The Decibel - Sudan and the neglected wars

Episode Date: April 30, 2024

Sudan is facing a dire humanitarian crisis. Nearly 9 million people are displaced from their homes and millions face severe hunger, all stemming from a conflict that broke out just over a year ago. But there are widespread concerns that the world is turning a blind eye to Sudan – and to other African countries facing conflicts.Today, The Globe’s Africa Bureau Chief Geoffrey York explains what’s been going on in Sudan, why so little attention is being paid to this conflict among others, and what that means for the people on the ground.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

Sudan is facing a dire humanitarian crisis, stemming from a war that broke out in April last year. Millions of people have been displaced and are experiencing severe hunger. Mashair Ali was forced to leave her home. Displacement is a very harsh experience. You cannot imagine that one day you will be living like this, from your home with a room and a private life to another new place where you sleep on the floor,

waiting for relief and anything to eat. There are concerns from civilians and groups like the UN that this conflict, as well as others, is being neglected. Sudan keeps being forgotten by the international community. We must not forget Sudan. All countries of the world are busy with the rest of the world, but we are third world countries. No one is concerned about us.

That is why we all suffered. Jeffrey York is the Globe's Africa Bureau Chief. Today, Jeff explains what's been going on in Sudan, why so little attention is being paid to this conflict and others, and the consequences of that for the people on the ground. I'm Maina Karaman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Jeff, thank you so much for joining me again. Thank you for having me.

We just heard in the intro that Sudan is a forgotten conflict. Can you just explain what does that mean? Right now in the world, of course, the global focus is on the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. And those two conflicts are just dominating the international political attention, media attention, donor attention. And what that means is that every other conflict in the world, every other crisis in the world is being overshadowed and to a large extent, neglected and forgotten. And here in Africa, there are many, many examples of these kinds of forgotten wars, which are having a massive impact, a human impact, a human toll that is equal really to the human toll of the Gaza and Ukraine wars, equally deserving

of the world's focus, but they just don't get the attention. You mentioned other conflicts on the continent. Can you just give us a sense, where else on the continent are we seeing these kinds of conflicts? Yeah, well, recently, I just tried to add up all the wars and insurgencies across Africa that are having a huge toll. I mean, in each of these conflicts that I'm going to list, there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people displaced, badly affected, unable to get food, unable to get aid. And when I added it up, in addition to Sudan, there is Eastern DRC,

Eastern Congo, Northern Ethiopia, Somalia, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Northern Mozambique, Central African Republic, Libya, Chad, the Anglophone regions of Cameroon, and Northern Nigeria. Now, each of those is having a huge toll in terms of deaths, injuries, displacement, hunger, and so on. All of the same human costs that we're seeing in Gaza and Ukraine. You have to get a tiny fraction of the attention that those two wars are getting. Why does the inattention of foreign governments matter so much? Well, because it has such a huge impact on these crises. What we're seeing is, number one, a lack of donor funding. There's a donor fatigue, just a lack of resources globally, so that UN agencies, humanitarian agencies are forced to cut back. We're also

seeing a lack of diplomatic attention, and we're seeing a lack of political pressure. The kind of pressure that was applied in the past to try to stop these wars is just not happening now. It's almost as if these wars are being normalized. You know, in the past to try to stop these wars is just not happening now. It's almost as if these wars are being normalized. You know, in the past, if you look historically, the world, you know, was not as willing to accept that. In the early 1990s, we saw with the Somalia conflict that the world was willing to intervene. There was a period of, you know, bringing in the military to ensure humanitarian aid in Somalia. Later, of course, the Rwandan genocide, the world did not handle it very well. There was a backlash against that.

