Sudán

The Unforgivable Silence on Sudan

Silence. Last September, when I visited a makeshift hospital in Adré, Chad, where young Sudanese refugees were being treated for acute malnutrition, that was all I heard: an eerie silence.

I had tried to prepare myself for the wails of children who were sick and emaciated, but these patients were too weak to even cry. That day, I saw a 6-month-old baby who was the size of a newborn and a child whose ankles were swollen, and whose body was blistered, from severe malnourishment.

It was equal parts newly horrific and tragically familiar.

Twenty years earlier I had visited the same town and met with Sudanese refugees who fled violence in Darfur, where the janjaweed militia, with backing from Omar al-Bashir’s brutal authoritarian regime, carried out a genocidal campaign of mass killing, rape and pillage.…  Seguir leyendo »

People rally in Wad Madani, Sudan, in December 2023. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)

On 8 March, the UN Security Council adopted a UK-drafted resolution calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities in Sudan during the month of Ramadan, a sustainable resolution to the conflict through dialogue, compliance with international humanitarian law and unhindered humanitarian access.

Eleven months into the war, this is the first time that the Council has been able to agree on a resolution. The mandate of the UN Panel of Experts that monitors the sanctions regime in Darfur was also renewed by the Council. Does this signify hope that efforts to end the war might gather momentum? Or is Sudan likely to face a protracted conflict?…  Seguir leyendo »

Sudanese refugees in Adre, Chad, August 2023. Zohra Bensemra / Reuters

A humanitarian and human rights catastrophe is unfolding in Sudan. With nearly 11 million people already displaced—three million of them children—the country is now home to the most people rendered homeless by conflict worldwide, and its populace sits poised on the brink of a major famine. A collapsing medical system renders the war’s true death toll unknown. Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, is being destroyed block by block.

It may be tempting to think of this tragedy as another episode in a multi-decade conflict. The main combatants—the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary group that the SAF organized out of the militias known as the Janjaweed—also helped drive the war in Darfur 20 years ago.…  Seguir leyendo »

A rebel convoy in North Darfur province, Sudan, 2009. Jérôme Tubiana

In 2009 Arbab, a tall, slim, thirty-five-year-old man, was driving a pickup truck in North Darfur province, part of a rebel convoy that had crossed into Sudan from Chad. Aside from a small circle in the windshield through which to see the road, his vehicle was covered in mud, making for a stark contrast with his perfectly clean uniform. The guerillas were trying to hide from the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), whose fighter jets nonetheless launched optimistic volleys at their convoy.

The conflict in Darfur, a region the size of France in the west of Sudan, had begun in 2003. It pitted two rebel forces, largely drawn from local non-Arab communities, against the central government of President Omar al-Bashir.…  Seguir leyendo »

Refugees fleeing the conflict in Sudan queue with their jerrycans to queue to collect drinking water from the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) distribution point at the Ourang refugee camp in Adre on Dec. 7, 2023. Denis Sassou Gueipeur / AFP

With more than 12,000 killed and 7.3 million people displaced, ongoing warfare in Sudan has steadily broken down the country’s political, social, and medical services. Reports suggest more than 24 million of the country’s 46 million people need assistance; cholera cases had risen to over 8,200 by late December; and between 70 percent and 80 percent of hospitals in affected states have been left nonfunctional.

As violence and displacement counts rise, humanitarian aid efforts haven’t kept up. Instead, initiatives to negotiate between the warring powers—the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan “Hemeti” Dagalo—have been the priority for the international community, neglecting the suffering that ordinary Sudanese citizens have endured for the last nine months.…  Seguir leyendo »

Siempre me ha parecido que es un país enigmático colocado entre dos grandes civilizaciones (la egipcia y la etíope), y un pasado lleno de nombres evocadores como Nubia, el Mahdi, Lord Kitchener, el general Charles Gordon (que pereció en el sitio de Jartum en 1889) o el encontronazo francobritánico de Fachoda en 1898. Es cuna de la civilización cusita y tiene al menos 255 pirámides.

Sudán tuvo un pasado colonial (el Sudán angloegipcio que desapareció con la independencia en enero de 1956). Segundo país de África en extensión, tras una cruenta guerra civil se ha desgajado en 2011 el Sudán del Sur, mayoritariamente cristiano y negro, del resto del país, musulmán y árabe.…  Seguir leyendo »

China’s President Xi Jinping speaks at the “Senior Chinese Leader Event” held by the National Committee on US-China Relations and the US-China Business Council on the sidelines of the APEC summit in San Francisco, California, U.S., November 15, 2023. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/Pool

Can we stop things falling apart? 2024 begins with wars burning in Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine and peacemaking in crisis. Worldwide, diplomatic efforts to end fighting are failing. More leaders are pursuing their ends militarily. More believe they can get away with it.

