The United States will impose new sanctions on Sudan's de facto leader, General Abdel-Fattah Burhan who heads the Sudanese Armed Forces, or SAF.

According to a statement issued on Thursday by the US State Department, the SAF are accused of having used chemical weapons in 2024 against their rival, the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF.

In January, the US newspaper The New York Times reported that Sudan's military had targeted RSF fighters twice with chlorine gas, which is banned under international law.

However, neither the article nor the US statement included details about where, when, or how the alleged chemical weapons had been used.

The sanctions, which are set to start on June 6, include restrictions on US exports to Sudan and block access to US government lines of credit.

According to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, US exports to Sudan stood at $56.6 million (€59.8m) in 2024, up slightly from 2023.

Official data by the US Foreign Assistance Bureau states that in 2024 $790 million were granted in total, with the major share, $750 million, allocated as humanitarian aid.

However, the US administration under Donald Trump already cut foreign aid spending to Sudan earlier this year, limiting the impact of the new sanctions.

In turn, as the new set of sanctions targets primarily the economy and the humanitarian sector, it will have less impact on the military but is likely to compound the hardship of civilians. The Sudanese population has already been plunged into the world's worst humanitarian and displacement crises since the war broke out in April 2023 following a power struggle between two generals.

Up to 13 million people have been displaced and large parts of the population are on the brink of famine, according to UN data.

UN Women also warned that Sudanese women and girls comprise most of the displaced and also face the brunt of sexual violence and widespread rape.

Amid ongoing fighting, it remains impossible to pin down the exact death toll, but estimations suggest around 150,000 people have died.

Are the new sanctions on Sudan likely to work?

It is also not the first time that Sudan's warring parties have been struck with sanctions. But, in the recent past, they have failed to halt or alter the trajectory of the war.

In January, the outgoing US administration under President Joe Biden  imposed sanctions on the warring generals.

First, the paramilitary RSF under the lead of General Mohammed Dagalo, popularly known as Hemedti, was sanctioned after being accused of committing genocide and grave human rights violations.

A week later in January, the Biden administration also imposed sanctions on the SAF under General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, who was accused of committing war crimes such as lethal attacks on civilians and undermining the goal of a democratic transition.

"Even heightened international attention to genocidal campaigns by the Rapid Support Forces did not have a tangible effect on the severity of attacks against civilians," Hager Ali, a researcher at the German think tank GIGA Institute for Global and Area Studies, told DW.

Against this backdrop, Ali expressed doubts that the newly imposed economic sanctions would be likely to slow the conflict. 

"We have to assume that both factions have already adapted to being sanctioned," she said.

Return to a transitional government?

Meanwhile, the country is still at risk of being split into two.

In March, the paramilitary RSF signed a charter to establish a "Government of Peace and Unity" in Darfur and, in collaboration with its allies, in parts of the south.

At the same time, the SAF announced a 'Roadmap for Peace' for the areas under their control in the center, north and east.

Also in March, the Sudanese army recaptured the country's capital, Khartoum.

However, only two months later, SAF spokesman Nabil Abdallah stated that "Khartoum state is completely free of rebels."

That announcement came a day after SAF's General Burhan had appointed the 71-year-old UN diplomat Kamil al-Taib Idris as the new Sudanese prime minister. Idris is now tasked with forming the country's transitional government.

"Since the so-called liberation of Khartoum two months ago, the SAF were thinking about how to demonstrate its ability to govern and consolidate control over central Sudan," Hamid Khalafallah, a Sudanese policy analyst, told DW.

"SAF wants to have this technocratic facade to gain some credibility and legitimacy in front of the international community," he said.  "The new PM won't be anything but a SAF puppet."

Meanwhile, the Arab League — a group of 22 countries — and the African Union — a continental body of 55 member states — have welcomed the appointment as "an important step toward restoring the work of national civil institutions" and "a step toward inclusive governance."

The Sudanese political analyst Mohamed Abdelaziz, however, takes a less celebratory stance on the appointment of the Sudanese prime minister. "We must not forget that both sides in this war are the ones who disrupted the democratic civil transition in Sudan," he said.