We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
{{ subpage.title }}
Women from the city of Al-Junina (West Darfur) cry after receiving the news about the death of their relatives as they waited for them in Chad, Nov. 7, 2023.
Sudan genocide feared after massacre at refugee camp
Sudan’s ongoing civil war may once again be spiraling into genocide. Late last week, the UN Refugee Agency condemned the mass killing of at least 800 people within 72 hours by the Arab paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and its allies in the Ardamata refugee camp in West Darfur. This weekend, the EU's chief diplomat Josep Borrell cited witness reports that over 1,000 members of the Black African Masalit population had been killed, noting that the international community “cannot turn a blind eye on what is happening in Darfur and allow another genocide to happen in this region."
Borrell was referencing the mass killing in Darfur that saw 300,000 Masalit murdered between 2003 and 2005 by an Arab militia known as the Janjaweed. Former President Omar al-Bashir used the militia to crush Darfuri rebel groups who were revolting against the neglect of the region's Black African population. Today’s RSF, including its leader, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, aka Hemedti, are reportedly drawn from this group of Janjaweed fighters.
The UN Refugee Agency also reported “shocking accounts of widespread rape and sexual violence” committed by the RSF, following a report in August 2023 by the UN Human Rights Commission that the RSF was deploying rape and sexual violence “as tools to punish and terrorize communities.”
So far, however, no major world leaders have condemned the violence, called for a ceasefire, or demanded meetings to end the conflict.
Women from the city of Al-Junina (West Darfur) cry after receiving the news about the death of their relatives as they waited for them in Chad, November 7, 2023.
Sudan’s civil war rages through Darfur
Sudan’s civil war reached a grim turning point this week as Rapid Support Forces paramilitaries solidified their control over the Darfur region in Western Sudan. The RSF has been accused of war crimes there as part of its conflict with the Sudanese government.
The background: Back in 2019, the Sudanese military and the RSF cooperated to topple long-serving dictator Omar Bashir, but they fell out over how to work together thereafter. In April of this year, clashes between them erupted into a full-blown war that has left thousands dead and driven more than 5.7 million people from their homes. More than a million have fled to neighboring Chad, one of Africa’s poorest countries.
In Darfur specifically, the RSF and allied Arab militias have been accused in recent months of targeted massacres of the Masalit, a local Black African ethnic group that is a minority within the wider Arab-dominated Sudanese state. RSF fighters have also been accused of systematically abducting and raping women and girls in Darfur.
Flashback: Twenty years ago, Darfur was the scene of gruesome atrocities in which the Sudanese government and local Arab militias (including the fearsome janjaweed horsemen) slaughtered more than 170,000 Masalit in response to a rebellion against the central government. The US government labeled that campaign a “genocide” in 2004.
Peace talks have failed. There are various cross-cutting initiatives led by the African Union, Egypt, the US and Saudi Arabia, and South Sudan. Several ceasefires have fallen apart already. Meanwhile, Sudan’s civilians continue to pay the price.
The UN warned on Tuesday that the deepening war had “turned homes into cemeteries.”
A young Darfuri girl carries her sleeping brother at Zam Zam camp in Sudan's North Darfur state
Sudan’s Darfur region faces repeat of genocidal history
This week, Sudan passed the 100-day mark of brutal fighting between its army and the Rapid Support Forces, a powerful paramilitary group. As the fighting rages on, it is becoming clear to the international community that the RSF has returned to the Darfur region to complete the genocide it began 20 years ago against non-Arabs.
The warring factions are led by Sudan’s de facto leader Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan and his former ally and junta deputy Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo (aka Hemedti), with Burhan leading the armed forces and Hemedti leading the RSF. Their power struggle has brought the country to the brink of civil war and a potential state collapse.
The two sides came to the negotiating table in Togo this week, a critical step after months of failed peace talks and broken cease-fires. But there is little evidence that these talks will go differently than in the past, especially since major stakeholders, specifically the Arab militias that have joined the RSF in Darfur, have boycotted the meetings.
A civil war would mean more tribal militias being drawn into the conflict, escalating violence and instability. At the beginning of the war, tribal militias denounced the power struggle. But as it progresses, more and more militias are choosing sides. In Darfur, Arab-tribal militias are joining the RSF and are accused of looting as well as raping and killing non-Arab people in the region.
The ethnic violence in Darfur is historically rooted in water disputes between Arab and non-Arab communities. The 2003 civil war became known as the world’s “first climate change war,” spurred by the former president, Omar al-Bashi, who stayed in power by exploiting the tensions over resources to recruit and arm Arab militias. These fighters would become the Janjaweed and eventually the RSF.
