Father Dalle Carbonare: Sudan, “A massacre that is no longer news”

Civilians continue to be the main victims of the bloody conflict in Sudan. On 26 October, a drone belonging to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) struck a crowded market in Nyala, killing at least 36 people and injuring 150. The wounded were taken to a hospital supported by Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders).

Drone attacks also took place in Khartoum around two weeks ago and, more recently, targeted electricity infrastructure in the regions of Jazira, Sennar and Gedaref, further aggravating what is considered the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

These reports add little to the grim routine of a war that has continued since April 2023, when the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) began fighting against the militias of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Even the US State Department has issued a statement, endorsed by 30 other nations, warning of the urgent need for intervention in response to the “alarming deterioration” of the food situation.

Since the conflict began, at least 200,000 people are estimated to have died, 13 million have been displaced, and 19.5 million are facing food insecurity. At least 825,000 children are at serious risk of malnutrition.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians killed. “Since the beginning of this year, hundreds of civilians, if not thousands, have died because of drone attacks. In Khartoum, Kosti, El Obeid and Darfur. Naturally, they will say that there was a strategic objective, that they were targeting someone,” Father Diego Dalle Carbonare, provincial superior of the Comboni Missionaries in Egypt and Sudan, told SIR.

“Unfortunately, it is no longer even news: every couple of days, another incident is reported. The attacks are particularly frequent in El Obeid, where schools, university dormitories and civilians are being hit,” he said.

According to the missionary, the death toll could be far higher than 200,000. Estimates of 400,000 fatalities have also been cited in the past. Current figures may significantly underestimate the true scale of the tragedy because they do not include “people who die because they cannot access insulin, asthma medication or other medicines. These are people killed by bullets, but the overall death toll is certainly much higher.”

An Emirati woman’s candidacy for the UN leadership. Father Dalle Carbonare is also concerned about the recent announcement of the candidacy of Lana Zaki Nusseibeh, a diplomat from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), for the position of United Nations secretary-general, succeeding António Guterres.

It is now widely known—and extensively documented in various reports—that the UAE, with the acquiescence, if not the complicity, of the United States, supports the RSF militias, which are responsible for atrocities, war crimes and sexual violence. Profits are generated through arms and gold trafficking, with gold also reaching Europe.

“Having an Emirati woman at the head of the UN would be very serious,” the missionary observed. “The UAE is playing the card of regional rotation and the gender card: according to the rules, the position of secretary-general should go to the Middle East. She is a woman who always appears without a veil and embodies the image of the emancipated Arab woman. However, it is deeply troubling that such an important position could go to the UAE, a country that is buying up half of Africa and bears enormous responsibility for what is happening in Sudan and Ethiopia, where hundreds of thousands of people have died.”

The appeal to the EU: “Stop the gold trade from Sudan and the UAE”. The missionary has renewed his appeal to the European Union to “clarify the origin of Sudanese gold that travels from the UAE to Swiss banks and, from there, into Europe.”

“There are laws designed to monitor and block minerals that risk financing armed groups and fuelling conflicts,” he recalled. “But gold was deliberately excluded from the list. The task, therefore, is to press lawmakers to recognise that gold is being used to finance genocides across Africa.”

Refugees International returns from Sudan with “heartbreaking testimonies”. Numerous humanitarian organisations have documented the atrocities committed during the two and a half years of conflict.

A team from Refugees International has recently returned from a fact-finding mission, during which it witnessed the devastating destruction caused by fighting between the SAF and the RSF. Team members interviewed survivors of massacres and sexual violence and collected harrowing testimonies about preventable deaths, largely attributable to US cuts to humanitarian assistance.

In a displacement camp north of Khartoum, they interviewed people who had survived the RSF assault on El Fasher a year earlier. They had managed to escape at great risk to their lives and reported incidents of sexual violence and extortion. To flee, they had been forced to bribe RSF fighters.

Dozens of deaths caused by cuts to humanitarian aid. The representatives of Refugees International witnessed first-hand the impact of cuts to humanitarian assistance on the population.

“Many families told us they had been forced to bury their loved ones because the food and medical care they depended on were no longer available. There were at least 50 graves,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International.

“The Sudanese people continue to suffer, and the United Arab Emirates bears responsibility,” stated Daniel P. Sullivan, director for Africa, Asia and the Middle East at Refugees International.

“We spoke with survivors of sexual violence, families who fled El Fasher, and communities where RSF fighters systematically looted and killed civilians. These atrocities were made possible by the weapons and support supplied by the UAE. The Emirates cannot evade responsibility for the devastation they have helped unleash in Sudan.”

Patrizia Caiffa — SIR