Category World News

Nearly 80 students who participated in protests against Israel’s occupation of Gaza were expelled, given one-to-three-year suspensions, and were denied degrees at Columbia University.

The university’s annual alumni weekend, which includes the May 7, 2025, Butler Library demonstration on its campus, and the May 31, 2024, “Revolt for Rafah” encampment, have been adjourned from the Judicial Board’s findings on Tuesday.

Pro-Palestinian student camps at Columbia University became the scene of a global wave of campus demonstrations against Israel’s occupation of Gaza in 2024. Before university administrators called NYPD officers to dismantle the camps, which drew dozens of arrests.

In a post on X, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), an umbrella coalition of student groups, wrote, “Suspension from Columbia for protesting genocide is the highest honour.”

The student body remarked, “We reject Columbia has any reputation that it is deserving of protecting, and we categorically state that we do not want to uphold it.”

Why, then, did Columbia fire these students? And why has the Trump administration repressed higher education?

What has occurred?

Nearly 80 students have been disciplined by Columbia University for participating in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, “separating them from the University.”

Following a number of demonstrations on campus, including the Butler Library’s occupation by students during the school’s final exams on May 7 earlier this year, the disciplinary action follows.

That day, 78 people were detained by the NYPD. In response to the protests, the university is asking to cut all financial ties with Israel, cut all financial relationships with Israel, and show solidarity with Palestinians as the Israeli military fights on.

The suspended students took part in a “peaceful teach-in” that included readings and discussions of the Palestinian author and activist Basil al-Araj, who was killed by Israeli forces in 2017 according to student organizers.

Civil liberties organizations and fellow students have voiced opposition to the massive disciplinary action, which has been hailed as the largest of its kind in Columbia’s history.

According to organizers, the crackdown is a part of a larger effort to stop pro-Palestinian activism on US campuses, and it is related to a pending agreement between Columbia and Trump administration officials.

The majority of students were suspended for two years, according to Columbia Spectator, the university’s student newspaper. According to reports, the students have been asked to apologize to the university before returning to campus.

The Trump administration announced earlier this year that it would withhold about $400 million from funding Columbia University, citing the school’s alleged failure to adequately address anti-Semitism in the wake of campus pro-Palestinian protests.

In exchange for negotiations to reinstate its funding, Columbia agreed to a list of demands made by the government. The university also consented to enforcing a ban on face-protected clothing and gave 36 campus police officers unique authority to arrest students, among other things.

What has Columbia said?

The University claimed in a statement released on Tuesday that hundreds of students had been impacted by the disruption at Butler Library during the reading period, which ultimately resulted in the interim suspension of Columbia participants.

According to the university, sanctions would include probation, one-year to three-year suspensions, degree revocations, and expulsions.

In order to protect student privacy, it did not disclose the names of the students who faced each of these sanctions or how many were facing them.

Our institution must concentrate on fulfilling its academic mission for the community. Respect for one another and the institution’s fundamental work, policies, and rules must also be maintained, according to the statement. “Discretion of University policies and regulations results in consequences for academic activities that result in disruptions.”

What has the response been?

Just over a month after the 30-year-old, a legal permanent resident of the United States, was released from immigration custody&nbsp, in Louisiana, President Donald Trump met with lawmakers in Washington, DC, to discuss the suspensions and expulsions.

Under the Trump administration, Khalil is still facing deportation because it has relied on a secret provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 to deport foreign students who engage in pro-Palestinian advocacy.

The student activist group Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), an umbrella coalition of student organizations, criticized Columbia for its Tuesday suspensions and expulsions, noting that “While the US and Israel starve 2.1 million Gazans to death, Columbia has diligently worked with Trump’s administration to suspend dozens of students for pro-Palestine activism.”

The group claimed that the suspensions “hugely exceed sentencing precedent for teach-ins or non-Palestine-related building occupations” and that they were the highest suspensions ever for a single political protest in Columbia’s history.

Despite the school’s sanctions, the student body stated in its statement that “students continue to support the US- and Columbia-backed genocide against Israel.”

The group continued, “Every university in Gaza has been destroyed,” quoting testimony from students’ July disciplinary hearings. Academicians have been murdered in the hundreds. Incinerated books and archives The civil registry has been made indefinite for entire families. Not a war, this. It is an “erasure campaign”

“We won’t be deterred,” he declared. According to the statement, “We are committed to the struggle for Palestinian liberation.”

