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AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Sudan, where fighting continues after the UAE-backed Rapid Support Forces attacked a preschool last year [sic], a hospital and other sites in the state of South Kordofan, killing at least 116 people, including 46 children. This happened last week. Reports from the WHO say parents and caregivers rushed the wounded to a nearby hospital, even as the attack was ongoing. Paramedics and responders were also reportedly attacked.
Since fighting between the RSF and the Sudanese military broke out in April 2023, an estimated 150,000 people have been killed and at least 12 million displaced. Aid groups say the true death toll is likely far higher. Hundreds of thousands also face famine.
On Monday, the RSF seized the Heglig oil field, the country’s largest. This follows other RSF advances, including the seizure of El Fasher, Darfur’s largest city, in October. In this clip from Amnesty International, a survivor describes what happened when she fled El Fasher with her five children and was stopped by three armed men.
SURVIVOR: [translated] One of them forced me to go with them, cut my robe and raped me. When they left, my 14-year-old daughter came to me. I found that her clothes had blood on them and were cut into pieces. Her hair at the back of her head was full of dust. She came to me and said, “Mum, they raped me, too, but do not tell anyone.” After the rape, my daughter became really sick. When we reached Tawila, her health deteriorated, and she died at the clinic.
AMY GOODMAN: Also this week, on Tuesday, the United States Treasury announced sanctions against four people and four entities accused of recruiting Colombian mercenaries to fight alongside the RSF in Sudan.
To discuss all this and more, we’re joined by two guests. Nathaniel Raymond is executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health. The lab has been monitoring El Fasher. He’s joining us from New Haven. And here in New York, we’re joined by Kholood Khair, a Sudanese political analyst, head of the Confluence Advisory, a think tank founded in Khartoum.
Welcome to Democracy Now! Kholood, let’s begin with you. We just heard this horrific story, and this follows last week’s attack on the kindergarten and a hospital. At least 46 children were killed. For people who are not following what is happening in Sudan, can you explain why these warring parties are still fighting after two years?
KHOLOOD KHAIR: Sure. Well, this war started because the Sudanese Armed Forces, the national army, and the Rapid Support Forces, a really powerful paramilitary group, fell out of favor with each other. They were once very much allied. They committed the genocide together in Darfur 20 years ago. They led a coup against a civilian cabinet two-and-a-half years — more than two-and-a-half years ago, in 2021. And then they fell out, because there wasn’t any kind of security arrangements that both were happy with.
Now, this war is the world’s largest at the moment. It’s the world’s largest hunger crisis, world’s largest humanitarian crisis, world’s largest displacement crisis, and, as we heard in your report, charged with the world’s largest protection crisis, because of the number of women and girls, in particular, who are being exposed to gender — sexual, gender-based violence. And this war, really, to a lot of people, seems like a nonsensical conflict, because the level of fighting cannot possibly justify any political machinations of either of the two sides. But this war has now mushroomed into something much, much larger. Almost every part of Sudan is somehow impacted by this war.
People who pushed against military rule in the revolution of 2018 and 2019 are, by and large, the parts of the society that are facing the most repression from both the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces. And so we’re seeing really a war against civilians. While the SAF and the RSF are fighting each other, they’re really fighting the people of Sudan. And that’s why you get the nursery killings that we saw last week. You see barrel bombs being used by the Sudanese Armed Forces against largely civilian sites. You see the mass atrocity and genocide that’s taking place in Darfur. And all of that really can be described, I think, best, for people unfamiliar with the story, as a means for the security services in Sudan, both the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, to really try and kill any kind of revolutionary zeal in Sudan and to make sure that they pave the way for their vision of military rule.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the role of the United Arab Emirates? What’s their interest in backing the RSF? And then talk about how and why former Colombian military personnel came to fight alongside the RSF. Talk about the international dimensions of this.
KHOLOOD KHAIR: Sure. Well, increasingly, as the war continues, we get to see more and more of these proxy elements, and the most obvious one has been the United Arab Emirates. It, of course, denies supporting the RSF, but the United States’ own intelligence community, the United Nations’ panel of experts on Darfur have all shown that the UAE has been supporting the RSF pretty much from the outset of the war, and probably before that. The UAE has been familiar with the RSF for some time. The RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces were part of the Saudi-Emirati Coalition on Yemen, and that’s where their relationship really started.
