New article: Sudan, Chad and Libya knit together as illicit markets enable conflict economy

On 17 December, ENACT published an article I authored on Sudan’s conflict and illicit economies, with a focus on how cross-border smuggling from Libya and Chad is being impacted. The original article can be found here: https://enactafrica.org/enact-observer/sudan-chad-and-libya-knit-together-as-illicit-markets-enable-conflict-economy

It is reprinted below:

Sudan, Chad and Libya knit together as illicit markets enable conflict economy

Sudan’s civil war continues to rage, with no sign that either the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) or Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) are close to a military victory or open to a ceasefire.

Over 10 million civilians are displaced within Sudan or into neighbouring countries. Its economy is in ruins, with business centres transformed into battlefields. Severe hunger afflicts half the population, with famine emerging in Darfur.

Less discussed, however, is the impact of the conflict on regional illicit markets. The war has had a catalytic effect on these, as civilians and combatants turn to smuggling networks for key goods. Illicit businesses have boomed, especially in the historically marginalised borderlands between Chad, Libya and Sudan.

Although many types of smuggled goods feed the conflict economy, food, fuel and arms stand out as especially important in and around Sudan’s northern and western borders.

Food smuggling into Sudan predates the war, but the conflict has supercharged it. In recent research conducted by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, interviewees flagged a marked increase in the clandestine movement of food (such as rice, pasta, flour, sugar and cooking oil) over the last eight months, as hunger in Sudan has worsened.

Interviewees report that food smuggling in Sudan’s borderlands is highly decentralised, with many relatively small smugglers plying the routes between southern Libya, northern Chad, and northwestern Sudan.

Like food, fuel smuggling on Sudan’s borders is not new. A high-volume trade in contraband petrol and diesel from eastern Libya to Sudan emerged the year before the war, reportedly controlled by the Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF) and RSF. The conflict’s disruption of licit fuel supplies in Sudan has expanded the trade’s value and volume.

The main route remains through eastern Libya. On it, a few LAAF-linked actors smuggle fuel from coastal depots to the southern city of Kufra and across into SAF-controlled areas in Sudan. One research contact estimated that 500 000 barrels of petrol and diesel were smuggled weekly via this route.

Over the past year, another smuggling route has emerged between LAAF-controlled southwestern Libya, northern Chad, and Sudan’s western Darfur region. While initially ad hoc, driven by low-level smugglers, it has reportedly become more tightly organised and controlled by LAAF and RSF officials.

Weapons trafficking is perhaps the most militarily critical of the cross-border illicit markets boosted by the war. Most international reporting focuses on weapons trafficking to Sudan by nations supporting either the RSF or SAF. While this fuels the conflict, it is just one part of the picture.

A more decentralised arms trade has emerged, primarily concentrated around the Chad-Sudan border. This trade primarily draws on weapons and ammunition already in Libya or other regional conflict zones. However, in the tri-border region a recent seizure of four trailers of weapons imported through the Libyan port of Benghazi destined for Chad highlights the risk that international trafficking pathways could be emerging.

The weapons trade across the Chad-Sudan border is bidirectional, with Sudanese traffickers exporting weapons stolen from or abandoned by SAF personnel in Darfur to networks in eastern Chad, which then move them to other regional markets. This points to the evolution of important counter-cyclical markets in goods – mostly weapons, stolen vehicles, plundered consumer goods and hashish – smuggled out of Sudan.

The conflict has also driven an increase in human smuggling along Sudan’s borders. This is dominated by refugees fleeing to neighbouring countries, whose avenues for legal and safe movement out of the country have shrunk over the past 20 months. Human smuggling networks have either expanded existent operations or developed new routes along the Egyptian, Libyan and Chadian borders. The conflict is effectively reinvigorating and partially reshaping the human smuggling ecosystem in Sudan and neighbouring states.

Crucially, these illicit markets are not static and will probably continue evolving and expanding as the conflict continues. Experience from other regional conflicts, notably Libya, has also shown that shifts in illicit markets and war economies can have a lasting impact long after the guns have stopped firing.

For international actors working to end the war, together with understanding and monitoring the conflict’s intersection with illicit markets, is critical.

First, combatants increasingly rely on weapons and fuel trafficked in from abroad to continue the conflict, and smuggled food is critical for starving civilians. Understanding how these flows are evolving can warn international actors about emerging risks and help them tailor responses.

Second, the conflict has led to a growing intersection of illicit and state actors. While the war has caused the breakdown of the Sudanese state, interviewees said smuggling often occurred with the knowledge and protection of RSF- and SAF-affiliated actors in Sudan and officials in neighbouring states.

Officials financially vested in the conflict economy could be disinclined to make peace. Even if peace comes, such connections risk subverting the rule of law, eroding public institutions’ capacities and worsening citizens’ trust in the state. Once illicit and state actors are intertwined, connections can be difficult to reverse.

Third, this could impact the long-term evolution of illicit economies in Sudan. Even a relatively speedy end to the conflict would leave the country weaker, with a wrecked economy and overwhelmed law enforcement. Countering illicit economies probably wouldn’t be prioritised.

Lastly, there are regional consequences to consider. Empowered illicit markets and criminal networks connected to Sudan’s conflict could escalate corruption and weaken governmental capabilities in neighbouring countries. The trafficked arms flowing into the country now could well reverse in the future, fuelling regional instability and violence.

Going forward, most international focus on Sudan will likely be geared towards negotiating a ceasefire and building longer-term peace. However, given the above risks, the conflict economy and its tie-ins with regional markets should be given more attention.

At this point, there is particular value in three interlinked policy areas. First, enhanced efforts to track and analyse the evolution of the conflict economy, with an eye on how this could fuel instability or corruption in Sudan or neighbouring states. Ideally, this should be done in a shareable way and for maximum reach.

