Sudanese refugees who fled the war in Sudan disembark from a truck loaded with families arriving at a refugee transit center in Renk, South Sudan, February 13.
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Sudanese refugees who fled war in Sudan get off a truck loaded with families arriving at a refugee transit center in Renk, South Sudan, February 13.
Luis Tato/AFP via Getty Images
JOHANNESBURG — One of the world’s most brutal conflicts marks its first anniversary this week, but with the war in Gaza and other events dominating the news, Sudan’s humanitarian crisis is underreported.
Since fighting resumed between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and rebel paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on April 15, 2023, more than 8 million people have fled their homes and more than 14,000 people have been killed , depending on the conflict. monitor estimates.
The actual death toll could be much higher, however, as the country remains almost impossible for observers to access. Access problems, due to ongoing fighting but also to the heavy bureaucracy linked to customs clearance for humanitarian convoys, are also exacerbating the food crisis.
According to United Nations humanitarian agencies, twenty-five million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, and nearly 18 million across the country face acute levels of hunger. The upcoming lean season in May could bring “unprecedented levels of famine”, according to Eddie Rowe, World Food Program director for Sudan.
Add to this a campaign of violence, including rape, carried out by the predominantly Arab RSF against other ethnic groups in the Darfur region of western Sudan; foreign powers using this African country – with its valuable oil and gold resources – as a framework for proxy wars; and an international community preoccupied with other conflicts.
“Sudan is one of the worst crises in the world that the world has known for decades,” says Dr. Christos Christou, international president of Doctors Without Borders, who recently visited the country as well as the overflowing refugee camps in neighboring Chad.
Russian involvement
Previously, the warring factions in Sudan were allies who united after a massive people power revolution in 2019 to overthrow longtime Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir. They promised a transition to democracy, but instead overthrew the country’s transitional civilian government in a second coup in 2021.
But the former allies then diverge on the plans for a new transition and the integration of the rebel group RSF into the regular army. Since April 15, 2023, the Sudanese army, led by General Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the RSF of Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, have been engaged in a power struggle over who will lead the resource-rich nation under siege. of Sudan. the vital crossroads between North Africa, the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea.
Men pray after breaking the fast during Ramadan, as the Muslim holy month is observed by Sudanese refugees and South Sudanese returnees, who fled the Sudanese war, at a transit center in Renk, South Sudan .
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Men pray after breaking the fast during Ramadan, as the Muslim holy month is observed by Sudanese refugees and South Sudanese returnees, who fled the Sudanese war, at a transit center in Renk, South Sudan .
Sally Hayden/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Although the war shows no signs of abating, with international pressure for a ceasefire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan failing in March, the Sudanese military has recently made significant progress, recovering territories in the capital Khartoum last month.
But the presence of foreign groups added another dimension to the war. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran all support the Sudanese army, while the UAE is accused of supporting rebel leader Hemedti – something the UAE denies.
Russia, for its part, has had a long-standing presence in Sudan. His mercenaries renamed Wagner are aligned with the RSF and Washington and others accuse them of arming the militia in exchange for smuggled Sudanese gold. Experts say some of this wealth is being used to finance Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Enter Ukraine. Its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, met Sudanese army general Burhan in September in Ireland and said they discussed their “common security challenges, in particular the activities of illegal armed groups financed by Russia.”
THE Wall Street JournalCNN and other international media outlets have reported that Ukrainian fighters are now operating on the ground in Sudan, using drones and night vision technology to assist the Sudanese military.
“For Russia, the presence of Africa Corps personnel (formerly known as Wagner) not only confers a certain level of regional influence, but, according to a report by the United Nations panel of experts, implies the control of various gold mines and sharing of revenue from exploitation “If the RSF defeats the SAF, it is likely that the Africa Corps will be able to extract even more wealth and strengthen the strength of the force. force,” said Darren Olivier, director of African Defense Review, a conflict research consultancy.
A member of the Sudanese armed forces watches him hold his weapon on the street in Omdurman, Sudan, March 9.
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A member of the Sudanese armed forces watches him hold his weapon on the street in Omdurman, Sudan, March 9.
El Tayeb Siddig/Reuters
“Given this, it makes strategic sense in Ukraine to use special operations forces to both disrupt the flow of gold, harm Africa Corps operations, and support the SAF just enough to help prevent a takeover of RSF,” he told NPR.
Déjà vu in Darfur
If the conflict in Sudan seems like déjà vu, it is because, in a way, it is history repeating itself. Darfur was ravaged by war 20 years ago, when Bashir’s regime and the notorious Arab Janjaweed militia were accused of genocide and war crimes.
The RSF emerged from the remnants of the Janjaweed, and the UN has warned there is a risk of repeated genocide.
Eric Reeves, an American academic who has studied Sudan, told NPR that the African country is now on the verge of becoming a failed state.
“There is nothing comparable to the humanitarian presence that existed in the early years of the genocide,” he says, and it is difficult to know whether the situation today is worse than in 2003.
“We’ve sort of lost touch with what’s happening in Darfur now,” he says. “There is enormous fear, there are a lot of rapes, but it would be very difficult to quantify.”
RSF soldiers on motorcycles pass a destroyed tank belonging to the defeated Sudanese armed forces on a main street in El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, Sudan, February 20.
Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi for the Washington Post via Getty Images
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RSF soldiers on motorcycles pass a destroyed tank belonging to the defeated Sudanese armed forces on a main street in El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, Sudan, February 20.
Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi for the Washington Post via Getty Images
This week, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield spoke about the dire consequences of the conflict on women and girls, with rape being used as a weapon of war.
“Girls were kidnapped from the streets on their way to school in Khartoum. They were handcuffed in the back of trucks and transported to Darfur,” she explained.
Washington, which is participating in diplomatic efforts to end the war and has imposed sanctions against senior RSF commanders, welcomed suggestions that new peace talks could take place in Saudi Arabia later this month . But expectations are mixed given that previous truce negotiations in Jeddah last year achieved little.
At the same time, the United Nations and non-governmental humanitarian agencies have warned that around 230,000 children, pregnant women and new mothers risk starving to death in the coming months.
“Twenty years ago, Darfur was the world’s largest food crisis and the world mobilized to respond,” World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain said last month. “But today the Sudanese people have been forgotten.”
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