United Nations data paint a picture of a devastated Sudan. The International Criminal Court is investigating possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur
Last updated at 13:30 on 7 February 2024
Nine months into the war in Sudan, more than 10 million people have already been forced to leave their homes. Since mid-April 2023 alone, armed clashes in various areas of the country have put more than 7 million people to flight (counting both those who have remained in the African country and those who have instead sought refuge in neighbouring nations). As a result, the total number of internally displaced people in Sudan now stands at approximately 9.1 million — around 13% of the global total — taking into account also those who had already been forced to flee their land before the war, while remaining within the country. Sudan has therefore overtaken the Democratic Republic of the Congo and is now the nation with the worst crisis in the world in terms of the number of internal refugees.
The humanitarian impact of the war on the population is, in short, catastrophic. This is also reflected in the 24.8 million people — half of the total population — who are in need of humanitarian aid. The United Nations reports that in these nine months the death toll stands at more than 13,000, though the real toll is believed to be higher. Not only have the United Nations denounced a shortage of funding for humanitarian aid destined for Sudan, but both warring factions have been accused of looting the scarce aid that has arrived. In a joint statement published on the late morning of 7 January, Ocha (the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) and UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency) issued an appeal: 4.1 billion dollars in humanitarian aid is needed, to be split between 1.4 billion to UNHCR for the management of refugees in neighbouring countries and 2.7 billion to Ocha for the management of internally displaced people. To date, the agency has received only 83.8 million, or 3.11 per cent of the required sum. This lack of humanitarian aid affects children above all. According to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), one child dies every two hours in the refugee camp in North Darfur for this reason. That means 13 children a day.
The clashes began on 15 April 2023 when the two factions started fighting in the capital Khartoum. Since then the conflict has never stopped; on the contrary, it has escalated at an unprecedented speed, as stated last May by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. The war broke out as a result of the rivalry between two generals, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdane Dagalo, known as Hemedti. The former is the head of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF); Hemedti, meanwhile, is the leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a powerful paramilitary group. Before the war, the two generals were allies.
In 2019, during the protests that led to the ousting of Omar al-Bashir, the dictator who had led Sudan for thirty years, the two generals backed the protests from behind the scenes. The population, however, no longer wanted a military presence in government: it wanted a political transition. A democratic transitional government was therefore established, with the support of the two generals, but in October 2021, al-Burhan ousted the executive in a military coup, backed by Hemedti.
Over time the rivalry between the two generals grew, above all because al-Burhan wanted to absorb the RSF into the SAF, and thereby subordinate Hemedti. Tensions escalated until full-scale war broke out.
The main clashes have been concentrated around the capital, turning Khartoum into a battlefield. According to a report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) from last year, around three million displaced people come from the capital, the epicentre of the conflict.
For months the RSF has controlled the majority of the city, making life impossible for local residents and helping to reduce entire neighbourhoods to rubble. Fighters have now entrenched themselves in residential areas, which are then indiscriminately bombed by the army. While millions of people have fled the city, some are too poor to leave, and others have stayed out of fear that the RSF will confiscate and loot their homes if they flee.
The clashes have since spread to the rest of the country, where the RSF controls, in addition to much of the capital, the south-western region of Sudan, including Darfur. In particular, in West Darfur an ethnically-based conflict is under way. The scenario appears identical to that of the 2003 war.
At the time, an uprising led by tribal militias against al-Bashir's Arab-led central government broke out in the region, which responded by sending Arab militias to fight the rebels, who became notorious under the name of the janjaweed. The conflict between the rebels and the janjaweed lasted until 2009. Over six years, the latter committed war crimes and crimes against humanity: mass rape, ethnic cleansing and genocide targeting the Fur and Zaghawa peoples. It is estimated that the conflict caused more than 300,000 deaths and approximately 2.7 million displaced people. For all of this, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an international arrest warrant for al-Bashir in 2009, but the dictator was never brought before the court in The Hague.
The janjaweed were led by none other than Hemedti and in 2013 they changed their name to the Rapid Support Forces: the RSF that today is clashing with the regular army. The name has changed, then, but ties with the Arab militias in Darfur have been maintained, particularly for control of the gold mines in the territory. Now, with the conflict ongoing, the Arab militias and the RSF have resumed committing the same crimes against other ethnic groups in Darfur.
Inhumane conduct is, however, perpetrated by both warring factions. The United Nations has expressed concern over the recruitment of child soldiers. There are, in fact, numerous video testimonies confirming the presence of minors in the ranks of both armed groups, in open violation of international law.
But the conflict between al-Burhan and Hemedti is not merely an internal dispute. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates see the war as an opportunity to consolidate their hegemonic status in the region. While Saudi Arabia, together with Egypt, backs al-Burhan, the United Arab Emirates has supported Hemedti.
The risk of a scenario similar to that of Libya, with the country split in two, is very high. This would mean Hemedti and al-Burhan in perpetual confrontation with, in the background, a "proxy war" between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.
Senior figures in the Sudanese army, through the person of General Yassir al-Atta, have openly accused the UAE of sending weapons to the RSF, arguing in particular that Hemedti's militias are in possession of artillery and drones far more sophisticated than those used at the start of the conflict. The Arab nation, however, has denied all accusations. Hemedti appears in any case to have found numerous allies in the region. In January he visited several African countries: Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, Djib