But the UAE now is interested in land in Sudan, arable land, fertile land for agriculture. It’s interested in supply lines that go through the western part of Sudan and the southern part of Sudan, that the RSF largely controls. It has some interest in Red Sea access. It is also interested in being — having some kind of influence over the Red Sea, which, of course, is a very large and very important commercial zone. And because of that, it has given the RSF huge amounts, huge volumes of weapons, and very sophisticated weapons, from as far away as China. But there are also allegations that German, Swedish, British, American and Canadian weaponry that has been sold to the United Arab Emirates has found its way to the — in the RSF’s hands in places like Darfur.
Now, what we’ve seen recently is an uptick of mercenary action that is reported to have come through the Global Security Services Group, a UAE-based company, that gets particularly Colombian mercenaries that have been phased out of the Colombian — Colombian soldiers who have been phased out of the Colombian military since the 2016 peace agreement in Colombia. And those people have effectively found new livelihood sources through this UAE-based company, and most of them have now found themselves in Darfur. Now, there are some reports that these mercenaries will continue to be part of the coalition in Sudan, as we have seen them in Yemen and as we have seen them in Libya. So, this is part of a broader UAE security infrastructure that’s been put in place that we’re now seeing brought to bear in Sudan.
AMY GOODMAN: And the U.S. Treasury announcing sanctions against four people and four companies accused of aiding the RSF by enlisting Colombian mercenaries? Can you talk about the role of the U.S., which is increasingly allying with Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, UAE being the backer of one of the sides, of the RSF, what power they have here?
KHOLOOD KHAIR: So, the U.S. has a lot of power. The question is: Will they use it? Because Sudan is — even though it is the world’s largest conflict by scale right now, it is not very important, has not been a priority country for the United States, which means that increasingly what we’re seeing is that the U.S. allies are able to, you know, be involved in the war in Sudan, whether it’s by supporting one of the armed actors or, in the case of Egypt and Turkey, by increasing its weapons support to, for example, the Sudanese Armed Forces, and really allowing for these proxy elements to take part in order to keep their allies in the region happy.
And, you know, the biggest country that’s sort of — the biggest priority, I should say, in the region for the United States is, of course, Israel. And here we see that Arab countries, particularly the United Arab Emirates, that, of course, is very close to Israel, is an ally of Israel in the region, probably one of the few, has really been able to use that relationship, to leverage that relationship against Washington in terms of what it can get away with, as far as the United States is concerned. And this is what puts Sudan, unfortunately, in a very difficult position. And the rights and sort of the, you know, potential ability for civilians in Sudan to get access, to get an end to the fighting, to get a peace deal, some kind of ceasefire, all of that is complicated by the regional picture, and in particular the interests of American allies.
AMY GOODMAN: The United Nations is saying more resources are needed to adequately address the humanitarian crisis. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi says the Sudan response plan is only one-third-funded, due largely to Western donor cuts.
FILIPPO GRANDI: What is very real is that people are fleeing this advance of the RSF. I was in a place called Al Dabbah. This is in the so-called Northern state, north of Khartoum, where there is a smaller camp. You know, the biggest camp is Tawila, taking people from El Fasher. This is a smaller camp, taking people also from El Fasher, but also from Kordofan and other places. And their stories are, unfortunately, all the same: rape, murder, forced recruitment of children, separation of families and sheer robbery. … We are barely responding. I have to say, in the site — I only visited this particular site, which is not very big, about 11,000, 12,000 people, but arrivals all the time. We saw people just arrive, literally.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi. We’re bringing in now Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health, which is monitoring El Fasher. Nathaniel, we last had you on weeks ago. Explain the latest findings of your lab. You said El Fasher is beginning to look a lot like a slaughterhouse. We haven’t spoken to you since, for example, the kindergarten was attacked last week, with over 40 children killed.
NATHANIEL RAYMOND: What we’re seeing, through very high-resolution satellite imagery, is at least 140 large piles of bodies that appear at the end of October into early November, and we see basically a pattern of activity by the Rapid Support Forces that indicates they’ve been burning and burying bodies for almost the better part of five weeks. Meanwhile, we see none of the pattern of life that we expect to see in a place with civilians. There’s grass growing in the main market in El Fasher. There’s no activity at the water points or in the streets. And there’s no sign of civilian vehicles, such as donkey carts or cars. Basically, we see a ghost town, where the only visible activity is Rapid Support Forces in what’s called their technicals, their armed pickup trucks, moving objects consistent with human remains around, burying them and burning them.
