The world’s largest human displacement crisis
We hear a lot about Gaza, not so much about Khartoum.
The conflict between the [Rapid Support Forces] and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) has now raged for eight months with no end in sight, killing thousands of people and creating what the United Nations says is the world’s largest human displacement crisis.
Beyond trapping civilians and destroying infrastructure in a country that already struggles with high rates of poverty, international observers have accused both sides of committing war crimes.
That is, international observers have accused both sides of committing war crimes along with trapping civilians and destroying infrastructure.
Evidence is also emerging that the RSF and their allies have massacred members of an African ethnic group in west Darfur, potentially repeating the genocide that took place there two decades ago.
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Sudan has dealt with civil wars practically since independence in 1956, which led to its southern half splitting off to form South Sudan. But this war is unique in that one of its main battlegrounds is Khartoum, the capital and heart of a state that is home to an estimated 9.4 million people. The months of fighting have left bodies strewn in its streets, destroyed densely populated neighborhoods, damaged a crucial bridge over the Nile River and gutted the skyline, including a prominent oil company headquarters and the justice ministry.
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Both diaspora and international humanitarian groups acknowledge Sudan’s needs are competing with the crises in Gaza and Ukraine, where Russia’s invasion will soon enter its third year.
It seems like a humanity-wide impulse to commit suicide rather than bake to death.
Or to settle scores and “win” before baking to death.
I support the Geneva Conventions, but I do wonder what the rest of the world is really supposed to do when it’s an actual ‘both sides’ situation. The question absolutely applies to the Gaza/Israel conflict, as well. As far as I can tell, the options are threefold:
1: Do nothing except offer some humanitarian aid (maybe) or allow escaping civilians to end up in refugee camps someplace, but otherwise, let them sort it out. This is the world’s approach in Sudan.
2: Pick a winner, and back them completely, even when they do horrible shit. This is the US policy in re: the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. Critics of the US position also want to do this, they just want to pick the other side.
3: Declare ‘screw it’, send in an international force under strict orders to not commit war crimes, but instead arrest the government and military leaders on both sides that are responsible for the escalation to war crimes, and ship them off to the Hague, and then let the remaining leaders proceed as they were. I don’t think anyone’s actually done this, ever, and they probably never will.
Make me God Emperor of the world and number three would become routine until it ceased being necessary… (Which is why I’d never want to be President; insufficient power).