While civilians across Sudan are suffering, non-Arab communities in Darfur are at acute risk. Since the conflict broke out in April, more than 10,000 people have been killed in West Darfur. The governor was abducted and killed in June after publicly blaming the RSF for the deaths. Satellite imagery from Yale University’s Conflict Observatory has identified mass graves and entire neighborhoods that have been burned to the ground.
Some 200,000 non-Arab people died in Darfur between 2003 and 2005 in what would later be categorized as genocide. Today, the same population is at risk of mass atrocities at the hands of the RSF.
The historical context in Darfur matters, because it reveals why the situation in Sudan is not an easy one to solve. Since 2003, international intervention in Darfur – and Sudan writ large – has largely been a failure. Revelations of the Darfur genocide led to cries of “never again” and passionate movements to “Save Darfur,” and a brief moment in 2019 when the US‘ hopes of establishing a democracy looked possible. But these efforts, whether peacekeeping, humanitarian, or governmental, have largely failed because of the complexity of Sudan’s political environment.
These historic challenges remain today. International efforts to protect people in Darfur from the RSF must also avoid empowering the Sudanese armed forces, who are committing mass atrocities against civilians as well. Ethnic violence over resources will also be an escalating problem – fighting has already stopped farmers from planting crops, and climate change will only make matters worse in the drought-prone region.
Time is of the essence when it comes to peace talks. No recent conflict in Sudan has ended because of a military triumph. Instead, as the military stalemate wages on, violence and instability will only increase as more militias join the fighting. Civilians are already suffering as humanitarian and food aid is seized by the government’s army, and more than three million people have been displaced.
Critically, Sudan also borders seven other countries, so there is a strong likelihood that civil war could have a domino effect across the already troubled Chad Basin and the Sahel.
Has the world turned its back on Sudan? Ian Bremmer sat down with the US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield to find out. Watch to hear what the US intends to do when it takes over as head of the UN’s Security Council in August.
A Sudanese girl who fled the conflict in Darfur stands at her makeshift shelter near the border between Sudan and Chad
Another flareup in Western Darfur
As fighting between two rival army factions in Sudan rages on, the spillover effects on the restive Darfur region are getting worse.
The flare-up has drawn in local militias in Western Darfur, resulting in hundreds of deaths in the city of El-Geneina this week alone, while thousands have also been displaced.
Hospitals and markets in the region were also burned down by Arab militias and African insurgent groups that have remained at loggerheads since 2003, when Sudan's then-President Omar al-Bashir waged a deadly crackdown to quash an ethnic revolt, killing some 300,000 people.
Many of those fleeing the violence in Western Darfur are now crossing over into Chad, exacerbating a humanitarian crisis in one of the world’s poorest countries.
Meanwhile, the UN said on Wednesday that more than half of Sudan’s population – around 25 million – now relies on aid, up from 15 million, and has called on member states to raise $3 billion to help the war-torn country. But if the crisis in Yemen is anything to go by – the UN’s Humanitarian Response Plan there remains grossly underfunded – Sudan might not get what it needs from the international community anytime soon.
What We're Watching: Taliban ditch poppies, another Chinese COVID mishap, Darfur war crimes tribunal
Taliban ban poppy cultivation
Fulfilling a long-held promise, the Taliban have banned the cultivation of poppies, the main ingredient used in heroin and other opiates. “If anyone violates the decree, the crop will be destroyed immediately, and the violator will be treated according to Shariah law,” the group said. Afghanistan is by far the largest producer of opium, accounting for 85% of all production globally. (After the Taliban took control last year, opium production increased in the country by 8%.) Indeed, the move comes as the Taliban are vying to gain recognition from the international community as the legitimate ruler of Afghanistan and unlock millions of dollars worth of foreign reserves currently held in US banks. However, as cash runs dry from the opium trade, regular Afghan farmers who depend on the crops for their livelihood will feel the economic pain. Observers are warning of an impending calamity in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, which is already reeling from economic collapse with reports of Afghans being forced to sell their children and organs to survive.
Another China COVID controversy
The numbers remain small by US and European standards, but China has faced record high numbers of COVID infections in recent days, and emergency measures to contain an outbreak of a subtype of the omicron variant in Shanghai has persuaded the government to take actions considered drastic even in China. Thousands of healthcare workers from neighboring provinces and about 2,000 military health personnel were dispatched to the city to help perform COVID tests on all of Shanghai’s 26 million people. State officials say that process wrapped up on Monday, but a two-phase lockdown continues as the scale of the outbreak is assessed. In the meantime, the plan has generated controversy, including across Chinese social media: A rule that anyone testing positive must be isolated from those who test negative has reportedly forced the physical separation in some cases of young children, even babies, from their parents.
