An unimaginable humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Sudan

An unimaginable humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Sudan

Subject :IR

Section: Places in News

Context: ‘Corpses on streets’: Sudan’s RSF kills 1,300 in Darfur, monitors say

Why in news:

• Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) besieged a camp for displaced people on November 2 after attacking a nearby army base in West Darfur. Over the next three days, the paramilitary group committed what may amount to the single largest mass killing since the civil war erupted in April.
• Local monitors told about 1,300 people were killed, 2,000 injured and 310 remain missing.
• Mostly killed are Masalit people
• The Masalit are an ethnic group who reside mainly in Chad and Darfur in Sudan.

When did it start?

On April 15th, 2023, violent clashes erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan, resulting in the displacement of over 3.3 million people, including internally displaced people (IDPs), asylum seekers and refugees. This conflict exacerbated many of Sudan’s existing challenges, including ongoing conflicts, disease outbreaks, economic and political instability and climate emergencies.

A history of ethnic cleansing

• For decades, Sudan’s central government neglected non-Arab farmers and Arab pastoralists in Darfur, pushing them to compete for fertile land and dwindling water resources.
• Former President Omar al-Bashir exacerbated these tensions by pitting tribes against each other as part of a divide-and-rule strategy. In 2003, he armed Arab tribal militias and tasked them with crushing a mostly non-Arab rebellion, which started with protests against Darfur’s economic and political marginalisation.
• About 300,000 people died in combat as well as from famine and disease brought on by the conflict. Rights groups and the UN accused these government-backed militias –  known to victims as the janjaweed, or “devils on horseback” – of carrying out ethnic cleansing.
• Between 2003 and 2008, Khartoum supported the Janjaweed Arab militias to put down rebel groups in Darfur, whose members included Masalits, leading to widespread abuses against civilians. Around 300,000 people were killed and over 2 million were displaced in the region in this time period.
• The RSF grew in large part out of the Janjaweed militias.

Displacement:

Within Sudan, 4.5 million people have been internally displaced since April, when the war began, while 1.2 million have fled to neighbouring countries like Chad, Egypt, South Sudan, Ethiopia and the Central African Republic (CAR). The overwhelming majority of the refugees (in some cases, as in the CAR, nearly 90 per cent) are women and children.

Recent fighting in the Darfur region has caused even more displacement with thousands of people struggling to find shelter and many sleeping under trees by the roadside. We are very concerned about them not having access to food, shelter, clean drinking water or other basic essentials.