Khalid Mustafa Medani is the chair of African Studies, director of the Institute of Islamic Studies, and an associate professor of political science at McGill University.
More than a year ago, war in Sudan sparked what Doctors Without Borders has called a “catastrophic failure of humanity.” Nine million people have been displaced, more than 10,000 have been killed, and more than a million have fled. Human Rights Watch has reported war crimes and ethnic cleansing in the capital city of Khartoum and in the western region of Darfur, including extrajudicial killings, sexual violence as an instrument of war, and the targeting of thousands of civilians and villages. Nearly half of the population faces emergency levels of food insecurity, and with 70 per cent of hospitals and medical facilities in war-torn areas rendered out of service, communicable diseases are raging
Make no mistake: this is not a civil war. This is a war on civilians, as the warring generals of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia and the cadres of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) compete over resources and territory – part of a continuum of destruction that has effectively been going on for two decades.
Indeed, while the entire country is in crisis, Darfur is again experiencing the war’s most devastating consequences. In the early 2000s, the Janjaweed militia group – by the Islamist regime of former Sudanese head of state Omar al-Bashir – executed a scorched-earth policy of ethnic cleansing in Darfur, resulting in the deaths of more than 200,000 civilians and drawing international condemnation. Now, the RSF – an offshoot of the Janjaweed – is accused of more ethnic cleansing, including the killing of thousands of non-Arab civilians last year in El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur. Last week, El Fasher – North Darfur’s capital city, and home to camps for the displaced – came under siege as the RSF and SAF prepare to battle for control. Satellite images suggest the region is on the verge of what one expert called “Hiroshima- and Nagasaki-level casualties.” Given the pattern of violence so far, El Fasher’s 800,000 civilians are at risk of brutal war crimes.
Explainer: What is going on in Sudan? A country torn by civil war is on the verge of famine
The international community must intervene immediately to save Sudan’s civilian populations, and then work on building a sustainable peace using an array of international mechanisms that have proven effective in similar humanitarian crises. That includes the urgent restoration of a UN-African Union peacekeeping force that was established in 2007 but abandoned in 2020 under pressure from the two warring parties. It will be challenging to implement, but the international community must support such a force; it is the best way to secure humanitarian corridors for the safe delivery of humanitarian aid, and a potential model for other war-torn regions.
Crucially, the international community must also learn from the mistakes of past interventions. The world needs to understand that the violence in Darfur stems from two individuals leading a full-scale war against Sudan’s people, and not chiefly the result of immutable enmities between ethnic communities. And regional and international actors must establish a united front to force peace negotiations, under the credible threat of sanctions. Instead, there are currently multiple competing peace initiatives, including ones led by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, the African Union, and Egypt; these are working at cross-purposes, affording the warring parties a variety of loopholes to continue the fighting. Indeed, a major reason for the failures of ceasefire talks is that international mediators are operating under the false hope that the two generals will transform into political reformers.
Finally, efforts to restore peace must be conducted with the full participation of the war’s primary stakeholders and victims: Sudan’s civil society. In contrast to other civil wars, the warring parties have no significant constituency or legitimacy in Sudanese society. The war comes after the 2018 pro-democracy revolution that saw Sudan reject military autocracy; as punishment, the SAF and the RSF have targeted youth, scholars and educators, women’s rights organizations, health workers and community leaders. Humanitarian aid is even being captured or redirected by militants to penalize civilian opposition to the war.
But only Sudanese civilians can bridge the gap between political officials and communities, advocate for human rights by setting the agenda for a workable ceasefire, and provide a platform for local dialogue and collaboration between ethnic groups. The Elders and Mediation Committee in El Fasher offers one model to build on. The EMC’s leaders have strategically framed the war as a “conflict between the SAF and the RSF,” not between Darfurians; they have outlined a blueprint for protecting all civilians; and they have established subcommittees to monitor ceasefire agreements and shield civilians from violations. If adequately supported by international agencies, such organizations can serve as effective watchdogs.
After Sudan’s war in the 2000s, the international community effectively abandoned Sudan. Now, it must afford its people the opportunity to build a durable peace by stopping the bloodshed and supporting their courageous grassroots initiatives.