Sudan Faces “World’s Worst Displacement Crisis” After 2 Years of War

Sudan is facing the world’s largest humanitarian crisis after two years of war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF. Thousands have died, and some 13 million have been forcibly displaced. There are also widespread reports of sexual and ethnically motivated violence and a worsening hunger crisis. Emtithal Mahmoud, a Darfurian refugee and humanitarian activist, describes how the violence has impacted her own family, including in a recent RSF attack on the Zamzam refugee camp where fighters killed and tortured many civilians. “They kidnapped 58 of the girls in my extended family, and we are still searching for them,” says Mahmoud. “We need the world to pay attention.” Unlike the Darfur crisis of the early 2000s, when it was on the agenda of many world leaders, the current conflict is being largely ignored by the international community, says Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council. “It is by far the worst displacement crisis in the world,” notes Egeland.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to Sudan, which is facing the world’s largest humanitarian crisis as it enters its third year of a devastating civil war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF. Tens of thousands of have died, and some 13 million have been forcibly displaced. There are also widespread reports of sexual and ethnically motivated violence and a worsening hunger crisis.

On Tuesday, officials from 20 countries gathered in London at a high-level international conference chaired by the U.K., the EU and African Union to find a pathway to peace. But talks have reportedly collapsed.

In Sudan’s western Darfur region, the U.N. reports attacks by the RSF last weekend killed at least 300 people in refugee camps as paramilitaries took control of the Zamzam camp, which had housed some 500,000 people. The NGO Relief International said nine employees — the entire staff of the camp’s only remaining health clinic — were killed in the attack, along with at least a hundred others, including children. Some 400,000 additional people are believed to have been displaced in the area just over the last few days.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by two guests. In Oslo, Jan Egeland is with us, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council. And Emtithal Mahmoud, a Sudanese American world champion slam poet from Darfur in Philadelphia, born in Khartoum. She’s also a humanitarian activist and former refugee. Her new piece Sudan, the power must go to its people, not to the people in power for Devex is headlined “In Sudan, the power must go to its people, not to the people in power.”

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Emi Mahmoud, describe what’s happening in Darfur. Describe what’s happening in Sudan as at this point we enter the third year of the civil war between the paramilitary forces and the government.

EMTITHAL MAHMOUD: Thank you so much for having us.

It’s so harrowing to describe. My family have lived in Zamzam camp, which is now completely destroyed, for almost 20 years. And the other half of my family is from El Fasher, which is now — has been under siege for almost over a year. And what’s so terrifying about what happened is that an IDP camp is an internally displaced person camp. This is supposed to be a place of refuge. But on Sunday and in the days before, the RSF brutally attacked the camp, killing more than 400 people, by our count, on the ground. They tortured and killed women and children, and they kidnapped 58 of the girls in my extended family, and we are still searching for them. We cannot find them. We have not seen them since Sunday. This brutality is something that we’ve seen during the Darfur genocide and we’ve seen over and over again in this war and in many of the years from the start of the genocide and counting.

I think that entering the third year of war, we should not be terrified and confused about whether or not the international community is going to act to stop the El Fasher massacre from happening. We warned that the Zamzam massacre would be happening, because MSF reported a child dies every two hours from the man-made famine due to the siege. And now we’re warning that the El Fasher massacre will happen, as we actively, actively try to evacuate people.

Aid is in huge shortage, and we’re not able to move international aid into El Fasher, or we were not able to move it into Zamzam, either, because the RSF will not let it pass. So, currently, we’re doing everything that we can through small donors and family members and community to continue moving our people, who have now been four times displaced, including my family members, many who have been killed and many of who are still missing. And the injured are bleeding out without any care. So we’re moving as fast as we can, but we need the world to pay attention.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Emi, we’re so sorry for the suffering of your family and your family members who have been killed in this horrific war. If you could just kind of give us a quick sense of, you know, how was this — two years ago, how and why did this war begin between the government forces and the RSF? What’s at stake?

EMTITHAL MAHMOUD: Thank you for the question. The RSF is the Rapid Support Forces, and it’s the latest iteration of the Janjaweed, who terrorized Darfur for decades. And the SAF is the Sudanese Armed Forces. Now, the Sudanese Armed Forces created the Janjaweed and institutionalized the RSF under Bashir, the former dictator.

