Seventeen years ago when the Sudanese army swept through Darfur, the isolated region found itself in the international spotlight as widespread atrocities were committed. Over a quarter of a million people died in the government-sponsored campaign of terror and 2.5 million were displaced and the civil war between Arab and non-Arab African tribes and herders – one defined by immense savagery, mass killings, widespread rape and ethnic cleansing – remains under investigation by the International Criminal Court as alleged genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed by government forces and militias.
Much has changed since the crisis of 2003. President Omar Al-Bashir is no longer in power and in Khartoum, an unsteady transition to democracy is taking place after he was deposed by revolutionary protests in April of last year. Furthermore, international attention has since shifted away from Darfur to other humanitarian crises in Myanmar, Ukraine, Syria, and South Sudan. Throughout the last decade, however, reports of widespread rape, the incineration of homes, torture, and even the use of chemical weapons being used by the government and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have continued to be documented by human rights groups. Under Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, a key leader instrumental in orchestrating atrocities in Darfur, the RSF was also implicated in a massacre of protesters during the 2019 revolution.
In 2020, 2.3 million civilians remain dependent on humanitarian aid as IDP camps have morphed into cities and towns. To this day, Darfur remains trapped in a vortex of violence. Men, women, and children continue to be uprooted by the conflict between militias with ties to the former regime and rebels fighters of the Sudan Liberation Army. Tens of thousands have been forced to flee their homes or cross the border into neighbouring Chad to find safety. At least 100 people were killed in one week in July as militias who have benefited from driving civilians from their homes responded violently to incursions on their new land. In anticipation of an impending peace agreement, there are fears that such groups could undermine solutions to the continuing conflict if they continue to commit atrocities against civilians who want to retrieve lands and resources taken from them in the long war.
Copyright: Chetan Sharma. The U.N mission in Sudan is one of the world’s largest.
The rise in displacement and violence comes at the exact moment that the United Nations and African Union have started announcing proposals to limit UNAMID’s activities in Sudan and conflict-affected regions such as Darfur and drawdown peacekeeping forces. Introduced to protect civilians in 2007, the announcement, including the proposed exclusion of “physical protection” of civilians, came as a shock to experts. “Darfur is not like the rest of Sudan,” said the executive director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth. “Past and ongoing violence there means civilians can’t trust Sudanese security forces alone and still look to peacekeepers for protection.”
The UK government must use its position on the UN Security Council to assist peacebuilding, civil protection and the rule of law in Darfur. Furthermore, the government must do more to tackle the proliferation of weapons in the Darfur region, an issue already exposed in South Sudan where a British company was found to violating arms export controls during a conflict defined by Priti Patel, then International Development Secretary, as a “genocide”.
With past accusations of the Ministry of Defence allegedly providing military support and training to Sudan’s military - despite the brutal campaigns being conducted in Darfur and other regions across the country such as the Blue Nile, Nuba Mountains, and South Kordofan - and the merging of the Department of International Development (DFID) with the Foreign Office, there is a risk that political priorities, as seen in Yemen’s civil war, will trump the needs of civilians impacted by the conflict including basic human rights. The UK government cannot turn a blind eye to past and present atrocities being committed by Dagalo’s RSF operating and supporting local militias in Darfur who are denying refugees access to their homes while hampering local efforts at reconciliation as well as national efforts to defuse Sudan’s complex web of conflicts.
Awash with weapons, grievances for past and present atrocities largely unresolved and with the peace process at a precarious juncture, Darfur is a ticking time bomb courting renewed catastrophe for a region already beset by multiple crises. The most recent wave of violence, displacement, and commitment of atrocities in local areas in July harkened back to some of the worst days of Darfur’s conflict. It is also another warning to the UK government and the international community of a future of tit-for-tat identity-based violence between paramilitaries, militias, and private armies should the search for justice and accountability falter.