Why has Trump repressed the university sector?

Comparisons have been made between the anti-Vietnam War era, when student activism directly challenged US foreign policy, and the anti-war protests against Israel’s occupation of Gaza that took place last year across US university campuses from Columbia to UCLA to Harvard.

Trump capitalizes on this by portraying students as part of a left-wing, anti-Semitic uprising and imposing sanctions on universities, particularly “elite” ones.

According to the administration, universities have failed to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence during demonstrations, citing incidents of anti-Semitic chants and campfires.

The administration has been conducting investigations by the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Education against more than 50 universities, including Columbia, since the beginning of 2025.

As evidenced by demands placed on Harvard and Columbia, executive orders and actions have been implemented, including freezing billions in federal research grants and threatening to revoke tax-exempt status or accreditation.

The Harvard program’s refusal to have its programs audited for “ideological capture” resulted in the freezing of billions of dollars in federal funding. The administration threatened to outlaw international students from Harvard, citing “national security” and “high campus crime rates, which underscore the White House’s grip on universities.

Harvard has sued the administration to get a temporary ban on international students from entering the country.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the president of Brazil, praised the two nations’ “invincible” relationship when he visited China earlier this year for his third meeting with Xi Jinping since taking office in 2023.

According to experts, the proximity will likely increase even more now with President Trump’s announcement to impose a 50% tariff on Brazilian imports for obvious political reasons.

According to Tulio Cariello, director of content and research at the Brazil-China Business Council (CEBC), “the relationship between Brazil and China is much more positive and promising than the one with the United States today.”

Brazil was shocked by Trump’s pledge to impose a 50-percent tariff on Brazil, which is scheduled to go into effect on August 1. This is especially true given that, as Trump had previously stated on April 2, Brazilian imports will be subject to 10 percent of the “Liberation Day” tariffs.

In addition, that was significantly lower than the percentages other Brazilian competitors in the United States had, which indicates that there is still room for growth for businesses in South America’s most populated nation.

Thus, the sudden decision to impose a 50-percent tariff was a rude shock, especially for industries like car parts, coffee, and orange juice, which are major US exporters.

Following the BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, where leaders of developing nations expressed “serious concerns” about the increase in tariffs, which it claimed were “incompatible with WTO]WTO] rules, the 50-percent tariff was introduced.

Trump directly connected the tariff to former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s current predicament, which he called a “witch hunt,” in a letter defending the measure. Bolsonaro, who is frequently referred to as the “Trump of the tropics,” is facing legal action for allegedly trying to sway a coup to hold onto his position of power despite his 2022 defeat to Lula.

Trump also falsely claimed a Brazil trade deficit. Brazil has a $ 7.4 billion deficit with the US and a $ 31 billion surplus with China.

The tariffs’ political nature marked a sharp departure from Trump’s usual rationale, which caused widespread condemnation from China and Brazil’s political spectrum.

A spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in the aftermath that “tariffs should not be used as a tool of coercion, intimidation, or interference.”

Trump risks tarnishing the US’s reputation as a trustworthy trade partner by using tariffs as political leverage rather than economic reasons, according to experts, making China appear more predictable and stable in comparison.

According to Mauricio Weiss, an economics professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, “China has shown no indication of backtracking on decisions or making abrupt changes.”

boosting Chinese ties

The Asian nation surpassed Brazil in 2009, according to &nbsp, and trade and investment ties between the two nations have only grown stronger since.

On Monday, Brazil’s Ministry of Finance announced plans to set up a tax advisory office in Beijing, a start of a positive trend. Brazil has only four other countries with such offices, three in South America and one in the US.

The Brazilian government’s ministry said in a statement to Al Jazeera that the motivation is not politically motivated, but rather that it is because of the need to strengthen cooperation in fiscal and customs matters.

China has sought to increase domestic production by gaining access to both natural resources and raw materials, including oil, iron ore, copper, lithium, and agricultural products.

However, China has, according to CEBC, invested more than $ 73 billion in Brazil since 2007. Energy, infrastructure, agribusiness, and technology are some of the key sectors where the majority of those funds are going.

Weiss remarked that while the United States invests more heavily in Brazil, China’s investments are more focused and coordinated across all levels.

Brazilians are also consuming more and more Chinese goods. Seven out of ten electric vehicles sold in Brazil were produced by Chinese manufacturer BYD, which is now a common sight.

