by Eugene Walker
Sudanese refugee in South Sudan. Photo: Peter Caton/Oxfam, CC BY-NC 4.0
Today we are witnessing Sudan in extreme crisis. Doctors Without Borders reports people in Sudan are experiencing “the worst cholera outbreak the country has seen in years….In displacement and refugee camps, families often have no choice but to drink from contaminated sources, and many contract cholera” A UNICEF representative explained: “People cross borders. This epidemic has already crossed into South Sudan, and it’s crossing into Chad. Unless we’re able to address this crisis, we risk it rippling across borders for weeks and months to come.” Sudan has had an estimated 100,000 cases and 2,400 deaths in the past year.
The spread of cholera is only a small manifestation of what Sudan has endured in the two-plus years since 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) had a falling out in April 2023. Then they launched war against each other’s forces, but in effect warring upon the entire Sudanese population. (See News & Letters: “Sudan: warring generals versus 46 million citizens,” and “Editorial: Sudan faces mass starvation.”)
BLOODY WAR ON CIVILIANS
The situation has now reached horrific proportions, particularly in the regions of Kordofan and Darfur. Reports pour in of attacks in various villages and displacement camps, dozens killed here, hundreds there. Rape as a weapon of war is rampant. Both the Sudanese army and the RSF are carrying out war crimes, with the RSF accused of genocide in the Darfur region against Black African tribal people.
Tens of thousands have been killed. Millions have fled their homes. And widespread famine is the reality. Some twenty-five million people, more than half the population, are acutely hungry.
Soon after taking office, Trump ordered the complete destruction of U.S. foreign aid. For Sudan amid war this meant in part that in the capital, Khartoum, over 300 soup kitchens were forced to close in a matter of days. Young children died from those closures. It is not only the Trump administration but the developed world’s leaders who have for the most part ignored Sudan’s tragedy.
REVOLUTIONARY UPRISING SHOWED A WAY OUT
In this worsening humanitarian crisis, we need to remember that there was another emancipatory pathway forward that none of the world’s powers supported: the upsurge of the Sudanese masses, who in 2019 were in the streets overthrowing the three-decades long dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir. The army and RSF were key in blocking the revolution’s development and then openly staging a counterrevolution.
Recently, “Sudan, Remember Us,” a new documentary on that revolutionary upsurge, has been released. While not yet available in streaming, reviews of the film give an indication of its power, of the masses’ creativity at that moment:
The reviewer in The Guardian writes:
“The film immerses itself in the world of the protesters—particularly the young and female protesters—a whole generation energized and brought together by the insurgent movement; their passion was complicated and intensified by the fact that the revolution, at least at first, only brought in a ‘Transitional Military Council’ or TMC, which did not seem in any great hurry to transition to democratic civilian rule… [The director] Meddeb finds among the protesters a vivid, vibrant artistic movement: an oral culture of music, poetry and rap which flourishes on the streets….The protesters are suspicious of theocracy and the prevalence of a clerical class who have a great love of bullying the populace.”
It is the emancipatory moments in Sudan that need to be held onto tightly if a pathway forward is to be found.