And there was a sense that more needed to be done. And again, we had this intervention doctrine, which was at that point called R2P, the Responsibility to Protect. And that came out in the early 2000s with a lot of assistance actually from the Canadian government at the time. The idea that the world had a responsibility to protect civilians from atrocities, even if they were inside the borders of a sovereign country. After the R2P doctrine, after the Respons to protect idea came in, we saw that with the Darfur conflict about 20 years ago, when there was a genocide there, the International Criminal Court called it a genocide and filed genocide charges. It was a huge global issue. There was protests

on university campuses in Canada and the US. There was a huge amount of political attention. And there was a sense that a genocide in a place like Darfur, which is, you know, in the west of Sudan, should not be ignored. And now what we're seeing is as far less attention to when the same region is being hit by what is being called another genocide. Well, let's talk about the situation in Sudan. Then Jeff, we spoke with you about a year ago, just after the recent conflict had started. It has really escalated since then. It's become the largest displacement crisis in the world. Give us a sense, Jeff, how many people have been affected? 25 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. The problem is that 90% of them are in places that are difficult to reach or sometimes almost impossible to reach because of blockades. The warring parties are refusing to allow humanitarian groups to cross borders into Sudan or to move to the areas of greatest need. There's close to 9 million people now who've

been displaced from their homes, almost 2 million of which have been forced to leave the country, crossing the borders to at least five or six neighboring countries. So it's the world's biggest displacement crisis. And it's also emerging as the world's biggest hunger crisis, with probably 5 million people who are believed to be close to famine and really a generational catastrophe because you're seeing an entire generation of children that can't go to school, that are suffering malnutrition. There's something like 19 million children who have been out of school since the war began more than a year ago. Wow, 19 million children. That's a huge number there. Yeah, and that's just one of the many examples of the humanitarian impact that the world is just ignoring.

There's also, of course, reports of sexual violence, which we often hear in conflicts that are protracted as well. Yes, and this has been well documented now by the United Nations. There's been very detailed reports of women and girls abducted, held in captivity, many of whom were raped or kept in slave-like conditions. There's been reports of women and girls abducted around the capital Khartoum and taken to Darfur, allegedly in chains in the back of trucks. In almost all cases, the perpetrator seems to be the paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces, which is one of the two warring parties in this conflict. In what I've talked about so far, I haven't even mentioned the deaths. And that's because partly it's almost impossible to count. You know, if you look at Ukraine and Gaza, those are situations with a central government, which has been able to keep track of deaths. But one reason these wars are being ignored in places like Sudan,

northern Ethiopia, and so on, is that the hospital system has almost collapsed, and central governments have almost collapsed, not in Ethiopia, but certainly in Sudan. And so there's no attempt to count the deaths. So there's an official number of 15,000 in Sudan, but that's generally considered to be an undercount. And I'll give you an example of that. There's one city in Darfur where the UN has estimated that 10,000 to 15,000 people were massacred in one wave of killings, ethically targeted killings by the RSF. So if that's the toll in one city, you can imagine what the toll is across the whole country. Yeah. Jeff, can you just briefly remind us, you know, about the root cause of the war in Sudan?

Basically, who are the fighting parties here? Right. The two warring parties are the Sudanese military, which is the Sudanese Armed Forces, SAF, and this paramilitary force called the RSF, Rapid Support Forces. And basically those two forces had combined for a series of coups in 2019 and 2021, basically to get rid of civilians from the government, to make it a military-dominated government. And just to backtrack a bit, people might remember that Sudan had gone through a period of street protests beginning in 2018. And eventually that led to the toppling of the longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir. And for a while, there was a possibility of a civilian-led government. And in fact, the Sudanese authorities were promising that. But what happened is instead, al-Bashir. And for a while, there was a possibility of a civilian-led government. And in fact, the Sudanese authorities were promising that. But what happened is instead,

the Sudanese military teamed up with the RSF, this paramilitary force, and there was a massacre of civilian protesters at one point, and then these two coups, and basically they ended up monopolizing all power. Now, the RSF, this paramilitary force, was itself a creation of the Sudanese military. If you go back to the Darfur conflict that I mentioned from 20 years ago, the Sudanese government, Sudanese military, and Omar al-Bashir himself, used this paramilitary force as a way of suppressing a rebellion in Darfur. At that point, this paramilitary force was called the Janjaweed, the so-called devils on horseback. It led this scorched earth campaign across Darfur, burning villages, killing thousands. In fact, there was an estimate that more than 300,000 people were killed in Darfur from 2003 to 2007.

