South Sudan reaches deal with Sudan’s rival forces, giving its army security control at Heglig oilfield

KHARTOUM / ISTANBUL

South Sudan has announced that it reached a three-party agreement with the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to place security at the Heglig oilfield—located in West Kordofan near the border between the two countries—under the control of the South Sudan People’s Defense Forces (SSPDF).

The agreement grants the SSPDF “primary security responsibility” for the oil installations in Heglig, government spokesperson Ateny Wek Ateny said at a press conference on Thursday in Juba, South Sudan’s capital.

President Salva Kiir Mayardit brokered the deal after speaking with leaders on both sides of the Sudanese conflict to urge them to halt clashes around the oil field, Ateny said.

On Wednesday, SSPDF Chief of Staff Paul Nang said from inside Heglig that Kiir had held talks with Sudan’s Sovereign Council head Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti) to secure an agreement allowing South Sudanese forces to enter the site.

Ateny said the accord requires both the Sudanese army and the RSF to withdraw from the area.

South Sudanese oil is pumped through a Sudanese export pipeline that begins in Heglig, which currently produces roughly half of Sudan's crude, and runs 1,610 kilometers (1,000 miles) through multiple processing stations to Port Bashayer on the Red Sea.

Neither Sudanese authorities nor the RSF had commented on the reported agreement as of yet.

However, Omar al-Digeir, head of the Sudanese Congress Party and a member of the Civil Democratic Forces alliance led by Abdalla Hamdok, referenced the deal on the US social media company Facebook, saying the lack of comment from either military side “suggests an unannounced confirmation” of the three-way understanding.

Digeir called for directing the same political will that secured protection of oil infrastructure toward achieving what he described as a higher priority: a humanitarian truce.

The RSF announced Monday that it had seized Heglig and was protecting the oil facilities on claims to safeguard South Sudan’s economic interests, which depend heavily on the uninterrupted flow of crude through Sudanese territory.

The Sudanese government has previously accused the RSF of targeting oil infrastructure, including a drone attack on the Juba oil-processing station in White Nile State on November 15, which temporarily halted exports.

The three Kordofan states—North, West, and South—have seen weeks of fierce fighting between the army and the RSF, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee.

Of Sudan’s 18 states, the RSF controls all five states of the Darfur region in the west, except for some northern parts of North Darfur that remain under army control. The army, in turn, holds most areas of the remaining 13 states in the south, north, east, and center, including the capital, Khartoum.

The conflict between the Sudanese army and the RSF, which began in April 2023, has since killed thousands of people and displaced millions of others.