Is the UK playing a double game in Sudan and Somalia?

Critics say it’s enabling violence in Sudan. And while backing Somalia’s unity, it is doing business with Somaliland.

In December, as it often has during the ongoing war between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the British government urged accountability, expressing concerns about the mass-scale death and devastation that civilians have suffered.

But reporting has shown that, behind the scenes, the United Kingdom rejected more ambitious plans to prevent atrocities as violence escalated.

Further east, the UK has officially backed the territorial integrity of Somalia – while holding a stake in a strategic port in the breakaway region of Somaliland that it does not recognise.

These decisions and moves by the UK, say analysts, raise doubts about whether its words are in keeping with its actions in the Horn of Africa.

Amgad Fareid Eltayeb, a Sudanese policy analyst, said the UK’s credibility is increasingly judged by the risks it is willing, or unwilling, to take.