Tag: south sudan

What is at stake for Europe as war in Sudan rages on?

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By Joseph Hammond, Journalist and analyst

Humanitarian concerns should trump geopolitics in our view of the current Sudanese civil war, Joseph Hammond writes.

Since 15 April, Sudan has been locked in a bloody civil war that threatens to tip the Horn of Africa over the brink and straight into a full-blown humanitarian disaster. 

No less an observer than the United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, has said the conflict has the potential to be “worse than Ukraine”.

Her claim was quickly dismissed as a public relations move, but the recent military history of the Horn of Africa suggests how deadly conflicts in the region can be to civilians. 

To add to the tragedy, the war threatens to additionally compromise the food security of one of the world’s most distinguished regions.

Wars in the Horn of Africa disproportionately affect civilians

The 2013-2020 South Sudanese Civil War offers a clear example of how the conflict in the Horn of Africa has a disproportionate impact on civilians.

According to one study published in 2018 by researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, some 383,000 people had died in the conflict since 2013. 

Of these, some 193,000 were civilian deaths due to displacement, disruption of health care, and starvation. Tragically, starvation continues to be a weapon of war for some actors in the Horn of Africa.

In the Sudan war that is raging on right now, roughly 500 civilians have been killed in the first month — a figure just slightly smaller than the monthly average in Ukraine. 

That is to say, a large civil war in the Horn of Africa has seen already civilian deaths equivalent to a massive-scale invasion of Ukraine by one of the world’s greatest arms producers.

Millions more are at severe risk

While civilian deaths peaked and levelled off early in Ukraine, we are likely to see expanded suffering among civilians in Sudan due to a number of additional factors compounding their misery. 

Before this conflict, a third of Sudan’s population faced food insecurity and other humanitarian challenges. 

Additionally, this year, the country recorded its reportedly first-ever outbreak of dengue fever in the capital of Khartoum.

Yet the biggest issue this conflict has already exacerbated relates to food security. A UN document released in March claimed as many as 129,000 face imminent starvation and death in the Horn of Africa. 

While initially it was forecast that South Sudan and Somalia will be the hardest hit by this emerging crisis, Sudan’s new conflict puts millions more at severe risk.

This year is the sixth in a row where rains have failed to fall across the Horn of Africa, causing the worst drought in forty years. 

In some areas, locals said conditions are not as bad as in 2011 – a year in which famine, claimed by some estimates, directly or indirectly claimed a quarter of a million lives. 

However, the conflict in Sudan and the disruptions to global food supplies due to the war in Ukraine may be complicating factors.

A humanitarian crisis should be avoided at all costs

Thus, it is imperative for collective action to both build peace and stem the humanitarian crisis. 

While a number of countries pooled resources to help their nationals flee Sudan, the world must now use those same capabilities to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe. 

Some aid groups operating in neighbouring countries have announced in the past week that they may see food shortages soon.

The European Union has undertaken some important steps to ameliorate the humanitarian crisis, notably launching an “air bridge” to provide much-needed humanitarian aid. 

To that end, a number of countries have launched similar efforts that have engaged civil society. King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre (KSrelief), based in Saudi Arabia, has launched a similar air bridge to provide humanitarian supplies to Sudan. 

NATO should demonstrate its prior engagement was not a one-off

Yet, NATO is still not getting involved, despite the fact that the alliance’s first-ever Africa-related operation was to provide logistical support to an African Union peacekeeping effort in Sudan in 2005 together with the EU. 

After the war in Afghanistan, it was NATO’s second-ever out-of-area operation. Even today, NATO brags about its mission when discussing its role in Africa.

However, NATO should show that its former engagement in Sudan was not a one-off affair and support ongoing logistical efforts to support humanitarian efforts to the conflict. 

Perhaps the argument this time around is even stronger than the one that sparked NATO’s involvement in 2005, given that Russia’s presence and role in the country have only expanded in recent years.

Sudan is much closer to Europe than most realise

As the Sudanese people bravely face this storm, they do so with less coin in their pockets. The country’s exports have been largely halted since. 

Tragically, Sudan’s largest export since the start of the conflict has been refugees. 

Ethiopia alone is receiving roughly 1,000 refugees per day from Sudan as the fighting rages on, while as many as 800,000 may flee as a result of the conflict — a small fraction of the refugees that the war in Ukraine has produced. 

Yet, with the region facing a severe drought, those fleeing the conflict could see thousands of “climate refugees” following in their footsteps. 