So, in 2018 and 2019, there was a lot of movement by the youth, including a lot of us from Darfur, who walked for a thousand kilometers, mobilizing thousands across the way and reaching Khartoum to inspire collective responsibility for peace. Just a couple months after our peace walk in 2018, I was in Sudan to do it all over again in December. And that’s when the revolution started. And the revolution was a peaceful revolution, led by young people, led by women. And people called for an end to more than 30 years of dictatorship and horrible, horrible genocides, plural, including what happened in South Sudan’s 21-year civil war.

So, in 2019, the world was very inspired, and people said, “Blue for Sudan,” and the people in Khartoum said, ”Ya unsuri w maghrur, kol albalad Darfur,” which means, “You racist, you hypocrite, the entire country is Darfur.” So, they heard our cry, and that was to the dictator. In 2019, the dictator fell, and there was a moment of hope. But, you know, there were these massacres of young people. They were sitting with sit-ins and peacefully just trying, trying to push for democracy, which is something that we’ve all hoped for and prayed for, and that is something that’s part of our culture. We’re very democratic as Indigenous people in Sudan, and in Sudan, in general. And then, in 2019, hundreds were killed and thrown into the Nile, hundreds of children and young people in Khartoum, who — I say “children,” but they were young people who were pushing. And I do say “children,” because my cousin Mohamed, he was 15 years old when he was killed in January, in 2019, at the beginning of the revolution. So, many people were killed and thrown in the Nile. Many are still missing.

So, then, in 2021, the RSF and the SAF cooperated to overthrow the civilian transition. So, a civilian transitionary government was put in place with a deal that would be — you know, it would spend three years, and in the first couple of years, the military would be in power, which us young people said, “Do not make this deal. Do not cooperate with SAF and RSF, who are both liable for genocide, in Darfur and other regions.” But they did cooperate. And then, in 2021, RSF and SAF cooperated for a coup that overthrew the civilian government and any hope for a peaceful transition.

And then, now, in 2023, two years ago, right as we were getting ready for Eid Ramadan, the massacre began. This war is not a civil war, according to people on the ground. It is a war against the people, because we do not consent to this war. But to make it very simple, you have two warring parties, who used to cooperate to commit genocide and to massacre our people, and now they fell out and are having this power struggle, and they’re trying desperately to cling onto power. And they’re being funded by many nations, rich nations, on both sides.

And I say this as somebody who thinks that there should be zero tolerance for genocide. I understand that right now the RSF is the biggest danger for us in Darfur and all over the country. They’ve used sexual violence as a weapon of war. And the UNICEF reports that 12 million people are at risk of gender-based violence. And they’re often repeatedly subject to the same thing. And they’ve created man-made famine. They’ve laid siege. They’ve done so many different things that are acts of — that constitute war crimes. The SAF has done the same. But the reality is, the RSF and the SAF, they both need to be held accountable to stop this war, and their funders need to be held accountable, too.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, we’d like to bring in Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council. Jan, you’ve also said that this is the darkest hour for Sudan. If you could talk about the worsening humanitarian crisis in the midst of this horrific war, and how much worse that humanitarian crisis has been made by cuts in U.S. aid funding, as well as among EU donors?

JAN EGELAND: It is by far the worst displacement crisis in the world — 15 million people now displaced by violence. I’ve been there twice now during this last two years of war, and you see devastation everywhere, really.

But we are, many groups, on the ground. Norwegian Refugee Council is in West Darfur and North Darfur and South Darfur. We’re in Tawila, to where people now flee from the Zamzam camp. We try to provide as much relief as we can. But indeed, aid is scarce.

And it’s beyond me that when I was in the U.N. in 2003 — I mean, 22 years ago — during the first Darfur crisis, this was on the agenda of President Bush of the United States, Prime Minister Blair of the Kingdom, of the European Commission. We did not lack funding, and we could scale up with a large aid operation. Today, many more are displaced than at that time. More people starve. And there is silence, really, and little funding. The U.S., being the largest historically to Sudan, suspended all aid to all countries on the 20th of January, including to us and in Sudan. Now we hope we will get back at least some of it, hopefully most of it, but there were months with no pipeline for Darfur and Sudan.