War has been on the rise since about 2012, after a decline in the 1990s and early 2000s. First came conflicts in Libya, Syria and Yemen, triggered by the 2011 Arab uprisings. Libya’s instability spilled south, helping set off a protracted crisis in the Sahel region. A fresh wave of major combat followed: the 2020 Azerbaijani-Armenian war over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, horrific fighting in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region that began weeks later, the conflict prompted by the Myanmar army’s 2021 power grab and Russia’s 2022 assault on Ukraine.…  Seguir leyendo »

Sudanese men at Port Sudan on 31 December 2018. Photo by Eric Lafforgue/Art in All of Us/Corbis via Getty Images.

Currently much of the world’s attention is focused on the UN’s struggle to achieve a ceasefire and avert  humanitarian catastrophe in Palestine. At the same time, another devastating war rages in Sudan, with similarly violent consequences for millions of people and an inability to reach a ceasefire.

Sudan is now the country with the largest number of displaced people in the world – more than 11 million people. Since April alone, 5.4 million people have been internally displaced and 1.3 million have fled to neighbouring countries including Chad, Egypt, and South Sudan. While over half the population – 25 million people (including 13 million children) – urgently need humanitarian assistance.…  Seguir leyendo »

Aview of destruction in a livestock market area in al-Fasher, the capital of Sudan's North Darfur state on Sept. 1. AFP via Getty Images

The diplomatic needle has moved on Sudan at last. There’s an opening to halt the carnage, end the famine, and save the state from collapse. An intricate diplomatic dance is underway involving African and Arab leaders as well as the United States.

Almost eight months after fighting erupted in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, followed by mass atrocities in that city and in the western region of Darfur, a serious peace initiative was finally set in motion this past weekend. A summit meeting of African leaders, held in Djibouti at the initiative of Kenyan President William Ruto, agreed on an overall formula for a cease-fire and political talks.…  Seguir leyendo »

A fire in a livestock market in El Fasher, in North Darfur, in September. Sudanese paramilitary and military forces are fighting for control of the region. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

There’s a genocide in the making in Darfur, Sudan — for the second time in 20 years. This time, the violence is happening on President Biden’s watch, and he and his administration have not done enough to stop it. But there are two things Mr. Biden can do today that could have real impact: Stop America’s Middle Eastern allies from arming the perpetrators and get behind a Kenyan-led African initiative to end the bloodshed.

In recent weeks, Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, a mercenary-commercial enterprise, has overrun four of the five main cities in Darfur, a region in western Sudan. Each conquest has been followed by massacre and pillage targeting communities of the cities’ darker-skinned residents.…  Seguir leyendo »

Sudanese women who fled the conflict in Geneina in Sudan's Darfur region, line up to receive rice portions from Red Cross volunteers in Ourang on the outskirts of Adre, Chad. Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

I have reported on conflicts around the world for over two decades, but nothing prepares you to cover a war at home. To see familiar places occupied and demolished. To fully plunge the depth of your helplessness.

Yet my team and I set out to do just that this summer, working on a documentary about Sudan’s conflict and the hidden hands ultimately responsible for the atrocities that have come to define this war.

Two separate voices fought for space in my head. One voice – the journalist – asked questions, took down notes and talked through testimony. I worked with my team to tackle the enormity of the logistical and editorial challenges that comes with filming an investigative documentary in a country ravaged by war.…  Seguir leyendo »

Workers load aid supplies into a military plane bound for Port Sudan at the Abu Dhabi International Airport in the United Arab Emirates on May 10. MOHAMAD ALI HARISSI/AFP via Getty Images

In September, the United States imposed sanctions on senior leaders of the Wagner Group-backed Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has been fighting the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) since violence erupted in Khartoum on April 15. The State Department announced visa restrictions on Gen. Abdul Rahman Juma, the RSF’s West Darfur commander, citing his involvement in human rights violations.

Similarly, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Gen. Abdelrahim Hamdan Dagalo, the brother of RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan “Hemeti” Dagalo and a deputy leader of the RSF, for the paramilitary group’s role in human rights violations and ethnic killings in Sudan. While these steps suggest a shift in U.S.…  Seguir leyendo »

A Sudanese woman carrying her daughter on the outskirts of Adre, Chad, July 202. 3Zohra Bensemra / Reuters

In 2003, mass atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region shocked the world. A coalition of human rights organizations mobilized in response, accusing Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and his Janjaweed militia of genocide. Although the United Nations did eventually dispatch troops to protect Sudanese civilians, the response was too slow.

Today, Sudan is again ravaged by war, and atrocities are happening on a comparable scale in Darfur. The Janjaweed’s successors are the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), and they are killing, raping and looting the same Darfuri communities. The international response to the war has been glacial and the reaction to the situation in Darfur ever slower.…  Seguir leyendo »

Sudán, ¿revolución o guerra territorial?

