If you are a regular reader of foreign news websites and newsletters, you will by now have come across repeated mentions of how the ongoing civil war in Sudan “threatens to spill over into neighbouring countries” and is in general likely to cause “instability in the entire region”.
And if you know how foreign news correspondents work, none of this will surprise you.
In general, the media markets they serve are not really interested in anything that comes out of Africa. The reports filed by the regional correspondents based here are likely to elicit a huge yawn in the editorial meetings of their parent news organisations.
Unless, of course, something truly horrifying happens.
Two armed groups, each loyal to a different leader, fighting over control of a national capital and killing hundreds of civilians in the process does not qualify as “truly horrifying”. Not even if it is believed that an organisation as sinister as the shadowy 'Wagner Group' is supporting one side and supplying it with high-calibre weapons.
So the only way an industrious regional correspondent can command the attention of the top people back home is to unleash the 'threatens regional stability' card.
In other words, they are compelled to argue that what is happening so far may not be that terrible by the standards of African disasters (only hundreds killed and not tens of thousands). But just you wait. This is likely to 'spiral out of control' (to use another phrase beloved of foreign correspondents in this region). Just wait and see.
And yet consider other military conflicts in this region which were, effectively, civil wars.
A recent example was in Ethiopia (2020 to 2022). It was not that different from what is now happening in Sudan: Two armed groups were fighting for dominance, with the Tigrayan militia at one point reported to be advancing on the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
But the final outcome was much like what happens in most wars: one side won (in this case that would be the internationally recognised Ethiopian government) and the other side lost (the Tigrayan secessionists).
Thereafter a process of reconciliation and rebuilding began.
Back to Sudan, what is going on now is not the first civil war in that country. Back in 1983, we saw the start of what is generally termed 'The Second Sudanese Civil War', which lasted for 20 years and went on until 2005. Prior to that, there had been 'The First Sudanese Civil War' which lasted from 1955 to 1972.
In this second civil war, peace was only achieved through a political settlement that allowed South Sudan to secede from the rest of the country after a referendum in 2011.
Of course, South Sudan then went on to have a civil war of its own from 2013 all the way to 2020.
Now this was a truly horrifying civil war, with an estimated 400,000 killed and 4 million displaced. But at no point did this civil war in any substantial way, 'spill over' into neighbouring countries or cause any 'regional instability'.
Even when it comes to what we may call the longest-running civil war in the region, the civil strife in Somalia, it has never once threatened to 'destabilise the region'.
It is true enough that Kenya’s ill-advised military action in Somalia, a doomed-in-advance effort to 'pacify' that country, led to a series of retaliatory terrorist attacks on our capital city, Nairobi.
But even this did not really 'destabilise the region' just as similar terrorist attacks in Europe over the last two decades or so (in Belgium; in Spain; in France) have in no way destabilised those nations.
What we can say of the events in Sudan is that in the end, either one side will win and the other will lose (as happened in Ethiopia); or the two sides will be persuaded, somehow, to sign a peace agreement (as happened after the Second Sudanese Civil War).
But whatever the outcome of this civil war, and tragic as it no doubt is, there is little chance that it will to any serious extent 'spill over and destabilise the region'.