Second, policy activity to counter crime on the ground is critical, though it focuses on addressing the worst harms of the war economy, such as abusive human smuggling and unchecked weapons trafficking. Such a nuanced approach could also help mitigate the risk that crackdowns on cross-border smuggling of key commodities – such as food and fuel – unintentionally worsen vulnerable populations’ situations.

Targeted financial and travel sanctions on key members of the criminal ecosystems fuelling Sudan’s war economy could help deter political and business elites in the region from becoming more involved in such illicit economic flows.

For best effect multiple policy tools, possibly under a single, forward-looking strategy, could be used in tandem with prosecutorial approaches, law enforcement capacity building, and diplomatic pressure on regional states and non-state actors facilitating illicit flows. With this, development aid to communities harmed by the war and war economy is critical.

Responding to both ensuring a lasting ceasefire and the emergent illicit economies will be essential for sustained stability in Sudan and the region.

New Report on Sudan and Human Smuggling

I’m delighted to launch my latest report on human smuggling in and through Sudan. It details how the smuggling ecosystem in the country has been impacted by the civil war, and how refugees are increasingly turning to smugglers to navigate the conflict landscape and escape the country.

It can be accessed here.

Arms Trafficking in Syria: A Case of the Biter Getting Bitten

Originally Published by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, Available Here.

The grinding maelstrom that is Syria’s civil war continues to churn. While the grievances behind the conflict are complex and variable, there is one enabling factor that has been vital – access to weaponry. Despite pleas from insurgent groups for more arms, the geographic reach of the conflict and its intensity are indicative of a situation awash in guns. This is a striking shift for a country that historically has had far fewer weapons in civilian hands than its neighbors. Where then does the plethora of weapons in insurgent hands come from, and how have they arrived there?

The most important early source of weaponry for the insurgents were government stockpiles. Government weapons and ammunition have fallen into rebel hands in three ways: purchased from corrupt government officials, via direct assault, in some cases immediately using captured weapons to sustain rolling offensives or brought by defecting soldiers. Since the beginning of the conflict Syria’s military has struggled to staunch a steady stream defectors from joining the insurgents. The presence of these former soldiers bring has both increased the lethality of the insurgency, and helped to shape the types of weapons in demand.

Since the beginning of the conflict the Syrian insurgency has also been supplied weapons smuggled in from neighboring countries. Initially, weapons trafficking groups operated on a small-scale, almost ad-hoc basis and were basically apolitical. Individuals and local smuggling networks procured weapons in Lebanon, Iraq, and Turkey, from commercial and civilian sources. Highlighting the irony of weapons being smuggled back into Syria which, in in previous years its government had smuggled to insurgent groups in neighboring states, a western diplomat noted, “it’s a case of the biter getting bitten.”

The start of the conflict caused a spike in regional weapons prices, with prices for Ak-47s, sniper rifles and handguns in Iraq increasing nearly four-fold. While expensive, regional sources were able to provide a host of weapons, including AK-47s, M-16s, shotguns, sniper rifles, rocket propelled grenade launchers, anti-tank missiles, and Katyusha rockets. Once procured, the weapons were moved across the often unguarded border between Syria and its neighbors by vehicle, donkey, or by foot, before being offered for sale inside the country. As the conflict ground on, and the potential for profits increased, ad-hoc smuggling efforts were taken over by established arms trafficking and professional criminal groups.

A more centrally organized effort to source weapons began in 2012. Representatives of the Free Syrian Army made contact with weapons dealers in Eastern Europe and the Black Sea region, hoping to procure weapons that would then be smuggled across the Turkish-Syrian border. The Syrian rebels also reached out to militia groups in Libya for assistance. The Libyan groups have proven to be a particularly important source of weapons for the Syrian insurgents. Brokers in Libya procure weapons that have either been donated by sympathetic groups, or purchased from the well-stocked black market. Once sufficient quantities have been stockpiles the weapons are shipped by sea or air to Syria’s neighbors. After the Lebanese government seized 60,000 rounds of ammunition being shipped through the northern port of Tripoli, the Libyan groups have mainly transported their weaponry via Turkey, and in a small number of cases Jordan. While the exact amount of weaponry smuggled via this channel is unclear, some smugglers have claimed that over 28 metric tons have been delivered via air alone.

Efforts by Libyan brokers to supply the rebels have coincided with, and perhaps been tied to, efforts by Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan to arm the rebels. Active support for the insurgency emerged in early 2012, spearheaded by Qatar and Saudi Arabia. At present, the weapons are primarily sourced from Eastern Europe, Croatia, Libya, and Sudan, with the Qataris and the Saudis purchasing and transporting the weapons to Turkey and Jordan. A rough division labor has emerged, with Qatar primarily supplying groups in the north of the country, while Saudi Arabia provisions those groups in the south. The official pipeline both a magnitude of order larger than unofficial efforts – delivering an estimated 3,500 tons of weaponry – it is also providing increasingly sophisticated weaponry. In at least two recent cases, Qatar is believed to have provided rebels with portable anti-aircraft systems. While the United States is not believed to have provided large amounts of weaponry, it has played a role in developing the arms pipeline and in vetting the Syrian groups that receive the weapons.

The weapons channels supplying Syria’s insurgents comprise a complex, overlapping web of state, non-state and criminal actors.  As the war grinds on these smuggling webs will become increasingly entrenched, and highly vulnerable to exploitation by organized crime groups. One needs look no further than the Balkans – where officially sanctioned smuggling routes were appropriated by crime groups as soon as the conflicts ended – for a vision of the organized crime challenge the Middle East may face in the coming decade.