The war in Sudan has led the country into a spiral of violence and despair. To better understand the dynamics of this conflict. We asked Yagoub Kibeida, a Sudanese refugee living in Turin and a leading figure in the field of refugee rights, to give us a detailed overview of the war in Sudan. Yagoub is the executive director of Mosaic – Actions for Refugees, an association that has been providing support to refugees of various nationalities in the Turin area since 2006. The association, characterized by a multicultural team, does not simply represent a specific national or religious community, but offers support to all refugees. In addition to his role in Mosaic, Yagoub holds important positions at the European and international levels. He is vice president of the European Refugee Council in Brussels and president of an emerging organization working with displaced refugees in Sudan and Global Air Connect. In addition, he is secretary of the association Unire- Unione Nazionale Italiana.
What are the main causes and consequences of the conflict in Sudan?
The war in Sudan is meaningless and mainly serves the personal interests of a few individuals. The conflict between the two generals, who obstructed the transitional democratic government after the fall of Bashir’s military Islamist regime, has definite roots. To better understand the situation, it is essential to know what led to the formation of this transitional government.
Initially, there was a pacifist popular revolution. This proved that the Sudanese people, known to be pacifists, are capable of bringing down a dictatorial regime without resorting to violence. However, this distinctive feature of Sudan is often misunderstood by the Western media, which tend to describe African conflicts as ethnic civil wars, offering a superficial definition of the situation. The Islamist dictatorial regime in power in Sudan for 30 years has caused numerous atrocities, including: genocides in Darfur, oppression of women and elimination of opponents. However, in 2019, a pacifist revolution brought an end to this regime, leading to the formation of a transitional government, half military and half civilian, with the aim of leading the country to democratic elections within three years.
Unfortunately, on 25 October 2021, General Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman Burhan of the Sudanese Armed Forces (regular army), the head of the transitional government, together with his vice-president of the transition, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo of the Rapid Support Forces (militia), carried out a coup d’état, excluding civilians from the government in order toadminister it independently. This led to hostility between the two generals. The support, by interests in the region, for both of themonly prolongs the conflict. The uninvolved Sudanese people suffer the most. The militias, in defiance of the main rules of war and human rights, loot houses, factories and private property, driving the population to flee. In addition, Russia and the Arab Emirates control the gold mines in Sudan, trading gold for weapons and further fuelling the conflict.
According to unofficial estimates, this conflict has caused 25 million displaced persons, more than two million refugees and around 150,000 deaths. The lack of proper documentation and infrastructure makes an accurate count of the victims difficult. A London institute estimated that over 60,000 people died in Khartoum alone, while international organisations report much lower figures. By the end of the conflict, the total number of deaths in Sudan could exceed that of all other current conflicts put together, including Gaza and Ukraine.
What are the effects of the stigmatisation of raped women in Sudan and what can the international community do to stop the violence?
Sudanese women suffer greatly from militias who, when entering villages, kill the men and rape the women. To avoid being raped, many women choose mass suicide, preferring death to humiliation. In Sudan, rape is taboo and a raped woman is stigmatised by the community, considered a disgrace to family and tribe. Militias exploit this taboo to humiliate women, terrorise the population and force them to flee and not fight.
When a woman is raped, she cannot live with the shame, and militias systematically use rape as a weapon of war. This modus operandi is not limited to the current conflict but was already present during the Darfur conflict in 2003, when militias, created by former dictator al-Bashir to fight in Darfur, destroyed villages and burned people in their homes.
As a civil society, we must recognise these militias as terrorists and ban them from the international community. We must freeze their bank accounts, ban them from travelling and treat them as terrorists. However, the militias currently travel freely and have unlimited funds. Despite some attempts to freeze their funds, nothing concrete has been done.
The militias consider themselves on the same level as the regular army, but we cannot put them on the same level. By doing so, they only further complicate both the negotiations to end the war and the democratic transition in Sudan. It is essential to ban them from receiving weapons and have them banned by the international community to avoid prolonging the war further.
In your opinion, why has the war in Sudan received so little media coverage compared to other conflicts and to what extent has this lack of media coverage influenced it?
The war in Ukraine and the Gaza conflict have overshadowed the Sudan crisis in the mainstream, as news is selected according to the interests of the US and Europe. As a result, the atrocities in Sudan do not receive the necessary media attention. Moreover, some influential countries, such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which have a strong control over the international media, prevent the dissemination of negative news involving them. This pattern is also repeated in other conflicts, see Libya and Yemen.
Journalists’ fear of mentioning these countries, combined with geographical distance and Europe’s perceived indifference, contributes to keeping Sudan out of the spotlight. Europe also maintains a colonialist attitude towards Africa, taking an interest only in natural resources and not in the local population. This approach also includes the sale of arms, for the profit of European companies.
Europe played a direct role in the formation of militias in Sudan, financing them to fight illegal immigration and human trafficking. These militias, active not only in Sudan but also in Niger, Mali and Chad, have become more powerful thanks to the millions of euros provided by the European Union and Italy. Although Europe has contributed to this problem, it does not seem intent on solving it.
In 2019, global feminist movements gave great support to Sudanese women during the demonstrations against al-Bashir. Why do these movements seem to remain silent in the current crisis?
The colonial way of seeing Africa as a continent of violent primitives is a persistent problem. I have noticed that on the International Day against Violence against Women, people talk about the violence suffered by them in various parts of the world, but attention is rarely paid to Sudanese women. Feminist movements often fail to mention violence against Sudanese women, as this is not reported on the news or in the media. If you make a Facebook post about Sudan or South Sudan, it is not highlighted. There is a lot of news that Sudanese people share on social media, but they do not get visibility because of their algorithms.
During the Sudanese revolution, the news got international coverage because there was no conflict in Ukraine, no conflict in Gaza, and even less electoral problems in the US. It was a profitable time, and the Sudanese women were able to enjoy international support. Moreover, the revolution they led was peaceful: a lesson for the whole world.
When a president, like the French president, says that Sudan or Sudanese women have taught non-violence, it brings visibility to the cause. However, newspapers and world leaders are currently no longer talking about Sudan because there are other issues, such as the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, that are considered more urgent.
Reflecting on this, stopping the war in Sudan is of global interest. Sudan is a strategic country located in Northeast Africa and on the Red Sea, with neighbouring countries that could be involved in a regional conflict. Russia, for example, was able to face Western sanctions because of Sudan’s gold, demonstrating the country’s international importance, although it is not recognised globally.
What specific initiatives are you Sudanese living in Italy taking to provide support and assistance to your compatriots affected by the consequences of the war?
As Sudanese, we have created an organisation called Global Aid Connection. The aim of this organisation is to mobilise all Sudanese diasporas in Europe to provide humanitarian aid to displaced refugees in Sudan. Furthermore, we want to raise the awareness of European politicians about the Sudanese conflict by doing advocacy and intensifying the dissemination of news in order to find solutions to this conflict. We also work to build peace and promote sustainable development after the war. We seek to bring about meaningful change and recognise that if we do not act ourselves, nothing will move. For this reason, we are doing our best.
