by Eugene Walker

International donors are fiddling as Sudan burns.
–a senior UN official.

The international community has all but abandoned Sudan to its fate, with hundreds of millions of dollars in pledged aid that never materialized and abysmal political engagement.
—Nesrine Malik, Guardian columnist

Two years ago this April, two generals in Sudan—Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, leader of the rival Rapid Special Forces (RSF)—started what has been called a “Civil War.” In truth it should be characterized as a war by two generals on the Sudanese people. Yes, the generals’ troops are fighting each other, but it is Sudanese civilians who have been dying by the tens of thousands, starving, as famine takes hold, uprooted, as millions flee with many crossing the borders into Chad, South Sudan, and other bordering countries.

THE REVOLUTION CANNOT BE FORGOTTEN

It has been two years of horror. But what must not be forgotten—not just as memory, but as the point of departure for the future—is that in 2019 the Sudanese masses began a revolution by overthrowing the decades-long dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir. That revolutionary beginning did not have a chance to develop into a full social uprooting, first because it was quickly compromised into a joint civilian-military “power sharing.” But even this was too much for the military, as the two generals jointly staged a coup in 2021, forming once again a military dictatorship. Then in April 2023, the generals split apart, warring against each other, but fundamentally warring against the Sudanese population.

So here we are now, two years later, with perhaps the world’s most extreme humanitarian disaster. But after all, it is Africa and Africans, and the world’s most powerful “leaders” have their focus elsewhere. If they worry about war, it is the brutal war in the heart of Europe, and another in the Middle East. But we must not take our eyes off of sub-Saharan Africa, whether it is war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (See Marxist-Humanist Draft Perspectives) or the human tragedy of Sudan.

A recent UN press report notes:

“With the economy and social services in ‘near collapse’. . . nearly two thirds of Sudan’s population—more than 30 million people—will require humanitarian assistance in 2025. Of these, 16 million are children. . . 1.3 million children under five living in famine hotspots, three million children under five at imminent risk of deadly disease and 16.5 million school-aged children—nearly an entire generation—out of school.”

A new turning point in the war has possibly been reached as the Sudanese army has just forced the Rapid Special Forces out of Sudan’s capital Khartoum, which the RSF had occupied since the beginning of the war. A report in The New York Times described the wholesale destruction carried out by the RSF in its two years of occupation.

The Guardian describes the capital at the present moment:

“What occurred in Khartoum is the biggest looting of an African city, if not any capital city, in modern history. From the country’s cultural heritage to the belongings of its people, nothing escaped. Sudan’s National Museum, housing precious artifacts from Nubian and Pharaonic civilizations, has been emptied. What could not be carried away was destroyed. Homes and businesses were ransacked, with everything from furniture to personal belongings carted away. Even electric wiring was not spared: dug up and stripped to be sold. Images from the city feature the remains of cars, all with their wheels and engines removed. The scale of the heist and destruction that is emerging marks the end of the siege of Khartoum as both a jubilant and profoundly sad moment.”

There is no doubt that the RSF has carried out, not alone in the capital, but especially in the West Darfur area of Sudan, a vast campaign of murder, torture, sexual violence against women and girls, and an attempted ethnic genocide against Black African groups in the Darfur region. As the Sudanese army moved to recapture Khartoum, civilians joined in the fight to oust the RSF.

This should not be taken to mean that the population regards the army as liberators—that army has its own  history of violence, suppression, killings—but it is to say that the RSF has committed even more atrocities in this war.

Nesrine Malik writes of the present moment of Sudan’s tragedy:

“The RSF militia has now decamped to a stronghold in the west of the country, where it controls almost every major city. The scale of the violence there against racial groups and tribes not aligned with the RSF has amounted to the sort of ethnic cleansing and mass murder that echoes the genocide of the 00s, and the SAF, with its deadly bombings, is responsible for numerous civilian casualties and has its own share of accusations of crimes against humanity. What has ended in Khartoum and eastern Sudan continues to rage, with even more intensity, elsewhere. The RSF may have lost its jewel in the crown, but the war is far from over.”

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Sudan needs the focus and the concrete humanitarian aid of much of the world if a vast human tragedy is to be averted. Not to be forgotten is the need for the Sudanese masses to have the opportunity to return to their revolutionary moment. Only that, not the army “overseeing,” nor foreign powers meddling, can give a rebirth to authentic self-determination for Sudan.