Hours after Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan decreed that all auxiliary formations fall under the 2007 Armed Forces Act, politician Mohammed Sayed Ahmed “Al-Jakoumi” unveiled the so-called “Sudan Protection Force.” He insists it is not a militia and will operate nationally “under the supervision” of General al-Burhan’s army (SAF).
That phrasing gives the game away: this is a pro-SAF paramilitary dressed up as a public-order project, another bolt in the Port Sudan junta’s militia architecture.
Al-Jakoumi frames the force as a stopgap to “protect civilians, secure vital resources, and fill the security vacuum.” In practice, it slots into the junta’s expanding network of auxiliaries—entities outside a unified, accountable chain of command but politically aligned with Burhan. The timing is telling: the announcement landed within hours of Burhan’s order corralling “supporting forces” under SAF law, effectively laundering proxies into a quasi-legal umbrella while keeping them loyal to the junta.
Local reporting has long noted the SAF’s reliance on dozens of armed groups even before its rupture with rival forces. Rebranding new recruits as a “protection” corps does not change the core dynamic: fragmented, leader-centric units competing for budgets, influence, and legal impunity—conditions that historically fuel abuses against civilians.
Al-Jakoumi also claimed in June that Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki pledged advanced training for 50,000 northern fighters. Whether realized or not, the pledge underscores cross-border militarization and a regional arms market now orbiting Port Sudan. Analysts already read the new force as part of the Juba Peace Agreement’s arms race, with signatory movements leveraging fighters for cabinet quotas and political clout.
The “tracks” politics that elevated figures from the North, Centre, and East—controversial since 2020 because those regions were not active war zones—has morphed into a recruitment pipeline. Many of those actors later midwifed the 2021 “banana sit-in,” a staging ground for the October 25 coup. Today, the same current is packaging militias as “national” solutions while deepening regional polarization between the North/Centre and the West.
Bottom line: the “Sudan Protection Force” is not a neutral security fix. It is a junta-aligned militia, branded for legitimacy, folded under a legal fig leaf, and primed to expand the coercive toolkit of the Port Sudan authority—another step away from unified security sector reform and toward a militia state.