Desde 2018 la denominada 'revolución sudanesa', precedida de numerosos levantamientos juveniles de años anteriores al hilo de la secuela de lo que estaba ocurriendo en toda la región tras la agitación de las llamadas 'revoluciones árabes', desafió el poder de Omar El Bashir y consiguió que unos meses después de su inicio éste fuera derrocado y encarcelado (abril de 2019). La masacre de Jartum y la permanente represión previa pusieron de relieve la fragmentación del Ejército y que una parte de éste, las Fuerzas de Apoyo Rápido o milicias de los ex-Janjawid -responsables de crímenes contra la humanidad cometidos en Darfur y dirigidas por Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, actual vicepresidente de la junta militar-, habían sido las autoras principales de la masacre.…  Seguir leyendo »

Abdul Fattah al-Burhan, now the head of Sudan’s military government, and Mohammed Hamdan Daglo “Hemetti,” the chairman of the Rapid Security Forces (RSF), attending a graduation ceremony for Sudan's special forces, Khartoum, 2021. Mahmoud Hjaj/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

In June 2019, shortly after directing the massacre of a sit-in outside the army’s headquarters in the Sudanese capital, Mohammed Hamdan Daglo “Hemetti”—the commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a mercenary army of over 100,000 men—warned that “Khartoum could become Kutum”. He was referring to a much fought-over little town in North Darfur that Le Monde reported was once “emptied of its inhabitants” by his militiamen. “People will abandon the high houses, only the cats will remain”.

Today Hemetti is fulfilling his threat. Since fighting broke out between Sudan’s army and the RSF in April, Khartoum, a city with a population of close to nine million in its metropolitan area, has been abandoned by well over a million people—including most of the wealthy bourgeois families of the old city, whose comfortable “high houses”, when not reduced to ashes, have been stormed by the tens of thousands of looting young adventurers Hemetti has recruited from the lumpenproletariat of Darfur and the rural areas of Chad, the Central African Republic, Niger, and Mali.…  Seguir leyendo »

Sudanese refugees waiting to receive food rations from the World Food Programme (WFP), near the border between Sudan and Chad in May. Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

Before the war, I’d only ever gotten on my knees and begged in order to pray. This changed when I found myself pleading to escape the annihilation swallowing my country whole.

That is when the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Sudan momentarily became my God. Alongside the Saudi military, the ambassador was processing documents for a select number of passengers that would be allowed onboard an evacuation ferry to Jeddah. Getting to him appeared to be the only ticket out of Sudan.

Everyone’s eyes were glued to the ambassador, and everyone clenched their passports to their chests. Somehow, a soldier picked me out of the crowd at Port Sudan and summoned me over.…  Seguir leyendo »

Smoke billows in southern Khartoum as deadly shelling and gunfire resumed after the end of a 24-hour cease-fire in Sudan on June 12. AFP via Getty Images

The standard peacemaking formula is deceptively neat. Secure a cease-fire to end violence, fasten it down with interim power-sharing among armed actors, roll out a timetable for institutional (security, economic, constitutional) reform, and then bring in civil actors toward the end goal of democratic elections. Yet this formula repeatedly fails. It too often rewards violence and undervalues civil politics.

Securing cease-fires and power-sharing deals to end violence is seductive. Diabolically so. Such deals can silence the guns for a time, but they often shore up troublemakers’ grip on power, making hollow their commitments to real political change. Seasoned belligerents are adept at navigating peacemakers’ road maps, frameworks, and milestones such that they come out intact and stay on top.…  Seguir leyendo »

New-Model Proxy Wars

On April 15, a standoff between the Sudanese armed forces and a rival paramilitary outfit erupted into what now looks like all-out civil war. As we write, in mid-May,  fighting is tearing apart the capital, Khartoum, and millions are caught in the crossfire, trapped in their homes, and struggling to secure food, drinking water, and other essentials. Those who can are leaving the country. Neither the army nor its paramilitary foe looks likely to prevail – at least not without a protracted struggle and tremendous death and destruction.

The fighting is rooted in Sudan’s struggles to shake off decades of authoritarian rule.…  Seguir leyendo »

Holding bullet cartridges in Khartoum, Sudan, May 2023. Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah / Reuters

For the past year, much of the world’s attention has been focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and rising tensions between the United States and China over Taiwan—flashpoints that could trigger direct or even nuclear confrontation between the major powers. But the outbreak of fighting in Sudan should also give world leaders pause: it threatens to be the latest in a wave of devastating wars in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia that over the past decade have ushered in a new era of instability and strife. Mostly because of conflicts, more people are displaced (100 million) or in need of humanitarian aid (339 million) than at any point since World War II.…  Seguir leyendo »

Does America Realize That Sudan Is Too Big to Fail?

Two heavily armed groups, led by sworn enemies, square off in a dense metropolitan area that is home to about as many people as New York City. Hundreds of civilians have died, and thousands have been wounded, though the true toll may be much higher. People are pinned down in their homes by street-to-street fighting and aerial bombardment. They are running out of food and water; hospitals are running out of supplies. International humanitarian workers have packed up their white sport utility vehicles and high-tailed it to safety. Western and regional diplomats have boarded helicopters, buses and planes to get out.…  Seguir leyendo »