BYD’s purchase of a massive factory in Brazil’s northeastern state of Bahia was especially symbolic of China’s growing presence, which was to the detriment of the US.

Additionally, the two nations have agreed to look into how transportation can be integrated. A bi-oceanic rail corridor connecting Brazil and Chancay, a port built by China, is planned.

China’s regional influence was clearly demonstrated by Xi’s inauguration of the megaport in November, where total investment is anticipated to be worth $3.5 billion over the next ten years.

In response to concerns about Trump’s intentions for the region, other Latin American countries like Peru, Colombia, and Chile have also indicated their intention to rekindle relations with China. He has previously pledged to “take back” the Panama Canal, including through force.

Some claim that Brazil’s strengthening of relations with China does not imply that the South American nation will begin exporting goods to China because the two nations purchase goods from Brazilian companies in very different ways.

Brazil won’t export its goods to China because of this. That isn’t very logical, according to Livio Ribeiro, a researcher at the Getulio Vargas Foundation’s Brazilian Institute of Economics.

Weiss believes that Chinese investments could still be crucial in enabling Brazil to expand its industrial potential and diversify its economy.

Weiss argued that the ability to produce more of these products both domestically and internationally will already present a significant growth opportunity.

Lula said that because “China needs Brazil and Brazil needs China,” both countries will be “indispensable partners.”

Fire officials and scientists claim that wildfire activity is on the rise as the country approaches its hottest months of the year.

Experts claim that the most intense fires typically occur in the US from late spring through the first few months of the fall because the vegetation is dry and the temperatures are high.

California has come to represent both the intensity and scope of those wildfires. More fires were reported in the western state in 2024 than in any other region of the state.

The Eaton and Palisades fires in the Los Angeles area alone contributed nearly $40 billion in insured losses, according to Gallagher Re, the insurance company Gallagher Re just last week. In those fires, 30 people were reportedly killed.

California is the subject of a national debate over how to deal with wildfires and what appropriate state and federal roles should exist in response to that toll.

US Senator Alex Padilla demanded more funding for fire preparedness earlier this month on the six-month anniversary of the deadly infernos, as President Donald Trump had suggested.

The upcoming peak fire season is upon us. California has a year-round fire season, but it’s just beginning’s peak fire season, Padilla said.

He noted that the relatively mild January fires in Los Angeles were caused by winter rather than the scorching, dry summer months.

Even under less than ideal circumstances, experts claim that that indicates the potential size of California’s wildfires.

Potential for a “quite severe” season

California’s wildfires have been moderate so far this year, according to scientists, but they are expected to increase as the summer gets warmer, especially in the state’s drought-stricken regions, where they have been.

In a recent phone call, Max Moritz, a wildfire specialist at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), stated, “We’ve had a number of small-to-medium-sized fires, but nothing too startling so far.”

“But that’s kind of where we’d like to be right now,” he said. And as we approach the drier months, some things have been revealed that indicate what might turn out to be a fairly severe fire season.

Scientists frequently point out that wildfire seasons can be influenced by a variety of variables and are challenging to predict.

Wildfire-related events, such as those caused by high winds, extreme heat, or lightning strikes, are also eerie. A downed power line or a campfire’s failure to properly extinguish a campfire are just two examples of human error or negligence that can cause a fire to burn the landscape.

A fire that has been quickly snuffed out can become more large and intense once it begins, depending on factors like wind strength and firefighter access.

According to Scott Stephens, a professor of fire science and forest policy at the University of California, Berkeley, “it’s really difficult to come up with a single explanation for why some seasons are so much more intense than others.”

For instance, California’s fire seasons of 2020 and 2021 saw the largest number of fires ever to spread across vast areas of land.

By comparison, the following years were comparatively tame, despite scientists’ claims that fire seasons with higher-than-average activity levels were caused by factors like climate change.

However, there are some indicators that scientists and fire officials use as indicators, such as the presence of drought and the moisture content of soil and plant life. A fire can be started by many catalysts, but thick, dry vegetation is largely the fuel for its spread and unstoppable nature.

According to Stephens, southern California’s chaparral landscape, which is characterized by low-lying shrubs like sage, is particularly susceptible to fire and has experienced a “very dry” year.

According to the US Drought Monitor, about 23 percent of California is currently experiencing severe to exceptional drought, with the majority of those areas being located in southern California.

According to the state agency Cal Fire, the Madre Fire, the state’s largest fire of the year so far, which raged in central California’s San Luis Obispo County, totaling about 80, 000 acres (32, 400 hectares).

