This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
We end today’s show looking at the devastating war in Sudan, the UAE-backed paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, the RSF, facing accusations of attempting to cover up its mass killings of civilians in the city of El Fasher by burning and burying bodies. That’s according to a new report by Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab, which analyzed satellite images depicting RSF fighters likely disposing of tens of thousands of remains following its capture of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, in October. At least 1,500 people were killed in just 48 hours after the RSF seized the city. The report said this pattern of body disposal and destruction is ongoing.
In the latest news from Sudan, Al Jazeera reports drone strikes have plunged several cities into darkness, including the capital Khartoum and the coastal city of Port Sudan. The RSF and the Sudanese military have been increasingly using drones in a war that’s killed over 150,000 people since April 2023. Six U.N. peacekeepers from Bangladesh were killed last week in a drone strike on their base in Kadugli.
This is Volker Türk, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, speaking last week.
VOLKER TÜRK: In Sudan, the brutal conflict between the army and the Rapid Support Forces continues unabated. From Darfur and the Kordofans to Khartoum and Omdurman and beyond, no Sudanese civilian has been left untouched by the cruel and senseless violence. I’m extremely worried, and I say it again, that we may see a repeat of the atrocities committed in El Fasher in Kordofan.
AMY GOODMAN: And this is Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health, speaking on Democracy Now! earlier this month.
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: We’re going to turn right now to Khalid Mustafa Medani, associate professor of political science and director of the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University. He’s also chair of the African Studies Program. He’s from Sudan. His latest piece is headlined “Militants and Militias: Authoritarian Legacies and the Political Economy of War in Sudan,” published by the American Political Science Association’s Middle East and North Africa Newsletter. He’s joining us from Cairo, Egypt.
Talk about the latest news of all that is happening in El Fasher, the killing of the U.N. peacekeepers, this news of the satellite images of the burned bodies.
KHALID MUSTAFA MEDANI: Yes, absolutely. Thank you for covering Sudan once again.
The problem is that it’s not only El Fasher at the moment. After — as your guest noted, after 18 months of a siege in El Fasher, in early November, it fell. But it’s been 18 months of starvation of the local population of El Fasher.
I want to highlight why El Fasher is so important strategically. It is a very important strategic and financial hub, not only for western Sudan, but for the entire region. It has trade routes with Chad, Central African Republic, Libya. It’s a source where gold is accessed and transported. It’s a hub where arms supplies are smuggled from Libya and other countries. And this is why the siege is so important and the fall of El Fasher in November is so important strategically. That’s on the kind of strategic side.
But in addition to that, of course, as the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab has pointed out in several reports, the humanitarian situation is not only visible with respect to the satellite images that show the lack of activity of a human population because of the huge displacement — approximately 60,000 people in El Fasher fled El Fasher during the fall of El Fasher — but also it’s really a horrible kind of humanitarian situation where you have social media. The Rapid Support Forces, backed by the United Arab Emirates and other countries, essentially, are posting videos of the torture that they’re engaging in in El Fasher. So, you have not only the displacement of the population, but the mass killings and, of course, the mass graves. All of that has come to light to really depict a humanitarian situation that’s really difficult to describe, in addition, of course, to the 12 million displaced in two-and-a-half years of war.
But what has happened recently is the expansion of the war to Kordofan, as the U.N. official has noted. And that is something that’s not — hasn’t been covered. Over the last month, what we’ve seen is the Rapid Support Forces have, essentially, recorded strategic and military victories, taking Western Kordofan, which is a very important area not only in terms of oil deposit, but also gold. And so, the expansion of the war, one scholar, one Sudanese activist, has called it a race on the ground — in other words, really a struggle over territory, and two entities, the two armed factions, the Sudan Armed Forces, based in Port Sudan, and the Rapid Support Forces militia, who are essentially trying to quickly amass as much territory as possible to have a very important role in the negotiations — in other words, to have a very strong kind of negotiating kind of clout, if the negotiations with the Quad, with external actors, actually commence, which I think they probably will over time.
