Sudan and the Challenges of Existence (1) 15M Who Are Changing the Face of Sudan: From Pastoralism to War

Salma Hamad
Introduction
In this series of articles, we set out to lift the veil on unsettling facts that document an existential struggle between Sudan’s deeply rooted national identity and systematic settlement projects. What Sudan is witnessing today is not a conventional war, but rather one of the most dangerous processes of demographic engineering in modern history—carried out with the complicity of international and regional powers, aimed at dismantling the state and displacing its people.
This war did not begin with gunfire. It began with the closure of pastoral routes, before evolving into a comprehensive conflict whose objective is not merely the collapse of state institutions, but the dismantling of the Sudanese person himself—and his replacement by others.
From Pastoralism to Settlement: How Sudan’s Population Was Re-engineered
Fifteen million settlers now sit heavily upon Sudanese land.
They are neither guests nor refugees, but an advancing settlement force, presenting itself as a “new master and de facto ruler”.
According to United Nations Population data, Sudan’s unified population prior to the secession of the South stood at approximately 36 million. The population of South Sudan at the time of secession in 2011 was estimated at around 10 million, meaning that Sudan’s population after secession dropped to roughly 26 million.
Assuming a constant natural population growth rate of 2.4%, and disregarding the impacts of war, killing, and displacement, Sudan’s population in 2025 should not exceed approximately 36 million under normal growth conditions.
However, the shocking reality presents an entirely different picture. International statistics issued by the United Nations and the World Bank estimate Sudan’s population in 2025 at around 52 million—an increase exceeding natural growth by approximately 15 million between 2011 and 2025. This increase alone equals the population of entire countries.
If we examine UN statistics for the years 2023, 2024, and 2025, we find that more than four million Sudanese were recorded as displaced to neighbouring countries (Egypt, Chad, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Libya, and Uganda), in addition to further waves of asylum towards the Gulf and Europe. Yet this massive human outflow did not negatively affect population growth records, which paradoxically increased by nearly two million during the same period.
If Sudan is losing millions of its people through killing and displacement, yet the population present on the ground continues to rise, then this increase can only be explained through the framework of replacement theory—systematic and continuous demographic substitution.
Yes, there is population growth, but it is a malignant growth, inversely proportional to the number of the land’s original inhabitants. A migrant population mass initially expanded into natural demographic space, and has more recently begun expanding into a manufactured vacuum created by organised killing and forced displacement.
Here, we must ask: who are these people, where did they come from, and why?
What we observe in United Nations statistics is neither a technical error nor a flaw in census methodology. What we see—reinforced by realities on the ground—is a demographic transformation with clear geopolitical dimensions, aimed at altering power balances and dismantling national identity. It is a project made possible by the convergence of internal and external factors, involving an opportunistic tribal militia, a complicit political alliance, and predatory regional and international powers.
Since independence, Sudan has suffered chronic security, political, and economic crises, despite its vast territory and strategic location as the southern gateway to the Middle East and the northern gateway to Central and East Africa, extending to the fringes of West Africa. It also possesses a long Red Sea coastline, along one of the world’s most important international oil and trade routes. Moreover, Sudan possesses significant mineral wealth, fertile agricultural lands, and abundant water resources, making it a pillar of global food security.
Yet despite this, Sudan is relatively sparsely populated in relation to its size, and features deep tribal interconnections with neighbouring countries—both direct and indirect—making it a land of migration, a target for opportunists, and a theatre for regional and international adventurism.
The migration of Afro-Arab tribes into Sudan began as a seasonal pastoral movement. However, due to drought and famine in the 1980s, followed by political and military instability in neighbouring states, this movement transformed into an unregulated and limited settlement at the time—laying the first foundations of subsequent demographic change.
ECOWAS
ECOWAS is a West African organisation comprising fifteen states. Although established under an economic banner, it has in practice been dedicated to consolidating French influence (Françafrique) and protecting Paris’s interests in the region. ECOWAS did not explicitly order tribes to migrate eastward, but since 1979, it has contributed to redirecting pastoral movement by endorsing the right of free movement within its zone. This had a profound impact on Sudan, despite the country not being a member, because the removal of internal barriers allowed massive pastoral–human accumulation in fragile border regions.
As a result, Arab Baggara and Abbala tribes—or Shuwa Arabs as they are known in Nigeria and Cameroon—ceased to be merely pastoral groups and instead became a “transboundary nation” stretching from the Adamawa Highlands in Nigeria and Cameroon, through central and southern Chad (where they are known as Chadian Arabs), and into Darfur and Kordofan.
These eastward migrations intensified from the 1980s onward, but became a forced trajectory after 2010, when ECOWAS—under French impetus—adopted restrictive security and surveillance policies on western routes, against the backdrop of extremist expansion and threats to French interests and investments.
French-origin ECOWAS policies did not seek to settle these tribes, invest in their education, or support their development. Instead, they kept them marginalised, failed to address the proliferation of weapons among them, and sought to offload them elsewhere. Between 2013 and 2022, ECOWAS security policies contributed to dismantling pastoral systems across the Sahel, pushing these pastoral tribes towards Sudan.
In the book International Mobility of Pastoralists in the African Sahel (Oxford University Press, 2021), researchers in arid-zone studies explain:
“The weakness of the national state at the margins of the Sahel region transforms pastoral mobility from a strategy of environmental adaptation into a mechanism for transferring crises from one state to another.”
To be continued…

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