Darfur war crimes tribunal kicks off
Nearly two decades after the conflict in Darfur broke out, the first war crimes tribunal kicks off this week in the International Criminal Court at the Hague. Ali Muhammad Abd-al-Rahman, former military commander of the Khartoum-backed Janjaweed militia, could spend the rest of his life behind bars if convicted on a range of war crimes, including murder, rape, and torture. Beginning in 2003, mostly non-Arab rebel groups that felt marginalized by the government of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir took up arms against Khartoum. Al-Bashir and his allies responded with a brutal crackdown on Sudan’s Western Darfur region that led to 300,000 deaths and displaced 1.6 million Sudanese. It has since been deemed a genocide by the United States. Al-Bashir, who was ousted in a popular uprising in 2019, is also wanted by the Hague but remains in custody in Khartoum. While this case is boosting hopes for more accountability for war crimes committed across sub-Saharan Africa in recent decades, it comes amid dashed hopes for democracy in Sudan after a joint civilian-military government was overthrown in a coup last October by former allies of al-Bashir.
What We're Watching: Tanzania's new leader, big global economic recovery (for some), more bloodshed in Darfur
Tanzania's U-turn on COVID, press freedom: Tanzania's new President Samia Suluhu Hassan announced on Tuesday that she'll appoint a committee to determine whether the country should start responding to the pandemic, though she stopped short of implementing any sweeping changes. While it's late in the game more than a year since the pandemic was declared, it's still a big deal considering that her late predecessor John Magufuli, who she served under as deputy for six years, was a COVID denier who shunned masks and vaccines, refused to implement pandemic-related restrictions, and declared Tanzania virus-free thanks to prayers from its citizens. (Magufuli died last month, officially from heart complications but it's widely suspected he contracted COVID-19). Hassan, who has been criticized for embracing her former boss' authoritarian tendencies at times, also plans to lift Magufuli's bans on critical media outlets, another major shift for a nation where journalists are often prosecuted over social media posts critical of the government, and citizens are regularly denied access to independent sources of information. We're watching to see if Hassan delivers on her promise of change for Tanzania.
Global economy set to rebound big: The global economy is set to grow by 6 percent this year, the IMF now says, representing the biggest output surge since the 1970s. Much of this anticipated growth is attributed to big government stimulus packages pumped into developed economies like the US, the EU and Japan in recent months. In the United States, the world's largest economy, many economists estimate that the recently passed $1.9 trillion relief package will spur economic expansion by a whopping 6.4 percent in 2021, with the US set to join China as the only two economies to achieve GDP growth exceeding pre-pandemic levels. But the economic recovery will be vastly uneven. In some emerging market economies where governments don't have the means to pump huge amounts of cash into the economy, and a lack of travel has decimated tourism-reliant communities, the post-COVID economic rebound could take much longer, the IMF says. This trend is compounded by sluggish vaccine rollouts in many places because of vaccine hoarding by wealthy countries. Still, there is no hard-and-fast rule: In large economies where the virus continues to spread like wildfire, like in Brazil, the economy continues to teeter.
State of emergency in West Darfur: Last fall, a peace treaty was signed between Sudan's transitional civilian-military government and some Darfur rebel groups, raising hopes of a new peaceful era after decades of bloodshed in Sudan. Then, the UN-African Union peacekeeping mission announced it would withdraw from West Darfur (the Sudanese enclave that borders Chad) after 13 years of occupation. But in recent months, violence has continued unabated there, prompting the Sudanese government to declare a state of emergency. Over the past few days, at least 50 people were killed in violent clashes between ethnic groups, with projectiles hitting a UN compound and a hospital. Disagreements between Arabs and non-Arab herders over farming rights and water access, coupled with other ethnic tensions and easy access to cheap weapons, have created a combustible situation in conflict-ridden Darfur. Since 2003, when Sudan's then-President Omar al-Bashir waged a deadly crackdown to quash an ethnic revolt, some 300,000 people have been killed and millions displaced. As violence surges, hopes of a long-sought peace diminish.What We’re Watching: Biden takes (executive) action, Dutch curfew, Darfur bloodshed
Biden's first-day blitz: Just hours after taking the oath of office as the 46th US president, Joe Biden hit the ground running, signing a whopping 17 executive actions, most of which reverse the Trump administration's policies. The main areas of focus are COVID (reorganizing the federal response coordination structure, returning to the World Health Organization), climate change (rejoining the Paris Climate Accord, cancelling the Keystone KL pipeline), and immigration (ending the travel ban for certain Muslim-majority countries, stopping construction of the southern border wall, and giving more protection to so-called "Dreamers," undocumented people who entered the country when they were children). He also signed orders directing US federal agencies to root out discrimination and barriers to opportunity in their hiring and policies. We're watching how many of these actions will be challenged in the courts — as a lot of Trump's were four years ago — and whether they will hamper Biden's ability to get moderate Republican support for key legislation he can't get done just with the stroke of his pen.
