Bipartisan Senate Coalition Push Sudan Accountability Bill
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Ranking Member Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) spearheaded the introduction of the Preventing External Aggression and Conflict Escalation (PEACE) in Sudan Act of 2026, joined by Senators Chris Coons (D-Del) and John Cornyn (R-Texas).
"The war in Sudan is a humanitarian catastrophe, a source of instability in Africa, and a threat to US national security," Risch said in a statement, describing the bill as a bipartisan effort to raise costs for the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and their proxies.
The legislation tasks the Secretary of State with evaluating whether armed actors operating in Sudan qualify for designation as Specially Designated Global Terrorists, while simultaneously broadening the administration's discretionary sanctions authority.
Additional provisions require the State Department to produce a comprehensive ceasefire strategy, mandate reporting on foreign governments and actors perpetuating the conflict, and extend the mandate of a US special envoy for Sudan.
Under the proposed law, the US president would be empowered to sanction any individual or entity found responsible for arms transfers to warring factions, child soldier recruitment, commanding foreign military forces inside Sudan, trafficking natural resources including gold and gum arabic, or blocking the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Sudan has been locked in a brutal civil war since April 2023, when hostilities erupted between the national army and the RSF over a disputed plan to absorb the paramilitary force into the regular military. The conflict has since spiraled into one of the world's gravest humanitarian emergencies, claiming tens of thousands of lives and uprooting nearly 13 million people from their homes.
In January 2025, the US formally determined that the RSF and allied militias had committed genocide in Sudan.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently warned that "something needs to be done" to halt weapons support to Sudan's RSF as the humanitarian situation for civilians in the country is deteriorating rapidly.
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