Canada belatedly lays Sudan sanctions as ex-envoy seeks pathway to end year-long war
As the federal government belatedly laid sanctions Monday against those it blames for perpetuating a year-long civil war in Sudan, the country's former ambassador in Ottawa said Canada can help lay the pathway for peace.
"The world should be appalled by the unmatched calamity happening in Sudan," said Tarig Abusalih, its most recent ambassador to Canada.
A year ago, a long-standing political feud between branches of Sudan's military broke into armed conflict that caused Western countries to evacuate citizens and resulted in what the United Nations calls the world's largest internal displacement crisis.
The paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces stands accused of trying to replicate the Darfur genocide while the army, the Sudanese Armed Forces, has also been blamed for brazen acts of violence.
Countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Iran and Russia are accused of providing cash and arms for the warring parties, with recent reports that long-distance drones from abroad are being used in the conflict.
The Montreal-based Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights issued a report Monday that builds the case a genocide is already underway, laying out documentation of massacres, sexual violence and public executions meted out on an ethnic basis.
Canada expressed serious concern about the civil war from the get-go.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with Abusalih the day fighting broke out, when they both happened to be attending a community event near Toronto.
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly went to Kenya to meet with regional leaders about ways Africans could help advance peace in Sudan, and Canada allocated humanitarian aid.
It was all part of what Abusalih called a flurry of activity in the first months of the war, as Global Affairs Canada regularly reached out about how Ottawa could support Sudanese people and try to help end the conflict.
Yet until this week, little had happened since last summer.
Joly had not raised the Sudan war in public statements for months when last week, in the lead-up to the one-year anniversary of the conflict, International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen announced more humanitarian funding.
On Monday, Joly announced sanctions on those "directly or indirectly undermining peace, security and stability in Sudan," some seven months after Washington took a similar step.
Those sanctioned include Sudanese paramilitary commander Abdelrahim Hamdan Dagalo as well as former foreign minister Ali Karti, who led an Islamist group that opposes democratic rule. Ottawa is also sanctioning four companies it accuses of emboldening both warring factions.
"This is a small first step from the Canadian government after a year of inaction as Sudan’s civil war erupted, with thousands of people killed, displaced and now on the brink of a man-made famine," NDP foreign affairs critic MP Heather McPherson said in a statement Monday.
Abusalih said Sudan deeply appreciates the $170 million Canada allocated last year for Sudanese within the country and those who have fled to neighbouring states.
Canada has topped up that funding with another $132 million, part of a US$2.1-billion fund for humanitarian relief pledged Monday at a global conference Hussen attended in Paris.
Abusalih said that money is desperately needed by Sudanese people who are facing hunger, a lack of medicines and violence in camps.
"I hope that Paris conference is not just going to be an international public-relations campaign, because in the past we used to have such conferences for Sudan," he said.
"Nothing came out of these conferences, and I hope that all the countries fulfil their pledges soon."
Abusalih resigned from Sudan's foreign service in October, six months into the war, which he said was among the factors that led him to quit.
Since then, Sudan has had just two diplomats in Ottawa, representing a country of 48 million.
Sudanese people respect Canada, said Abusalih, and many recall how the former Canadian International Development Agency helped lead the mechanization of agriculture in the country.
Abusalih said Canada could help create a transition plan for a post-conflict Sudan, in which an interim group of non-partisan experts could manage the country and resolve the humanitarian crisis ahead of democratic elections.
Whatever happens, neither of the duelling groups can take control of the country, he argued.
"We need more efforts from the international community to end the ongoing war in Sudan," he said.
"After the end of this war, we need the United Nations and our friends to call for an international conference for the reconstruction of Sudan."
Meanwhile, Canada has yet to reunite a single family with relatives who are trying to escape the conflict.
Ottawa announced a program last December designed to allow people fleeing Sudan to join relatives in Canada who have the means to provide financial support.
Canadians with relatives in Sudan say the program is too cumbersome and expensive, while the government says it doesn't expect to welcome anyone until nearly a year after the announcement last December.
Abusalih said he hopes Canada can speed up the program and pressure other countries to get both factions to stop fighting.
"There is no winner in this war, and in the end, the loser is the Sudanese people," he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 15, 2024.
