Massad Boulos, an envoy of President Donald Trump, met Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan in Egypt over the weekend. More than 14 million people displaced by Sudan’s war still bear its vast human cost. The meeting put a U.S. envoy and an armed leader at the center of efforts to shape a political solution; in the account, the people uprooted by the conflict appear as casualties, not participants in the talks.
Who Has the Power
Boulos said the United States would back “all efforts leading to a comprehensive dialogue among the Sudanese political forces, leading to a preliminary road map of the future of the Sudan.” He described the United States working “alongside our Egyptian partners and our other regional and international partners and allies” to advance a political solution. The statement names the governments and political forces involved, but offers no details about who would set the terms of that dialogue or how displaced people might take part. They’re absent from the stated process.
Washington withheld a visa for al-Burhan less than two weeks before his scheduled United Nations appearance. Sudanese and other sources said the visa move was linked to a U.S.-backed ceasefire proposal that Khartoum has resisted. A border, a visa, and a diplomatic proposal: state power operates alongside a war whose costs are counted in millions of displaced people. It’s a stark contrast.
Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have fought since April 2023, when the two fell out over issues including how to integrate their forces in a planned transition to civilian rule. The conflict is in its fourth year. The account presents a planned civilian transition as part of the dispute’s background, while today’s meeting brings together a U.S. envoy and the chief of one of the armed sides.
The Human Cost, and the Armed Sides
More than 14 million people have been displaced, and the war has unleashed waves of ethnically driven killings. These are the sharpest measures of what the conflict has done to ordinary people. The report offers no account of mutual aid, community self-organization, or direct action by people affected by the war. It names no grassroots group taking part in the meeting.
Last month, the U.S. State Department said neither the Sudanese Armed Forces nor the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary, nor either of their respective leaders, “represent legitimate, constitutional governance for Sudan.” Washington has accused the RSF of committing genocide and the army of carrying out war crimes. Both have previously denied abuses. The U.S. government’s own statement rejects both armed forces as legitimate constitutional governance, even as its envoy now meets al-Burhan and Washington pursues a political solution with regional and international partners. That’s the contradiction.
A Road Map From Above
Boulos’s proposed destination is a “preliminary road map of the future of the Sudan.” His statement doesn’t spell out the road map, identify its authors, or say what power displaced people would have over it. Nor does the report describe an election, a legislative remedy, or a negotiated guarantee giving communities control over decisions made in their name.
The available facts leave a narrow picture: armed forces contest power, civilians face displacement and ethnically driven killings, and governments and intermediaries discuss a political settlement. The meeting may be part of an effort to end the war, but the terms and participants in any comprehensive dialogue remain unspecified. The people forced from their homes are identified by the scale of their displacement. The diplomatic account ends with officials’ proposed process. It doesn’t name a role for them.