This is why humanitarian concerns should trump geopolitics in our view of the current Sudanese civil war. 

Europe should act now to strengthen the humanitarian response less the conflict in Sudan destabilises the country’s neighbours and, ultimately, the Southern Mediterranean.

War has taught European leaders that Kyiv is far closer to Brussels than many realised. The same is just as true about Khartoum.

Joseph Hammond is a journalist who has reported extensively from Africa, Eurasia and the Middle East, as well as a former Fulbright Public Policy Fellow.

At Euronews, we believe all views matter. Contact us at [email protected] to send pitches or submissions and be part of the conversation.

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Mass exodus from Sudan as deadly fighting enters third week

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Hundreds of thousands of Sudanese have fled Khartoum and the Darfur region to seek refuge in neighbouring countries amid ongoing deadly clashes between Sudan’s army and the rival paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). But the violence that grips the country is making it hard for them to leave.

Hundreds of thousands of people have fled Sudan in the past two weeks, according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. But thousands remain trapped in the country.

Violent battles between the forces of army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former number two Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the paramilitary RSF, have rocked the country since April 15. The deadly clashes have sparked a mass exodus of civilians, the scale of which is still hard to pin down.

Tens of thousands of people from the western Darfur region, which is especially volatile, have crossed the border into Chad. Others are trying to reach South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Egypt or Ethiopia, raising fears of vast displacement from a country with 45 million inhabitants, one of the largest in Africa.

Fruitless truces

Despite the latest three-day ceasefire set to expire at midnight, army forces clashed with paramilitaries on Sunday in Sudan’s capital Khartoum. Fighting was reported around the army headquarters in the centre of the city, with the Sudanese army also carrying out air strikes in the capital’s twin city of Omdurman across the Nile River.

Although countries like Saudi Arabia, France and the United States have managed to repatriate nationals and diplomats back home in recent days, millions of civilians living in Khartoum are caught up in the chaos gripping the megacity. Without outside help, they face a dilemma: risk their lives on the road or stay cloistered in their homes, where they endure crippling shortages of water and electricity.     

“To leave the city, you have to dodge bombing raids. Roads are no longer safe and armed attacks happen frequently. Travel costs have also quadrupled and there is a gas shortage,” explains Omar*, a Sudanese journalist whose family managed to flee Khartoum on April 26.

“In the east of the country where I live, things are still calm. Some people come here to seek refuge in big cities like Kassala, Al-Qadarif and Port Sudan. Others head towards Ethiopia in the east or Egypt in the north to flee the country.”

 

Map of Sudan and its neighbouring countries © FRANCE 24

 

More than 14,000 Sudanese people and a further 2,000 nationals from other countries have crossed into Egypt since the conflict began, according to the country’s government.

Meanwhile, International Organisation for Migration (IOM) spokesperson Eric Mazago told AFP on Thursday that more than 3,500 people have moved southeast into Ethiopia between April 21 and 25.

A ‘race against the clock’ in Chad

Another hot spot in the Sudan conflict is the western region of Darfur, still scarred by a war that erupted in 2003. Its capital, El Geneina, has seen a surge in attacks on civilians in recent days. 

At least 20,000 people crossed into Chad during the first 10 days of fighting, according to the UNHCR, despite its government closing the border with Sudan at the start of the conflict on April 15.

The country already hosted more than 400,000 Sudanese refugees across 13 camps in local communities, who had fled the 2003 to 2010 genocide.

Border villages in Chad like Koufron, Midjiguilta and Dize Birte have seen the highest influx of displaced people. Humanitarian organisations on the ground are trying to provide emergency aid by supplying water, food, health care and temporary shelter.

We’re in “a race against the clock” said UNHCR deputy representative in Chad Jérôme Merlin, calling on the international community to help. “In two months, maybe less, the rainy season will form large rivers or ‘wadis’, which will make it very difficult to provide aid.”  

‘Premature’ returns to South Sudan

As more and more people seek sanctuary in neighbouring countries, South Sudan is also seeing the arrival of civilians feeling violence. At least 14,000 people have crossed the border, UNHCR spokesperson Shabia Mantoo told AFP on Saturday.  

“These people come from different places in Sudan. They have travelled by bus or by their own means of transport,” explains Faith Kasina, a UNHCR representative based in Nairobi who is coordinating the humanitarian response. “They have decided to go back to their home country because they have family there, even though most have left for security reasons,” she says.

