Why solving Sudan war may require calming sesame tensions

Sudan, at war since April 2023, has not considered Ethiopia an enemy. However, the conflict within Sudan may require calming the ongoing sesame "wars" with Ethiopia before more foreign entities are attracted to what has indirectly fuelled the fighting inside Sudan. Two development experts at Chatham House say sesame, a grain often eaten as a snack or used to make pastries throughout the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, is not solely to blame for the violence. But its value and profits may be fuelling the conflict in Sudan and tensions on the border between Sudan and Ethiopia. “The sesame trade is no longer just a mainstay of local livelihoods in Ethiopia and Sudan. “Amid civil war and territorial rivalry on both sides of the border, it now plays a central role in a conflict economy that perpetuates violence and political instability,” they observe in their new paper: The ‘Conflict Economy’ of Sesame in Ethiopia and Sudan, which analyses how farming along the Ethiopia-Sudan ...