Sudan civil war threatens to unleash massive famine

The Washington Post's Ishaan Tharoor is reporting that fighting between two rival warlords in Sudan has escalated to an all-out civil war that has threatened the food security of close to a million people.

In April 2023 fighting began in the capital city of Khartoum between forces loyal to General Abdel Fattah al-BURHAN, the top commander of the Sudanese armed forces, and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, "Hemedti", who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, a militia with a long history of violence going back decades. The fighting that began in the capital has spilled out into the countryside disrupting both Sudanese agriculture and international relief efforts there.

Over a million people have been displaced. 150,000 people have been killed and the United Nations warns that 750,000 are on the verge of starvation.

There are reports of massacres, mass rapes and other atrocities. The two sides have used artillery bombardments and airstrikes on civilian neighborhoods. The RSF and their allied militias have reportedly been slaughtering ethnic non-Arab Sudanese in the towns and cities they have captured. Relief agencies have accused the Sudanese military (the faction that was the internationally recognized government of Sudan) of blocking aid from getting to RSF controlled regions of the country. The RSF on the other hand has been accused of rampaging and looting across the crop growing sections of the country.

Egypt, Iran, and Ukraine are reportedly supporting the Sudanese military faction. The United Arab Emirates and Russia are reportedly equipping the RSF forces.

China, Russia, Serbia, Turkey, the UAE and Yemen have all exported "large quantities" of weaponry into Sudan even though there has been a 20-year U.N. arms embargo on the country going back to the slaughter involved in the civil war that resulted in South Sudan seceding from the country in 2011 after two civil wars (1955 to 1972) and (1983 to 2005). Where the Sudan/South Sudan border is still an open issue that has been in negotiations for years.

Amnesty International has called the current arms embargo "inadequate."

The violence and looting has negatively affected both crop harvest and relief efforts. 11 million people have fled their homes. 19 million children are not able to go to class because their schools have closed. The U.N. says that 26.6 million people are "food insecure." The U.S. and Saudi Arabia are attempting to facilitate negotiations between the two sides. Those talks will take place in Switzerland next month.

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Sudan is Africa's third-largest country. It has a population of 50.5 million with a median age of 19.3. 40.1% of the population is age 14 or less. 70% of the nation is Sudanese Arab, with over 500 other ethnicities represented including the Fur, Beja, Nuba, Ingessana, Uduk, Fallata, Masalit, Dajo, Gimir, Tunjur, Berti, etc. Estimated per capita GDP in 2023 was $2,800, down from $3,300 in 2022, and $3,400 in 2021.

The 30-year reign of President (dictator) Omar Hassan Ahmad al-BASHIR ended in 2019 when the military forced him out after a year of nationwide protests. Economist and former international civil servant Abdalla HAMDOUK al-Kinani was selected to serve as the prime minister of a transitional government with elections scheduled for 2022. In late 2021, however, the Sudanese military ousted HAMDOUK and his government. HAMDOUK was briefly reinstated but resigned in January 2022. General BURHAN is the de facto head of state and government. Sudan was effectively a British colony from 1899 to 1955.

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