Since 2013, South Sudan has been caught in a civil war between President Salva Kiir’s government and a rebellion led by former vice president Riek Machar.

In a statement released on April 26, head of the UNCHR Filippo Grandi expressed his worry that South Sudanese refugees “have been forced to prematurely return home to deep uncertainty”.

“Just a few kilometres away”

As Sudan enters a third week locked in deadly conflict, the long-simmering power struggle between the country’s army and paramilitary RSF group carries on. The rival forces accuse each other of violating the latest ceasefire, mediated by the United States, Saudi Arabia, the African Union and the United Nations on Thursday.    

“There are two distinct situations taking place in Khartoum and El Geneina in Darfur that are preventing Sudanese people from fleeing,” says Claire Nicolet, who leads the Sudan operations for Doctors Without Borders. “It’s very difficult to leave Khartoum, but once outside, the situation gets easier. In Darfur’s capital El Geneina, however, the roads around the city are dangerous. It takes about an hour to get to the border of Sudan from El Geneina, but right now it’s an impossible journey to make.”

The UNHCR team stationed along the Chad border made similar observations, and had expected a much larger influx of refugees to arrive.  

“The majority of Sudanese people who have reached Chad so far came from villages close to the border, just a few kilometres away,” says UNHCR representative Merlin. If there is a lull in the fighting, “we expect a bigger wave of arrivals”, he explains.

Faced with a bloody crisis in the making, the African Union on Thursday called on Sudan’s neighbours and international partners to “facilitate the transit” of civilians fleeing the violence “without hindrance”.

*Name has been changed upon request

This article was translated from the original in French. 

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Violent power struggle continues in Sudan as army bombs paramilitary bases

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Sudan’s army appeared to gain the upper hand on Sunday in a bloody power struggle with rival paramilitary forces, pounding their bases with air strikes, witnesses said, and at least 59 civilians were killed including three UN workers.

The fighting erupted on Saturday between army units loyal to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of Sudan‘s transitional governing Sovereign Council, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, who is deputy head of the council.

It was the first such outbreak since both joined forces to oust veteran Islamist autocrat Omar Hassan al-Bashir in 2019 and was sparked by a disagreement over the integration of the RSF into the military as part of a transition towards civilian rule.

Burhan and Hemedti agreed a three-hour pause in fighting from 4 pm local time (1400 GMT to 1700 GMT) to allow humanitarian evacuations proposed by the United Nations, the UN mission in Sudan said, but the deal was widely ignored after a brief period of relative calm.

As night fell residents reported the boom of artillery and roar of warplanes in the Kafouri district of Bahri, which has an RSF base, across the Nile river from the capital Khartoum.

Eyewitnesses told Reuters the army was renewing air strikes on RSF bases in Omdurman, Khartoum’s sister city across the Nile, and the Kafouri and Sharg El-Nil districts of adjacent Bahri, putting RSF fighters to flight.

The United States, China, Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the U.N. Security Council, European Union and African Union have appealed for a quick end to the hostilities that threaten to worsen instability in an already volatile wider region.

Efforts by neighbours and regional bodies to end the violence intensified on Sunday. Egypt offered to mediate, and regional African bloc Intergovernmental Authority on Development plans to send the presidents of Kenya, South Sudan and Djibouti as soon as possible to reconcile Sudanese groups in conflict, Kenyan President William Ruto’s office said on Twitter.

The eruption of fighting over the weekend followed rising tensions over the RSF’s integration into the military. Discord over the timetable for that has delayed the signing of an internationally-backed agreement with political parties on a transition to democracy after a 2021 military coup.

Clashes in Khartoum 

A statement by the army said there were ongoing clashes in the vicinity of military headquarters in central Khartoum, and said that RSF soldiers were stationing snipers on buildings, but that they were “monitored and being dealt with.”

Earlier on Sunday, witnesses and residents told Reuters that the army had carried out air strikes on RSF barracks and bases in the Khartoum region and managed to destroy most of the paramilitaries’ facilities.

They said the army had also wrested back control over much of Khartoum’s presidential palace from the RSF after both sides claimed to control it and other key installations in Khartoum, where heavy artillery and gun battles raged into Sunday.

RSF members remained inside Khartoum international airport besieged by the army but it was holding back from striking them to avoid wreaking major damage, witnesses said.

But a major problem, witnesses and residents said, was posed by thousands of heavily armed RSF members deployed inside neighbourhoods of Khartoum and other cities, with no authority able to control them.