What we see recently, of course, is the capture of the Rapid Support Forces in a very important oil center, or, rather, region, called Heglig, a small town that is in a disputed area, a region called Abyei, between North and South Sudan. Why is that important? It’s important for two reasons. This is essentially the most important region where oil is processed in South Sudan. South Sudan relies exclusively — over 90% of the government revenue comes from that, from oil from that region. That’s number one. So it’s a very strategically economically important region. It’s also a region where oil is transported to through a pipeline to the coast of Sudan. In other words, Sudan, the Sudanese government, the de facto government in Port Sudan, actually relies on this oil and the receipts from that transfer of oil for the bulk of their revenues, in addition to other sources. So, that becomes really important.
And then, the second really important aspect, and here, I think, where it’s very troubling, is that this has long been a disputed area. And so, this capture by the Rapid Support Forces last week, by the militias led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, really has the potential to expand the war, not only through Darfur and Kordofan, but also South Sudan.
And this brings us, of course, to the horrible drone attack that killed the U.N. peacekeepers in that region. There’s been a long-standing U.N. peacekeeping force in that region, that basically has kept the peace between North and South Sudan. The Rapid Support Forces’ drone attack — we don’t have confirmation it’s the Rapid Support Forces, but, nevertheless, the attack that killed the Bangladeshi U.N. peacekeepers is a way to basically undermine this very fragile truce and the keeping of the peace, so to speak, between North and South Sudan.
So, in a nutshell, we have the expansion of the war through Darfur and El Fasher, now Western Kordofan, which is an extremely important region economically. That’s where the most important commodities, such as gum arabic and sesame and gold, are smuggled, produced and smuggled to other countries. And now we have this potential of the expansion of this war to South Sudan. And so, if you put all of that together, unfortunately, we have a humanitarian crisis that has expanded, but we also have a military stalemate that has very much to do with military victories on the ground so far by the Rapid Support Forces militias.
AMY GOODMAN: So, just to clarify, the Quad is the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, where you are, in Cairo. If you could also talk about what you’re calling for? You have the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi saying the Sudan response plan is only one-third-funded due to Western donor cuts. And the U.S. is increasingly close to the United Arab Emirates, who’s backing the RSF. In these final few minutes, talk about what you feel needs to be done, and the greatest — the greatest misunderstandings about what’s taking place right now, and pressure coming from the outside.
KHALID MUSTAFA MEDANI: Yes, absolutely. The real issue has been in terms of not so much the root causes of the war, but certainly the dynamics and the transformation, the expansion of the war. Its longevity has very much to do with the fact that it’s transformed into a proxy war, where you have, basically, for — those who don’t follow Sudan should know, the United Arab Emirates, that has financial linkages and financial and logistical support to the Rapid Support Forces. You have Egypt, Saudi Arabia, who support the military, the Sudan Armed Forces. And so, since the war began two-and-a-half years ago, you basically have external actors, particularly regional actors, that have supported one armed faction rather than another. That has, of course, allowed these factions to perpetuate the war and, of course, implement and enact these horrible human rights violations.
The Quad statement, that officially came out on September 12, essentially attempts to bring all of these conflicting interests with respect to the regional actors together — the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which have different interests with respect to Sudan. What they have in common, as the war has expanded, has been a real concern about the expansion of the war with respect to their own strategic interests, particularly with respect to the Red Sea area, and also issues of terrorism and militancy, that is of a great concern to Saudi Arabia, but also United Arab Emirates. So, this is an attempt on the part of not only the United States, but, of course, these countries, to come together and iron out their differences with respect to Sudan itself. And they set out a proposal that has a number of points, but the most essential ones is to, first and foremost, understand that there’s no military solution to the conflict, to have a truce that lasts for about three months, and then transition the country once again or renew efforts at a transition to a civilian democracy. At least that is on paper.
The problem has been, of course, is, as you can understand, the Sudan Armed Forces believes and has said that these are essentially talking points of the United Arab Emirates, and they’ve rejected them. On the other hand, the Rapid Support Forces, for legitimacy reasons, has said that they will actually abide by a truce —
AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds, Professor Medani.
KHALID MUSTAFA MEDANI: — abide by a truce — absolutely. They’ll abide by a truce, but, as you — as we just discussed, they continue to implement these horrible human rights violations on the ground. The last point I want to make is the problem with the —
AMY GOODMAN: Five seconds.
KHALID MUSTAFA MEDANI: — the Quad is that it excludes Sudanese civilian organizations and reaffirms the legitimacy, so to speak, of these two warring factions.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’ll have to leave it there but pick it up another day. Professor Khalid Mustafa Medani, thank you so much for joining us.