Netherlands curfew: Once an outlier in Europe for its somewhat lax approach to the pandemic, the Dutch government has proposed implementing the country's first nationwide curfew since World War Two, while also banning all flights from the UK, South Africa and South America. With infections surging, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said he doesn't have a choice anymore as the new COVID strain from Great Britain threatens the Netherlands — where the government has come under fire for being the last EU member state to roll out vaccines (only 100,000 have gotten the jab so far). The decision comes at a tough time for Rutte, whose entire government stepped down last Friday over a childcare subsidies fraud scandal. Rutte will remain interim PM until after new elections are held, but he must rely on broad support from all political parties to get his new pandemic response measures — including the curfew — approved in parliament. Will the outgoing Rutte manage to convince enough skeptics to back his measures to keep the virus in check before the March 17 vote?
Fresh violence in Darfur: Just weeks after the UN and the African Union announced they would end a 13-year long peacekeeping mission in Sudan's long-troubled Darfur region, a fresh outbreak of violence has claimed more than 100 lives in recent days. The violence began over a stabbing that quickly led to militia group attacks that forced 50,000 people to flee their homes. The clashes take place months after Sudan's transitional civilian-military government signed a shaky deal with Darfur rebel groups that raised hopes for peace in a long-running territorial, ethnic, and sectarian conflict that pits local rebels against the central government. The fighting has killed some 300,000 and displaced more than 5 million since 2003, as the government employed militias to carry out a genocide against the local population. If the Sudanese are unable to calm tensions soon and ensure security, foreign peacekeepers may have to cancel their withdrawal and stay in Darfur longer than expected.What We're Watching: India has the world's fastest growing epidemic, clashes in Darfur, US election calendar
COVID-19 pummels India: India, home to 1.3 billion people, passed a grim milestone recently as the country with the fastest growing epidemic in the world, according to Bloomberg's COVID tracker. Reporting over 1.43 million cases on Monday, a 20 percent week-on-week increase, it now trails only the US and Brazil in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases. Indeed, several factors have complicated India's efforts to contain the virus. Workers who toil in the country's robust informal sector do not have the luxury of working from home. Meanwhile, social distancing and hygienic upkeep are all but impossible for millions of people living in crowded slums. On Monday, India recorded one of its highest daily caseloads, with almost 50,000 reported infections, likely a gross undercount considering that the country still has one of the lowest testing rates in the world. (India is testing around 12 people per 1,000, compared to 153 in the US, 130 in the UK, and 184 in Russia.)
Fresh wave of violence in Darfur: At least 60 people have been killed in clashes in Sudan's Darfur region in recent days, the latest episode in a string of violent incidents that threaten to destabilize the country's nascent transitional government. Clashes between the Masalit ethnic group and other Arab tribes broke out after some 500 armed militants stormed the Masteri village on Saturday, and proceeded to loot homes and food markets. This attack coincided with the region's agricultural season, exacerbating the dire humanitarian situation in the region (around 6.2 million Sudanese rely on humanitarian assistance to survive, according to USAID.) The recent unrest threatens the effort by Sudan's joint civilian-military government — which came to power after Omar al-Bashir, Sudan's former strongman president, was overthrown in a coup last year — to end a decades-long civil war that displaced millions of people. Al-Bashir himself is expected to face international charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in The Hague because of his government's brutal crackdown on rebellions that resulted in at least 300,000 deaths.
US election calendar: Last Sunday, many US analysts noted that the November 3 US elections were just 100 days away. This is false. President Trump has much less than 100 days to stage a comeback in a race he now appears to be losing, because more US states now allow early voting by mail, and because COVID-19 makes it more likely that tens of millions of Americans will cast mail-in ballots in September and October. The virus will likely blunt the political impact of the scaled-back party conventions scheduled for August, and as many as half of all votes cast in swing states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, and North Carolina may well be cast before the first televised presidential debate scheduled for September 28. (That debate is now looking for a new venue after COVID-19 forced the University of Notre Dame to withdraw as host on Monday.)