In Sudan’s War, Volunteer Humanitarians Are Targeted By Both Sides

By Rebecca Tinsley

As war rages in Sudan, millions of civilians depend on neighbourhood groups for food and medical help. However, the volunteers running emergency response rooms are targeted for kidnap, torture and rape by militia on both sides of the conflict. Since President Trump cut overseas aid, 900 of the 1,400 emergency response rooms (ERR) have closed.

Since fighting began in April 2023, the ERRs have appeared spontaneously where hospitals have been destroyed. Respected human rights groups accuse both warring militias – the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces – of deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure like health facilities as they fight for control of Sudan’s mineral wealth.

The ERRs were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize last year, but this does not protect their dedicated helpers from violence. Nor does it provide funding. Both the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces often prevent aid reaching 30 million people (out of a population of 50m) whom the UN believes are in desperate need. The UN’s operations in Sudan are underfunded, with only 14% of the donations needed secured. In addition, the militias put bureaucratic barriers in the way of aid agencies, with food used as a weapon of war.

Sudan is the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, with an estimated 150,000 dead; 13 million are displaced; and three million children are at risk due to disease and hunger, according to the UN. Yet, there is little media attention. Nor is there diplomatic pressure on the regional powers (the UAE, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kenya) who promote their own interest by supplying arms to the opposing militias.

Rania Sulieman, a Sudanese-British pharmacist and psychologist from Sudanese Women for Peace tells of a friend running an Emergency Response Room in a contested area. The woman was abducted, tortured and raped by the occupying Rapid Support Forces who accused her of aiding their enemies in the Sudanese Armed Forces. She was finally freed and returned to run the Emergency Response Room. Yet, when the Sudanese Armed Forces captured her town, their allies abducted her, tortured her and raped her as punishment for allegedly helping their enemies. This story is being repeated across Sudan as volunteers are killed by militia because they have remained impartial in the conflict.

However, one thing does unite the warring parties: the ethnic targeting of Black African Sudanese. A new report from SIHA (the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa) and its Adala Project highlights a deliberate strategy of eliminating the non-Arab population in the Nuba Mountains and Darfur. Based on dozens of interviews with survivors, SIHA reports on the impact of the racist policy which has been pursued by Khartoum’s Islamist rulers for decades.

Maddy Crowther from the human rights group Waging Peace says the suffering of the Kordofan regions have been ignored for years. “Nuba communities in the UK whom we support, and Nuba people we met in Yida refugee camp, tells us they feel their pain doesn’t matter, that they are bombed, starved, raped, and yet left to fend for themselves.”

The SIHA-Adala report also highlights the widespread sexual and gender-based violence suffered by the population in the Kordofan and Darfur regions. Both sides are kidnapping children, subjecting them to extreme sexual violence for days on end, and holding them in sexual slavery. The rape of women is systematic, according to the report which echoes the findings of other respected international rights monitors.

Crowther commends SIHA’s researchers for their bravery in documenting the history of violence, despite being harassed by Sudan’s Humanitarian Aid Commission which intimidates and harasses those seeking the truth.

Although the USA called for ceasefire negotiations in July, talks have been postponed until September, with the regional powers supplying weapons reluctant to give ground. Sudan watchers see no signs that the war will end in the foreseeable future.