Well, the Janjaweed evolved into this paramilitary force, the RSF. And then what eventually happened more than a year ago was the RSF and the military had a falling out. There was a power struggle between these two very powerful forces. And that led to this war erupting on April 15th, 2023, more than a year ago now. Don't forget that it's become an internationalized conflict. Right from the beginning, there was international support for the different factions. We've seen widespread reports that, for example, the United Arab Emirates is supporting the RSF.

Egypt was supporting the Sudanese armed forces. We've seen reports that Russian mercenaries in Libya, the Wagner Group, as it was then, has been supporting the RSF through gold trading. The RSF controls a lot of gold mining areas, and that gold trade has been very lucrative. So there's very important international connections that have been fueling this conflict. We'll be right back. You mentioned Darfur a little bit there, Jeff. There have been concerns about potential genocide happening in that region. What do human rights groups say has been happening there?

Well, these massacres in Darfur have been well documented now by the UN and others. It's very clear that there's an ethnic dimension to this, so that the RSF is basically largely an Arab force. And you have to remember that Sudan is ethically mixed. There are people from the south, from the west, Darfuris and so on, who are from non-Arab groups. You know, this goes back to the original Darfur conflict 20 years ago. The central government in Sudan wanted to crush that rebellion, those demands for autonomy and so on. And it became exploited on an ethnic basis. And it's becoming these ethnically targeted massacres and waves of killing in Darfur, where one ethnic group is killing another one. That's why there's a real serious, credible report now that there's genocide.

We saw a human rights group, the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights in Montreal, coming out with a report recently saying that there's very, very clear evidence that genocide is being committed and incited in Darfur, basically by the RSF and its Arab allies. I understand there's only actually, I guess, one city really in the Darfur region that isn't under the control of the RSF now. How significant is that? That's right. One of the biggest cities in Darfur, al-Fasher, is under siege now by the RSF. It's the last place where the Sudanese military has any presence in Darfur,

any significant presence. And it's also the city where thousands and thousands of refugees have gone in to seek shelter because it was the only peaceful place that was beyond the RSF's control. There's an estimate that half a million refugees and displaced people have gone into al-Fasher to seek shelter over the last few months. And now that city is under this tightening siege by the RSF and its allies. And they are seeking, it's very clear, they've said very clearly for months that there's planning to capture al-Fasher and to drive the Sudanese military out. And that means that these refugee camps, these camps for displaced people with hundreds of thousands of people in them, are now almost unprotected.

And there's a very credible fear of massacres if the RSF takes control of those areas, those camps and the rest of the city. We've touched on the displacement crisis here, Jeff. It's quickly also becoming a huge hunger crisis, as you mentioned as well. What's been going on with food distribution in the country? How is that happening or not happening? Well, the estimate is that half of the population of Sudan, that is about 25 million people, are in urgent need for aid, mostly for food aid. So about 20 million people are food insecure at risk of hunger and starvation. There's been an estimate that in the next few weeks or a couple of months, 230,000 women and children could die of hunger. So when you have humanitarian groups that are actually able to operate on the ground, for example, Doctors Without Borders, MSF, has gotten into Darfur. And they talk about in one camp, at one

point, a child was dying every two hours from malnutrition, basically. And every time they set up a clinic or a hospital, it's immediately filled with children that are malnourished, a severe acute malnutrition. So the risk is that people are dying, children are dying without even getting into hospitals and clinics. This is not even being counted at the moment. So, of course, there's a huge operation trying to get into Sudan and trying to get access to these people who need help, both the UN operation and other relief agencies. But most of them are bottled up in Port Sudan in the north, which is the only place that's sort of easily accessible from the outside. There are groups