The term used by fire officials to describe the portion of a fire that is more than 95 percent contained refers to the area of the fire that is effectively protected by protective lines.

shifting emergency management policies

The Trump administration’s proposed changes to politics also loom over the fire season this year, which raises questions about concerns about weather forecasting and emergency services.

According to scientists, these services are crucial for understanding how each fire season develops.

Fire weather is undoubtedly an example of how heavily we rely on modelled forecasts for various weather events, according to Moritz. We all run the risk of worse outcomes if these services are negatively impacted.

Trump has spearheaded efforts to lower the federal government since taking office for a second term, including by reducing its reliance on scientific research and emergency services.

For instance, the National Weather Service (NWS) lost nearly 600 workers as a result of the Trump-led employee reduction earlier this year. Since then, the president has been criticized for a string of floods that nearly 135 people have died in Texas. Democratic lawmakers have attributed staffing cuts to a lack of staffing that would allow for forecasting and emergency response efforts.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which regulates the federal response to disaster recovery, has also been under administration scrutiny.

Trump had suggested shifting FEMA’s responsibilities to local and state governments. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem reportedly put in place a policy in June that required her to personally approve any FEMA expenses over $100,000.

That has caused a decline in services, according to critics. CNN reported just last Monday that Ken Pagurek, the head of FEMA’s urban search and rescue operations, resigned over bureaucratic issues.

Trump has threatened to withhold disaster aid from states like California if his immigration and other policy priorities don’t align with his own. Democrats are to blame for the wildfires in Los Angeles, according to him and his allies.

“One of our country’s worst catastrophes has already been experienced.” Simply put, they are unable to extinguish the fires. What’s wrong with them, exactly? Trump published a letter in January.

preventing wildfires that are out of control

California has attempted to put its own measures into action to combat the difficulties brought on by longer, more intense fire seasons, though.

In addition to these strategies, there is a greater emphasis on fuel-saving initiatives, such as prescribed burns, which intentionally introduce fire into a landscape under controlled circumstances to help thin out the vegetation.

We have undoubtedly encouraged prescribed burns. We’re actually doing more of them than we once did, according to Cal Fire’s Jesse Torres, a spokesperson.

He claims that these efforts typically occur in the late spring, after periods of rain when wetter weather lessen the risk of a prescribed burn spreading out of control.

However, according to fire scientists, those efforts have not yet reached the scale necessary to seriously affect the state’s fire activity.

Cal Fire claims to have covered only 156, 000 acres (63, 100 hectares) of land in the current fiscal year, but it anticipates that figure will increase, despite its annual goal of treating 500, 000 acres (202, 300 hectares) of land with fuel reduction efforts.

After 28 nations called for the end of the Gaza war, protesters have been demanding more than just words. Many of those same nations, Soraya Lennie points out, continue to send weapons and operate normally with Israel.

Warning: This story contains references to suicide

In a damp, crowded basement at the southern entrance of the Dariala Gorge, the mountainous no-man’s-land between Georgia and Russia, more than 90 Ukrainian deportees from Russia are being held.

The deportees at the Georgian border checkpoint can only step outside when they need the toilet, and they must go in pairs under the watchful eyes of Georgian border guards.

They are here because they can’t cross the border directly from Russia to Ukraine due to the war, and Georgia refuses to let them in because many have criminal backgrounds, so they are stranded. Some have now been living in the basement for nearly two months.

Most of these men – along with a handful of women – are former prisoners in Russia who have been deported after serving their sentences, but some have been expelled for other reasons, such as problems with their immigration documents.

On Sunday night, July 20, they mounted a protest.

“We’re not allowed outside!” one of the men shouted as they were surrounded by security personnel on the premises.

“We’re being tortured here,” called another.

“It’s damp, there’s [disabled people] here without medical attention, there’s nothing here at all,” he added.

A video sent by the deportees to Al Jazeera shows one man very seriously harming himself during the Sunday night protest.

“He’s been here more than a month,” 45-year-old Nikolai Lopata, one of the other detainees, told Al Jazeera by phone.

“He was promised twice [that] he would be taken away. He bought [travel] tickets twice, and both times no one returned the money,” Lopata said, noting that the man, who suffers from anxiety, has repeatedly been denied permission to travel through Georgia to Ukraine.