AMY GOODMAN: Moving from what’s happening now, the horror we’re hearing described, to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, they’ve just sentenced the former Janjaweed leader Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, known as Ali Kushayb, to 20 years in prison for atrocities committed in the Darfur region like 20 years ago, in 2003 and ’04. He faced 31 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, turned himself in, transferred to ICC custody in 2020. The RSF is largely seen as successors to the Janjaweed. This is the presiding ICC Judge Joanna Korner.
JUDGE JOANNA KORNER: Abd-Al-Rahman’s conviction is the first acknowledgment that the people of Darfur were not victims of mere intertribal conflict or something akin to that. They were victims of a deliberate campaign, the chamber made it very clear, orchestrated by those in power, executed by the Janjaweed, led by Mr. Abd-Al-Rahman in the Wadi Salih region, under the authority of the government of Sudan, even if not specifically ordered by anyone in particular.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that was the presiding judge of the International Criminal Court sentencing the Janjaweed leader. This is crimes committed over 20 years ago. You grew up in Sudan, Kholood Khair. Is it proper to think of, as we wrap up this segment, the RSF as the kind of successors of the Janjaweed? And the significance of this sentencing?
KHOLOOD KHAIR: Absolutely. I mean, I think, first and foremost, that a lot of people will feel that 20 years is far too little for what Ali Kushayb has committed, and others will feel that it’s not enough, of course. There are four other indictees, including the former president, President Omar al-Bashir, and another very key indictee called Ahmed Haroun, who, according to the ICC, was working very closely with Ali Kushayb. Now, the issue is that both Omar al-Bashir and Ahmed Haroun are currently in Sudan, and reports say that they’re being protected by the Sudanese Armed Forces.
And this just shows you the extent to which neither the RSF nor the SAF want to see justice done in Sudan for previous crimes, or indeed for current crimes, and have blocked every single justice mechanism that we have seen. That said, Darfuri people and communities that I speak to say that at least now we’re seeing some kind of justice, some kind of recompense at the global stage, because we’re not going to get it at the national stage. No government in Sudan has ever been interested in bringing about justice for particularly those from places like Darfur and the Kordofans. So, it’s some measure of justice, but by no means enough.
AMY GOODMAN: You left just a year or two ago from Sudan. You travel the world. You talk about the situation in Sudan. What do you think, as we wrap up, are the biggest misconceptions? And what’s the most important action that must be taken now?
KHOLOOD KHAIR: I think people get very much invested in the military elements of this war — who has gained what ground, you know, which actor is potentially on the road to winning it, or isn’t. What we have seen in Sudan’s history is that no military actor has ever won a war outright, whether that’s the central Sudanese Armed Forces or any group that they have fought, no matter how strong they are. And so, investing in a military victory, investing in this narrative that we will get some kind of victor, is probably not going to serve us.
I think we need to focus on the victims. And as you said, the U.N. envelope for humanitarian aid is very poorly resourced. It’s, I think, about 16% funded. And those are the people we need to focus on. There are emergency response rooms and mutual aid groups. These are volunteer-led groups of civil society actors that are at the brunt, at the forefront of the humanitarian relief, and nobody is really looking at them, I think, sufficiently. Nobody is helping them. No one is putting money and resources to them to enable them to save lives. And they have won a string of awards. They have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize twice. But we have not seen that translate to political support, and we haven’t seen that translate sufficiently to financial support. I think investing in those groups, both for the humanitarian response and for, you know, frankly, allowing them to weave back the social fabric that this war has ripped apart, I think that is a much better investment of time than focusing on the belligerent parties.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you, Kholood Khair, for being with us, Sudanese political analyst, head of the Confluence Advisory. It’s great to have you in our studio.
KHOLOOD KHAIR: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: And Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health, monitoring El Fasher. We’ll link to your reports at democracynow.org.
Coming up, torture and enforced disappearances at ICE jails in Florida, from the Everglades to Krome. And then we will look at the case of the mother of the nephew of the White House press spokesperson. She was just released from an ICE jail yesterday. Stay with us.
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AMY GOODMAN: Alice Gerrard and band singing “When I Loved You” at the Brooklyn Folk Festival.