trying to get into Darfur from Chad to the west, but that border is tightly controlled. And it took months and months for the UN and for relief agencies to negotiate any access across the border because the RSF and the Sudanese military have been making it so difficult for humanitarian groups to operate. Some of the relief agencies say that it's basically the most dangerous place in the world for humanitarian groups to operate and the most inaccessible in terms of areas being cut off from aid. How much support has Sudan received from other countries? I'm thinking about other countries in the region and also Western countries.

Well, there's a lot of rhetoric. There's a lot of statements of concern. And to be fair, there's a fair amount of money going in, but it's still far less than what is needed. For example, the UN's funding target for Sudan, the target was, I think, $4.1 billion, U.S. dollars, for Sudan and the neighboring countries that have been affected by this crisis. And up until recently, less than 6% of that goal was reached.

Then finally, they were able, on the first anniversary of the war, to use that attention to organize a funding conference in Paris. And they were able to get pledges of more than $2 billion at that conference. But it's unclear, of course, how many of those pledges will actually be delivered. And even if they're all delivered, that's still only about half of the target. I want to ask you specifically about Canada here, Jeff. Canada only recently brought in sanctions around the war in Sudan. And this is months after countries like the UK attention that Gaza and Ukraine do. So the government has just decided that its main response should be to promise funding to the UN agencies. And to its credit, Canada has provided a lot of funding. But in terms of political pressure,

political attention, Canada has done very little. So the government of Canada very rarely mentions Sudan in major speeches. The foreign minister very rarely talks about Sudan. Yes, a Canadian minister did attend the Paris fundraising conference. There are occasional statements, but really very few compared to Gaza and Ukraine, of course. So there's very little political attention. And so we saw in the middle of last year, within a few weeks of the war beginning, both the U.S. and Britain brought in sanctions that were targeted at key leaders and businesses

that were affiliated with the two warring parties in Sudan. Canada did nothing on that until a year after the war began. And then we saw just this announcement on April 15th of around there in assistance for Sudan and the neighboring countries of Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia and South Sudan. But this is, of course, as you point out, Jeff, coming a year after this conflict has started. Yeah. And so for a long time, it was a really major question that people had. people who are experts on Sudan in Canada were just mystified that Canada was, you know, constantly announcing sanctions for Ukraine and Russia, but never announcing anything on Sudan. Before I let you go here, Jeff, is there any indication of what might happen in the coming months in Sudan? I guess I'm wondering about any foreseeable end to this conflict. Well, there have been so many broken ceasefires. You know, there's been ceasefires announced right

since the beginning of the war, and they were always ignored, always broken within hours. There's been negotiations more recently, sponsored by the United States and Saudi Arabia, and there's talk now that they will be resumed. But really, if you talk to experts, there's no real belief that those talks will lead anywhere. Certainly in the near future, this war could continue for years because the two warring parties have no incentive, really. They both think that they can get the upper hand. There's just not been enough international pressure on their sponsors either. If you look at countries like United Arab Emirates that are widely reported to be providing weapons to the RSF, there's been no pressure really on those countries to stop fueling this war.

And that's increasingly being recognized. We've seen at the UN, senior UN officials saying that there's no chance to solve this war unless external forces, meaning countries like the UAE, stop supporting the warring parties. So again, because of the lack of global attention, the lack of political attention, political pressure, there's no real incentive for the two warring parties to stop what they're doing. And there's many predictions this war will continue for years. Jeff, thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. Thank you.

That's it for today. I'm Maina Karaman-Wilms. Our intern is Raisa Alibi. Zura Jabril joins us as a fellow of Carleton University's Brooke Forbes Award. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. David Crosby edits the show. Adrienne Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.