An ambulance arrived after more than an hour, and paramedics bandaged his wounds, then left without him. The man, who appeared in the video to be in his late 30s or early 40s, was not hospitalised and remains at the checkpoint, volunteers at the scene who are in contact with Al Jazeera said.

‘They won’t let us in or out’

The detainees, who have arrived from Russia or territories occupied by Russia and have been released from prison in recent months, are now stuck in limbo in this buffer zone, Lopata explained. In total, approximately 800 deportees are thought to be stuck in Russia or at Russian-Georgian border points, experts say.

“They [Georgian border officials] took our documents. They won’t let us in or out of Georgia. They keep telling us ‘tomorrow, tomorrow’. Some people have been here for more than a month and a half in terrible, unbearable conditions,” Lopata said.

Originally from Dnipro in central Ukraine, Lopata said he had been living in Russia, where he has a Russian wife, two children and a sister, since 2005. But in 2010, he was convicted of murder. When he completed his sentence in 2024, he was sent to a deportation centre for another year. By then, the full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine was raging, so getting a one-way flight to Kyiv was impossible.

“Last summer, they [the Russian authorities] promised to send me to Georgia. Then, in winter, they promised to send me to Ukraine through Belarus. Then, we were taken to the border of Georgia, which supposedly accepts us, but Georgia is not accepting,” Lopata said.

Instead, when he reached the border on July 4, Lopata said, he was photographed, fingerprinted and had his documents confiscated by Georgian border officials before being taken to a cellar.

“We don’t do anything. We sit in the basement,” Lopata continued, explaining that the men sleep in shifts because there are only 40 beds.

The men are provided with very little and lack reliable medical assistance, instead having to rely on emergency care.

“An ambulance comes almost every day, sometimes twice a day, because there are disabled people, there are sick people,” Lopata said, adding that there is someone with epilepsy, a person with HIV, and another with tuberculosis. “But they don’t offer anything besides immediate help. Yesterday, for example, they made an injection of painkiller, then said, ‘That’s it, we can’t help with anything else.’”

Activists and volunteers try to bring essentials to the detainees each week.

Food, household items and personal hygiene products are delivered by Volunteers Tbilisi, an organisation helping Ukrainian refugees in Georgia.

“There is no access to fresh air, there is a lot of heat and the cellars are closed,” organiser Maria Belkina told Al Jazeera.

“These are not conditions you can live in at all.”

Route through Moldova cancelled

Anna Skripka, a lawyer for the NGO, Protection of Prisoners of Ukraine, told Al Jazeera that this problem has been mounting for the past two years of the war in Ukraine: “This humanitarian disaster started in 2023.”

Skripka said some people have become so desperate they have tried to kill themselves. “They didn’t understand what was going on,” she said.

“The conditions there are terrible.”

According to Skripka, there are 84 men and seven women currently being detained, and while the women are held in a separate room, their conditions are also poor.

“The women complain to me that they’re not being taken to the toilet,” Skripka said.

“They asked us to buy them a bucket with a lid to go to the toilet.”

Previously, deportees at this border crossing were transferred by bus to Tbilisi Airport to fly to Moldova and then on to Ukraine. That’s how Ukrainian activist Andriy Kolomiyets, considered a political prisoner by the Russian human rights group Memorial, returned home earlier this month after serving 10 years on drug and attempted murder charges.

Skripka explained that 43 detainees managed to leave between early June and July, landing in Moldova and then getting a bus to Ukraine. But four of them got off the bus and stayed in Moldova, prompting the landlocked Eastern European country to halt cooperation.

“They’re already back in Ukraine,” Skripka said about the missing four, which Al Jazeera could not confirm, “but Moldova said, ‘Stop, we do not want to risk it.’”

As a result, since mid-July, Moldova has refused passage for Ukrainian deportees from Russia.

While Georgia was cooperative at first, it has also begun refusing to allow deportees through on the basis that many are ex-convicts who have served prison time in Russia, seriously limiting the options for Ukrainians trying to return.

“Most of these individuals have a serious criminal past and have been convicted numerous times for grave or particularly grave crimes,” the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

But Skripka said that it is unfair to smear them all as hardened criminals. Some were expelled from Russia for lacking proper paperwork. Others have had their Russian citizenship revoked.

Their treatment, Skripka argues, goes beyond bureaucratic injustice; it raises serious legal and moral questions.

“They were beaten, pushed from another country by the barrel of a machinegun … they are victims of war crimes,” Skripka said.