“We’re scared, we haven’t slept for 24 hours because of the noise and the house shaking. We’re worried about running out of water and food, and medicine for my diabetic father,” Huda, a young resident in southern Khartoum told Reuters.

“There’s so much false information and everyone is lying. We don’t know when this will end, how it will end,” she added.

A protracted confrontation could plunge Sudan into widespread conflict as it struggles with economic breakdown and tribal violence, derailing efforts to move towards elections.

Energy-rich powers Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have sought to shape events in Sudan, seeing the transition away from toppled strongman Bashir’s rule as a way to roll back Islamist influence and improve stability in the region.

They have also pursued investments in sectors including agriculture, where Sudan holds vast potential, and ports on Sudan’s Red Sea coast.

Civilian casualties

The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors reported at least 56 civilians had been killed and 595 people including combatants had been wounded since the fighting erupted.

Scores of military personnel were killed, the doctors’ committee said, without giving a specific number due to a lack of first-hand information from hospitals.

The UN World Food Programme said it had temporarily halted all operations in hunger-stricken areas of Sudan after three Sudanese employees were killed during fighting in North Darfur and a WFP plane was hit during a gun battle at Khartoum airport.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the killings and called for accountability.

“Those responsible should be brought to justice without delay,” Guterres said on Twitter. “Humanitarian workers are #NotATarget.”

Volker Perthes, UN special envoy for Sudan and head of its country mission, said in a statement he was appalled by reports of shelling and looting impacting UN and other humanitarian facilities.

Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan bin Al-Saud had separate phone calls with Burhan and Hemedti and called for an end to military escalation, Saudi state media said on Sunday. The minister affirmed Riyadh’s call for calm.

In a speech to an Arab League meeting on the crisis on Sunday, Sudan said the Sudanese should be allowed to reach a settlement internally without foreign interference.

The armed forces said it would not negotiate with the RSF unless the force dissolved. The army told soldiers seconded to the RSF to report to nearby army units, which could deplete RSF ranks if they obey.

RSF leader Hemedti, deputy head of state, called military chief Burhan a “criminal” and a “liar”.

State television cut its transmission on Sunday afternoon, a move employees said was meant to prevent propaganda broadcasts by the RSF after its forces entered the main state broadcaster building in Omdurman and started to air pro-RSF programming.

(REUTERS)

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How Socceroo Awer Mabil became 2023 Young Australian Of The Year

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When Awer Mabil was a boy, growing up in the northern suburbs of Adelaide, he got word that a grassroots football clinic was being organised by a couple of Adelaide United players at a community club about 20 minutes’ drive from his house in Hillbank.

Mabil had never met a professional player before, but had been kicking a ball around for as long as he could remember, including in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya where he lived until he was 10. He knew this could be his chance to impress them.

The problem? Nobody in his family was around to drive him there. His mum, Agot, was at work and his older siblings were elsewhere. 

However, Mabil would not give up. Undeterred, and burning with ambition, Mabil grabbed his scooter and rode the 45 minutes along suburban streets to the clinic by himself.

Awer Mabil made his debut for Adelaide United at 17 years old, paving the way for more representation of African-Australians in football.(AAP: Dean Lewins)

“I was like, ‘Man, this is my opportunity to impress and get recognition by these professional guys,'” he laughs over Zoom from his hotel room in Prague.

“[I thought], if I train hard, then they will be like, ‘Hey, we should sign this guy!’ I thought that’s how it worked.

“When I went there, I saw Travis Dodd and Scott Jamieson taking the clinic. And Travis realised that I didn’t have a jacket. So he gave me his Adelaide United jacket. I still have a photo of it on my old computer.

“From that day on, that was a big motivator for me. At that time, I was playing for [Dodd’s] former club, St Augustine, which is an amateur team. That motivated me to also become a footballer.”

There are a number of formative moments like this that Mabil, now 27, is looking back on after being named the 2023 Young Australian Of The Year: the red Kakuma dirt where he first kicked around a “ball” made from rolled-up socks or plastic bags, the two-hour walk he’d make regularly to the nearest television to watch games, moving to Australia in 2006 and seeing the Socceroos first compete in the World Cup.

However, it’s that act of kindness from Dodd that stands out. Not only did it provide inspiration for Mabil to pursue professional football, debuting with Adelaide United in 2013, but it also laid the foundation of charity and “giving back” that has motivated his life off the field.



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