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Talks began in Switzerland on Wednesday to end Sudan’s 16-month civil war, but the army’s absence has dampened hopes for swift action to ease the country’s humanitarian crisis.
UN officials warned this week that Sudan is at a “catastrophic breaking point” and that tens of thousands of preventable deaths from hunger, disease, floods and violence will occur in the coming months without a larger global response.
Who takes part in the conversations?
US special envoy to Sudan Tom Perriello has been pushing for talks but has said direct mediation would be impossible without the Sudanese military presence. Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, the United Nations, the African Union, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an East African regional body and other experts would discuss roadmaps to end the violence and deliver humanitarian aid.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which controls large parts of the country, sent a delegation to Switzerland, but enthusiasm for the talks is unclear.
The military has said its absence from the talks stems from its failure to implement earlier U.S.- and Saudi-brokered commitments to withdraw fighters from civilian areas and facilitate aid deliveries, which mediators say both sides ignored.
“Military operations will not stop without the withdrawal of all militia members from the towns and villages they have plundered and colonized,” Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, leader of the Sudanese armed forces, said Tuesday night.
The current talks will also focus on developing an enforcement mechanism for any deal.
How we got here
Sudan was already struggling before the latest fighting broke out, as the country struggled with sanctions and isolation under former leader Omar al-Bashir.
To crush an uprising in the Darfur region in the early 2000s, the Bashir government used the so-called Janjaweed militias, a precursor to the RSF. An estimated 2.5 million people were displaced and 300,000 killed in the conflict, and prosecutors at the International Criminal Court have charged government officials and Janjaweed commanders with genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in Darfur.
Bashir was ousted in a coup in 2019 after weeks of pro-democracy protests. dozens of activists killed in demonstrations by government forces. Bashir was detained and in 2023 Sudanese officials said he had been transferred to a prison medical facility, although no specific details were given. He is now 80 and remains wanted by the ICC.
Sudan was removed from the US list of state sponsors of terror in 2020, opening the door to much-needed foreign loans and investment. But late the following year, Sudan’s military and the RSF overthrew the embryonic civilian government.
The current19:34They lost everything during their flight from Sudan, but they cannot go back
At the Chadian border, there’s a steady stream of donkeys pulling carts laden high with people’s belongings, all they could carry as they fled the brutal conflict in Sudan. The Current’s Liz Hoath went there to talk to refugees and the aid workers struggling to help.
In April 2023, war broke out between the army and the RSF, over disagreements over the transition from military rule to free elections.
The RSF has remained active in several areas of Sudan, heavily bombing the cities of Omdurman, El Obeid and Al Fashir, and has also expanded into the southeast, displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians.
The RSF, led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, denies many reports of attacks on civilians by fighters.
Famine in refugee camp in the north
Sudanese people are facing a myriad of long-term problems. The rainy season is in full swing, damaging homes and shelters across the country and threatening a wave of water-borne diseases. In the past week, 268 cases of cholera were reported in Sudan, according to the Ministry of Health.
The world’s worst humanitarian crisis has occurred since the outbreak of war last year, with half of the 50 million people without food and parts of the North Darfur region facing famine.
Aid agencies say they have faced huge logistical, security and bureaucratic problems. They say the army has blocked humanitarian aid and the RSF has looted it in areas they control. Both denied obstructing humanitarian operations.
Local volunteers have tried to fill the gap, but have often been met with suspicion, approached and struggled to raise funds.
A global hunger monitor, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, reported in July that restrictions on aid deliveries have caused famine in the Zamzam camp in North Darfur, an area for internally displaced people.
“Without treatment, children with severe malnutrition are at risk of dying within three to six weeks [at Zamzam camp]”, Doctors Without Borders added on August 4.
The Sudanese government has rejected descriptions of famine in the camp.
Huge displacement
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), more than 10 million Sudanese, or 20 percent of the population, have been forced from their homes since the war began.
Since the beginning of the war, more than 2.2 million people have fled to other countries.
“All the refugees I met said they fled Sudan because of hunger,” said Dr. Shible Sahbani, the World Health Organization’s representative for Sudan, during a visit to a refugee camp in Chad.
The current23:40Aid to Sudanese women fleeing sexual violence
Women fleeing Sudan’s civil war are facing sexual and gender-based violence while seeking refuge in neighboring Chad. The Current’s Elizabeth Hoath tells us the stories of four women — and the staggering challenge for aid workers trying to help.
Nearly 7.8 million Sudanese have fled to other parts of the country, the IOM said in its latest bimonthly report. Another 2.8 million people have already been displaced by previous conflicts in the country.
As the RSF has expanded its reach into the southeast of the country in recent weeks, more than 150,000 people from Sennar state have been displaced – many for the second or third time – after RSF raids on markets and homes in the state’s small towns and villages, the IOM said.
Many of the displaced are now in Gedaref state, home to 668,000 people who are struggling with heavy rains and have limited shelter, and RSF units have also conducted raids there.
The conflict and the displacement have made women particularly vulnerableaccording to Human Rights Watch in a report at the end of July.
The RSF has committed widespread acts of sexual violence in the capital Khartoum, including gang rape and forced marriages, the report alleged. It cited reports of the RSF holding women and girls in conditions that could amount to sexual slavery.
According to the Human Rights Watch report, some attacks were also attributed to the military.