Further complicating things, many of the deportees lack the proper documentation.

Ukraine has been issuing “white passports” – emergency documents to allow citizens to travel home – but these only last for 30 days.

Some Ukrainian politicians have spoken out.

Writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha accused Russia of “weaponizing the deportation of Ukrainian citizens through Georgia”.

Russia is weaponizing the deportation of Ukrainian citizens through Georgia. We propose that Russia transport them directly to the Ukrainian border instead.

Since June, Russia has significantly increased the number of deported Ukrainian nationals, mostly former convicts, to the…

“We are actively working with the Georgian and Moldovan sides to get the rest of our people transited to Ukraine,” he wrote.

“To avoid further complications, we publicly offer Russia to send these categories of Ukrainian citizens directly to the Ukrainian border. We will be prepared to take them on from there. There are relevant parts of the border where this can be done.”

A matter of national security

Once detainees have returned to Ukraine, they must undergo a thorough security check.

“They were in Russia for a long time. Everything is possible. They could have been recruited [by Russian intelligence]. This is a matter of national security for Ukraine,” Skripka explained.

There are also fears that the number of deportees will soar in the coming months as there are hundreds of Ukrainians who are still waiting in Russian deportation camps.

“According to our calculations, there are about 800 people. And if they are all brought to Georgia, it will be a disaster,” Skripka warned.

Meanwhile, in March, an edict issued by Russian President Vladimir Putin demands that Ukrainians living in the territories claimed by Moscow must either leave or accept Russian citizenship by September 10. This could potentially lead to mass deportations.

Lopata, meanwhile, can’t wait to leave, although not necessarily home.

“My house in Ukraine has been bombed. My parents have been killed, and I don’t know where to go,” he said.

In June, the Sudanese Armed Forces appointed Prime Minister Kamil Idris to lead the civilian cabinet in Port Sudan, the wartime capital on the Red Sea coast.

Idris wanted an overhaul, to appoint a team of technocrats to run the new government.

But Gebreil Ibrahim and Mini Arko Minawi – leaders of two powerful armed groups from Darfur  – refused to leave their posts, and army leader Abdelfattah al-Burhan overruled Idris to keep them there.

“Burhan’s concession to Ibrahim and Minawi allows them to keep ministries that control [government] revenue,” said Suliman Baldo, the founder of the Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker, a think tank.

Al Jazeera sent written questions to army spokesperson Nabil Abdullah, asking him why al-Burhan overruled Idris. No response had been received by the time of publication.

On the other side of the war is a coalition of armed groups that have, de facto, divided Sudan in half after more than two years of civil war.

The Rapid Support Forces paramilitary, which is battling the army, has formed an alliance with smaller armed factions and declared its intention to form a parallel government that will ostensibly represent all of Sudan.

The RSF-backed coalition has already unveiled its leadership council, on which the leaders of armed groups feature in prominent positions.

Analysts told Al Jazeera that SAF and the RSF are trying to meet the demands of powerful militias in a bid to keep their respective battlefield alliances intact.

A future parallel government

In February, the RSF announced that it had formed an alliance with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), an armed group from the Nuba Mountains led by Abdel Aziz al-Hilu.

From the beginning of the war, it had remained neutral, shocking observers when it allied with the RSF to form a new alliance and parallel government, which they named Tasis (foundation).

The SPLM-N governs large swaths of South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, and has been at war with the army – as well as the RSF, which used to be the army’s ally before they turned their guns on each other – for 40 years.

SPLM-N was born out of the SPLM, which emerged in the early 1980s to fight for southern independence and to end its marginalisation by the elites of northern and central Sudan.

The Nuba – a group of about 50 communities from what was then central Sudan – was part of the SPLM.

But when South Sudan seceded in 2011, Nuba fighters rebranded as SPLM-N and continued their rebellion against Khartoum, fighting and defeating the RSF, which was deployed to fight them by former President Omar al-Bashir in 2016.

Nearly a decade later, on July 2, Tasis announced a 31-member senior leadership council, with Hemedti as its head and SPLM-N’s al-Hilu as deputy.

While the full list of the 31-member council is not yet public, it also includes Tahir al-Hajar, the head of the Darfur-based Sudan Liberation Gathering Forces (SLGF), according to an interview he gave Al Jazeera Mubasher.

Tasis will soon roll out a government to help the RSF and its allies in their fight against the army, Kholood Khair, Sudan expert and founder of Confluence Advisory think tank, believes.

