, Richard. Sudan: The Failure and Division of an African State. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016.

Federal Research Division. Sudan: A Country Study. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 2015.

Holt, P. M., and M. W. Daly. A History of the Sudan: From the Coming of Islam to the Present Day. 6th ed. London: Routledge, 2011.

Johnson, Douglas H. The Root Causes of Sudan’s Civil Wars: Old Wars and New Wars. Expanded 3rd ed. Woodbridge, Suffolk: James Currey, 2016.

Jok, Jok Madut. Sudan: Race, Religion and Violence. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2007.

Photo: Gemini AI