By Rebecca Tinsley*
Sudan’s rats are silent. After two years’ conflict, Sudanese civilians have eaten the country’s rodent population, such is the level of starvation. To make matters worse, as the West cuts humanitarian aid, the UN estimates 70% of the emergency kitchens feeding besieged communities across Sudan have closed.
April 15th marks two years since the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) turned against their former colleagues in the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Both militias, the SAF and RSF, want control of the country’s lucrative gold, gum Arabic and livestock businesses. The fighting has left 150,000 dead and 12 million people (out of a population of 49 million) displaced. The Sudanese group for Defending Human Rights and Freedoms estimates another 50,000 civilians have disappeared.
Reputable human rights watchdogs accuse both forces of torturing, raping, killing, and bombing civilians with impunity. The militias terrorise the nation’s Black African ethnic group, picking up where they left off in Darfur, Blue Nile and the Nuba Mountains years ago.
The UN Population Fund and Amnesty say sexual violence targeting women and girls is systematic. The NGO SIHA documents such attacks, estimating that the RSF is responsible for 90% of cases. They believe the gang rapes are in the hundreds of thousands. First responders, doctors, nurses and people running soup kitchens are singled out for torture and rape.
The SAF, which claims (without authority) to be the legitimate government of Sudan, recently recaptured the capital, Khartoum, where the RSF held thousands of civilians in detention centres. Human rights groups report women had been shackled and driven away in pickup trucks, destined for slavery.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, expressed horror at reports of beheadings and summary executions in the streets of Khartoum. Identity-based crime (killing people because they are ethnically Black and African) is rife. The Red Cross believes 70-80% of hospitals are non-operational and subject to drone attacks.
How did it come to this?
In 2019, a popular revolution overthrew the Islamist regime of Omar Bashir, wanted by the International Criminal Court for genocide in Darfur. A technocratic civilian transitional government then tried to create a secular, democratic, pluralist, transparent administration.
They began investigating the massive corruption of officials in the Bashir regime, including members of the RSF and SAF. Fearing justice, the RSF and SAF together overthrew the transitional government in 2021. But two years ago, the generals leading the militias turned on each other, vying for control of the nation’s resources.
Initially, Sudanese civilians were largely united in rejecting both the RSF and SAF. They created local emergency response rooms providing medical help and food. Lately, however, regional armed defence groups have been co-opted by the two militias. Analysts fear that the RSF will retreat to Darfur, and the international community – lacking interest or political will – may acquiesce to partitioning the country, leading to more ethnic elimination.
What happens now?
The UK government hosts a conference on April 15th, aimed at ensuring access for humanitarian aid because the militias use hunger as a weapon of war. Germany, France and the EU will be present, but not the two militias. Human rights groups and Sudanese civil society are calling for mechanisms to protect civilians.
Hala Al-Karib of SIHA said of the conference, “It is important to emphasize that humanitarian aid and efforts to protect civilians should not be contingent upon ceasefire agreements. Furthermore, while Sudan faces the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, with famine declared in many areas, it remains the least funded crisis, receiving less than 5% of the support needed for its people.”
Diplomacy has achieved little, and only the optimistic believe either militia is sincere about negotiating a ceasefire. Both commanders believe they can bomb and kill their way to victory. Meanwhile, there is an urgent need to restore the internet which currently reaches only 30% of the population. Having access to telecommunications would allow civilians to receive money from relatives overseas, to find food and to track military manoeuvres that threaten them.
Moscow, which vetoed a British UN resolution aimed at protecting civilians, supplies arms to both sides in exchange for gold. The SAF has granted Moscow a military base at Port Sudan, a prospect that ought to concern the international community.
Analysts believe Egypt and Saudi Arabia back the SAF since both are keen to prevent civilian-run democracy anywhere in the region. Meanwhile, the SAF is taking the United Arab Emirates to the International Court of Justice, accusing the Gulf kingdom of supplying the RSF with weapons in exchange for gold – a charge denied by the oil-rich, gold-trading nation. The SAF also says Chad and South Sudan facilitate the delivery of arms which fuels the RSF killing machine. Analysts fear the region, already volatile, could tip into a wider war endangering millions more people.
Where are the African solutions to African problems?
Africans have rightly criticised the West’s selective morality, elevating human rights when convenient. Yet the silence of African leaders on Sudan is notable. Moreover, Western nations are reluctant to apply sustained pressure to individuals and entities prolonging the conflict. The West launders money for Gulf nationals and sells arms to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Yet, the same Western nations have ratified UN conventions aimed at preventing the gross human rights abuses that continue in Sudan. Do they stand by international law or the law of the jungle?
As the SAF expels the RSF from Khartoum, does the international community ignore a conflict that will send millions of migrants toward Europe? Or does it work together to apply targeted smart sanctions, asset seizures and travel bans on the families of individuals and entities – both the officers directing the killing and their financial advisors in Europe and America – to make the consequences personal? We owe it to the brave civilians of Sudan to offer action rather than pious words of condemnation.
*Rebecca Tinsley’s book about Sudan, When the Stars Fall to Earth, is available in English and Arabic on Amazon.