The RSF wants to exploit the guise of a formal government to better profit from aid groups, buy sophisticated weapons such as fighter jets that can only be sold to states, and boost its stance in any future negotiations with the army, she explained.

“They do not want to go into any kind of mediation as a rebel group. They want to be seen as a government [to boost their legitimacy],” Khair said.

Al Jazeera asked Tasis spokesman, Alaa Nugud, to respond to accusations that the alliance was simply formed to garner international legitimacy for armed groups on the ground.

While he did not respond before publication, Tasis portrays itself as the cornerstone of a “New Sudan” seeking to protect historically neglected and persecuted communities, even as the RSF stands accused of committing ethnic killings and genocide against sedentary communities known as “non-Arabs” in Darfur.

However, “this is just a group formed out of war dynamics despite their entire narrative of it being a coalition of the marginalised,” said Hamid Khalafallah, an expert on Sudan and PhD candidate at the University of Manchester.

‘Poster children’

On the Port Sudan government’s side, Gebreil Ibrahim and Mini Arko Minawi lead the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Army – Mini Minawi (SLA-MM), respectively.

The two armed groups mainly comprised sedentary farming “non-Arab” communities from the vast western region of Darfur who came together to fight a rebellion against the central government in 2003.

Their stated aim was to end the persecution and neglect of their communities, but like most of Sudan’s armed groups, they ended up using their weapons to negotiate access to state coffers and prominent posts in government instead.

“What this whole war has shown is if you pick up a gun, then you can get power,” Khair said.

“The RSF are really the poster children for this model,” she added.

The RSF in its current form was born during the Darfur war, which started in 2003, when al-Bashir tapped Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo and his feared “Arab” Popular Defence Forces (Janjaweed) militia to crush the rebellion there.

Al-Bashir rewarded Hemedti, who took part in countless atrocities against “non-Arabs”, by repackaging the Janjaweed into the RSF in 2013, with Hemedti at its head and a place with the army.

As part of the state, Hemedti was able to consolidate control over lucrative gold mines, expand recruitment and lease out fighters to partake in regional wars for tens of millions of dollars.

When al-Bashir was deposed by a popular uprising in April 2019, a wealthy, powerful Hemedti became al-Burhan’s deputy in the Transitional Military Council.

A militia state with a war economy?

Tasis, as well as the army-backed government in Port Sudan, are beholden to armed actors, which means more local commanders could expand recruitment and acquire weapons, hoping to get strong enough to gain political power, analysts warn.

Mohamed “al-Jakomi” Seid Ahmed, an army-aligned commander from northern Sudan, made a statement a few weeks ago that hinted at his aspirations, Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker’s Baldo said.

Al-Jakomi said that he would be training a whopping 50,000 men in Eritrea to protect Sudan’s Northern State from possible incursion by the RSF. He confirmed his plan in an interview with Al Jazeera Mubasher.

In addition, Baldo referenced Abu Aqla Keikel, whose force was instrumental in helping the army recapture the agricultural heartland of Gezira state three months after defecting from the RSF to the army in October 2024.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Al Jazeera’s reporting point to atrocities committed by Keikel’s fighters, prompting the European Union to sanction him on July 18.

Still, analysts say his power is growing and he may harbour ambitions to secure some form of political power.

“These are individuals who can hold the army hostage through their autonomous militias … as a way to secure seats around the cake when it is divided,” Baldo told Al Jazeera.

To appease armed actors that they want to keep onside, the army-backed government will likely create new positions as rewards, Jawhara Kanu, an expert on Sudan’s economy, said.

“The government will just have to keep swelling … with as many ministries as possible to reward as many people as possible,” she told Al Jazeera.

However, neither Port Sudan nor Tasis will be able to hand out political posts forever, especially if the war continues and more powerful militias emerge.

The army doesn’t have enough revenue – a result of losing control of nearly half the country, which encompasses profitable gold mines and agricultural lands, according to Khair.

She added that Hemedti and his family are unlikely to cede much of their private wealth to pay recruits. Throughout the war, the RSF incentivised its fighters by allowing them to plunder the cities and villages they attacked.

But as loot runs dry, militias may resort to building their fiefdoms by setting up checkpoints to heavily tax people and goods passing through, warns Khair.

“The new predatory behaviour, supported by the state in RSF and army areas, will be checkpoints. And these checkpoints will mark one rebel leader’s area from another,” she told Al Jazeera.