Almost three years into Sudan’s war, drone attacks and sexual violence show no signs of relenting. Could intensified international efforts influence the situation?
Nearly three years into the war in Sudan, civilians are increasingly exposed to aerial attacks. In recent days, waves of drone strikes killed dozens of people across the White Nile state and the Kordofan region. Earlier this week, a drone struck a pickup truck carrying mourners to a funeral in West Kordofan, reportedly killing about 40 people, many of them women, the news agency AFP reported. Neither of Sudan’s warring sides — the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) nor the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — nor any of their allies, claimed responsibility.
According to an analysis by Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, an independent global monitor, at least 198 drone strikes were launched by both sides in January and February.
“The uptick in drone attacks demonstrates that, despite wars and tensions elsewhere in the Middle East, supply for the warring parties continues,” Hamid Khalafallah, an independent Sudanese policy analyst, told DW.
Khalafallah said the violence, including drone warfare, would likely increase in the coming months. “Both warring parties will be trying to make as many advancements on the battlefield as possible during the current dry season as moving troops and equipment is more expensive and complicated once the rainy season starts in June or July,” he said.
Fighting is largely concentrated within Kordofan, a strategic region separating army-held northern and central Sudan, including Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, from RSF-controlled areas in Darfur and parts of the south.
The war in Sudan broke out around April 15, 2023, when a power struggle over the integration of the RSF into the Sudanese Armed Forces escalated. Global aid organizations estimate that up to 250,000 people have been killed so far. A thorough death tally is unobtainable given the ongoing fighting and limited access to conflict areas.
‘Prolonged humanitarian crisis’
According to the UN refugee agency, as well as international aid organizations on the ground, the war in Sudan has also led to the world’s largest mass displacement, with up to 14 million people internally and externally displaced. Fighting also triggered the largest humanitarian crisis, including mass killings and widespread sexual violence. According to UNESCO, more than 12 million women and girls — out of a population of just over 50 million people total — are at risk of gender-based violence in Sudan.
The World Health Organization warned in January that more than 20 million people in Sudan are in need of health assistance, with cholera, malaria and dengue outbreaks spreading across all 18 states as the health, water and sanitation systems collapse.
According to rights groups, both sides have committed atrocities that may amount to war crimes and acts of genocide. Despite the ongoing violence, including the RSF’s mass killing of civilians in the Darfur city of el-Fasher in late October, Sudan remains the most-neglected global crisis, several surveys found.
“Sudan is facing a deep and prolonged humanitarian crisis that is increasingly disappearing from international attention,” said Samy Guessabi, Sudan country director at the aid organization Action Against Hunger.
In the past three years, Guessabi said he had witnessed the cumulative impact of armed conflict, mass displacement and economic collapse. “What we see every day is not only hunger, but a progressive erosion of resilience as families are skipping meals and selling their remaining assets,” he added.
Women and girls bear the brunt
Guessabi said women and girls were bearing a disproportionate share of the suffering. “When families cannot feed their children, they make unthinkable choices,” Guessabi said, “and we hear about early marriage, driven less by tradition than by desperation.”
About 19 million children are out of school in Sudan, according to UNESCO.
“Thousands of girls need opportunities to continue their education as long periods of interrupted education increase social risks, including high rates of child marriage,” Salma Suliman, founder of the Sudanese Taja organization, an NGO that focuses on the protection of women, told DW. “This casts a dark shadow on the future of the coming generations,” Suliman said.
Michelle D’Arcy, Sudan country director of the Norwegian People’s Aid organization, told DW that women have stepped forward in extraordinary ways. “Across Sudan, women-led emergency response rooms and grassroots networks have organized community kitchens, distributed food and provided psychosocial support,” she said. She added that women volunteers are often the people who keep communities alive.
D’Arcy said it was key that the international community support civilian peace efforts in Sudan. “This includes diplomatic pressure for a ceasefire, and engagement of a broad range of Sudanese civilian actors using nonviolent tools working for peace,” D’Arcy said.
International efforts, agendas
Over the course of the war, several rounds of peace negotiations initiated by the so-called Quad — the United States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — have largely failed.
The US and EU had long ago imposed sanctions on both the RSF and the SAF, as well as on members of both warring parties. Earlier this week, the US designated the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood a Specially Designated Global Terrorist organization and said it plans to list it as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
“The Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood (SMB), composed of the Sudanese Islamic Movement and its armed wing — the al-Baraa Bin Malik Brigade (BBMB) — uses unrestrained violence against civilians to undermine efforts to resolve the conflict in Sudan and advance its violent Islamist ideology,” the US State Department said.
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/civil-war-in-sudan-is-a-never-ending-humanitarian-crisis/a-76335589
