By: Dr Gerald Walker
The need to protect civilians in conflict zones around the globe should be paramount and at the forefront of global efforts to prevent genocide. With reports of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Sudan and Burkina
Faso, global leaders must do more to prevent such a widescale tragedy from taking place.
Sudan
Armed groups and national armed forces have committed numerous human rights violations against civilians in Sudan since the start of the conflict in 2016. Thousands of civilian deaths have been recorded, especially in besieged areas, according to the Armed Conflict Location Event Database (ACLED).
Since fighting first broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on April 15, 2023, ACLED recorded 8,752 events of political violence and more than 27,120 reported fatalities in Sudan.
Outbreaks of dengue fever, malaria, cholera, and measles are hitting children the hardest, with the collapse of the education system also keeping roughly 90% of Sudan’s kids out of school, according to a recent CBS report.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy, the current rotating UN Security Council president, led a vote on a UK-Sierra Leone resolution urging civilian protection in Sudan. “The UK will never let Sudan be forgotten,” Lammy said, pledging to double UK aid for Sudan to £226 million ($285 million).
But Russia used its veto to block the proposal, accusing the UK of “neo-colonialism.”
Lammy said it was a “disgrace” that Russia had blocked the UN effort to call for a ceasefire in Sudan, adding that the “mean, nasty, and cynical veto sends a message to the warring parties that they can act with impunity.”
He said, “Shame on [Russian President Vladimir] Putin for using his mercenaries to spread conflict and violence across the African continent. And shame on Putin for pretending to be a partner of the Global South while condemning black Africans to further killing, further rape, further starvation in a brutal civil war.”
Russia’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyanskiy, responded, saying Lammy’s speech was “an excellent demonstration of British neo-colonialism” and the UK’s stance was “nothing but an attempt to allow themselves to meddle in Sudanese affairs.”
A new report by Amnesty alleges the RSF is using weapons supplied by the U.S.-allied United Arab Emirates and equipped with military technology made in France.
Amnesty identified armoured personnel carriers (APCs) made in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in various parts of Sudan. New research has shown that these APCs, which are in use by the RSF, include sophisticated French-designed and manufactured reactive defense systems.
“Our research shows that weaponry designed and manufactured in France is in active use on the battlefield in Sudan,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty’s Secretary General.
Callamard noted how Amnesty “has already shown how the constant flow of arms into Sudan is causing immense human suffering.”
“All countries must immediately cease direct and indirect supplies of all arms and ammunition to the warring parties in Sudan,” she said. “They must respect and enforce the UN Security Council’s arms embargo regime on Darfur before even more civilian lives are lost.”
UN Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderit, has warned against the possibility of genocide in Sudan and has pushed for a resolution to the crisis.
“I’m calling for attention to this particular conflict. I have been trying to get my voice out, but my voice is drowned out by other wars – in Ukraine and Gaza,” she said.
Israel’s war in Gaza against the terrorist group Hamas, which is entrenched amidst the civilian population, has also drawn vociferous criticism and accusations of genocide and ethnic cleansing.
The U.S. has resisted these claims, but until the conflict ends and the fog of war dissipates, it will be impossible to verify whether these accusations are true or not.
Burkina Faso
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), an Islamist armed group massacred at least 133 people in the town of Barsalogho, Burkina Faso, on August 24, 2024 and forced civilians to build a trench to protect the town with a military base.
The massacre is the latest example of atrocities by Islamist armed groups against civilians. The government must cease placing their civilians at such high risk of injury or death.
Since last year at least, Amnesty has been reporting on armed groups in the region committing war crimes against civilians.
According to Amnesty, since 2016, Burkina Faso has faced a non-international armed conflict opposing the government forces against Ansaroul Islam, a local armed group affiliated with Al Qaida and with the Islamic State in the Sahel (ISS or ISGS).
Government forces have been fighting insurgencies by the Al-Qaeda-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Muslimeen, JNIM) and the ISS since the armed groups entered Burkina Faso from Mali in 2016.
The two Islamist armed groups control large swathes of Burkinabè territory; they have attacked civilians as well as government security forces and fought each other.
And now, the military regime wants to reinstate the death penalty, which was abolished in the country in 2018.
Amnesty has reported a surge in the use of the death penalty on the African continent, saying in a statement in October that “recorded executions more than tripled and recorded death sentences increased significantly by 66 percent.”
The conflict is part of the broader armed conflict in the Central Sahel that began with the 2012 conflict in Mali before spreading to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger and further south to Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire.
“We are witnessing an incredibly concerning surge in Islamist violence in Burkina Faso. The Islamist armed groups’ massacres of villagers, worshipers, and displaced people are not only war crimes but a cruel affront to human decency,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, the senior Sahel researcher at HRW.
“The leaders of the Islamist armed groups should immediately end these deadly attacks on civilians,” she said.
Changing the paradigm
With so much tragedy, we must think of ways to end these terrible conflicts.
Kholood Khair, founding director of the Sudanese think tank Confluence Advisory and a prominent civil society advocate for Sudan, together with Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health, and Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation, explored whether there is a way to stop the war in Sudan.
They suggested that the warring parties abandon the idea of winning and agree to a ceasefire. They also suggested that the UN Secretary-General use Resolution 2417 to help protect civilians. And others have taken steps as well.
As HRW noted, since he gained power in a September 2022 military coup, President Ibrahim Traoré has increased the use of civilian auxiliaries called Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (Volontaires pour la
défense de la Patrie, or VDPs).
The international community must do more to pressure the various governments and armed groups in Sudan and Burkina Faso to end their conflicts and cease committing crimes against humanity. Nations must unite to fight and prevent such crimes wherever they might be committed.