IN DEPTH
Budget 2024 prioritizes housing while taxing highest earners, deficit projected at $39.8B
In an effort to level the playing field for young people, in the 2024 federal budget, the government is targeting Canada's highest earners with new taxes in order to help offset billions in new spending to enhance the country's housing supply and social supports.
'One of the greatest': Former prime minister Brian Mulroney commemorated at state funeral
Prominent Canadians, political leaders, and family members remembered former prime minister and Progressive Conservative titan Brian Mulroney as an ambitious and compassionate nation-builder at his state funeral on Saturday.
'Democracy requires constant vigilance' Trudeau testifies at inquiry into foreign election interference in Canada
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau testified Wednesday before the national public inquiry into foreign interference in Canada's electoral processes, following a day of testimony from top cabinet ministers about allegations of meddling in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections. Recap all the prime minister had to say.
As Poilievre sides with Smith on trans restrictions, former Conservative candidate says he's 'playing with fire'
Siding with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith on her proposed restrictions on transgender youth, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre confirmed Wednesday that he is against trans and non-binary minors using puberty blockers.
Supports for passengers, farmers, artists: 7 bills from MPs and Senators to watch in 2024
When parliamentarians return to Ottawa in a few weeks to kick off the 2024 sitting, there are a few bills from MPs and senators that will be worth keeping an eye on, from a 'gutted' proposal to offer a carbon tax break to farmers, to an initiative aimed at improving Canada's DNA data bank.
Opinion
opinion Don Martin: Gusher of Liberal spending won't put out the fire in this dumpster
A Hail Mary rehash of the greatest hits from the Trudeau government’s three-week travelling pony-show, the 2024 federal budget takes aim at reversing the party’s popularity plunge in the under-40 set, writes political columnist Don Martin. But will it work before the next election?
opinion Don Martin: The doctor Trudeau dumped has a prescription for better health care
Political columnist Don Martin sat down with former federal health minister Jane Philpott, who's on a crusade to help fix Canada's broken health care system, and who declined to take any shots at the prime minister who dumped her from caucus.
opinion Don Martin: Trudeau's seeking shelter from the housing storm he helped create
While Justin Trudeau's recent housing announcements are generally drawing praise from experts, political columnist Don Martin argues there shouldn’t be any standing ovations for a prime minister who helped caused the problem in the first place.
opinion Don Martin: Poilievre has the field to himself as he races across the country to big crowds
It came to pass on Thursday evening that the confidentially predictable failure of the Official Opposition non-confidence motion went down with 204 Liberal, BQ and NDP nays to 116 Conservative yeas. But forcing Canada into a federal election campaign was never the point.
opinion Don Martin: How a beer break may have doomed the carbon tax hike
When the Liberal government chopped a planned beer excise tax hike to two per cent from 4.5 per cent and froze future increases until after the next election, says political columnist Don Martin, it almost guaranteed a similar carbon tax move in the offing.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Liberal MP says she's leaving politics over disrespectful dialogue, threats, misogyny
Liberal MP Pam Damoff says she won't run again in the next federal election, saying she has experienced misogyny, disrespectful dialogue in politics and threats to her life.
Concerns about Plexiglass prompt inspections at some Loblaws locations in Ottawa
Inspections are underway at more than one Loblaws location in Ottawa after complaints were filed about tall Plexiglass barriers.
Federal employees will be required to spend 3 days a week in the office
Starting in September, public servants in the core public administration will be required to work in the office a minimum of three days a week. The Treasury Board Secretariat says executives will need to be in the office four days per week.
OPP officer said 'someone's going to get hurt' before wrong-way Hwy. 401 crash
As multiple Durham police cruisers were chasing a robbery suspect on the wrong side of Highway 401 Monday night, an Ontario Provincial Police officer shared his concerns, telling a dispatcher, "Someone's going to get hurt."
Ont. woman who faked pregnancy to defraud doulas arrested again on similar charges
Victims of a Brantford, Ont., woman who was sentenced to house arrest earlier this year for defrauding and deceiving doulas say they’re not surprised she’s been apprehended again on similar charges.
Five human skeletons, missing hands and feet, found outside house of Nazi leader Hermann Göring
Archeologists have unearthed the skeletons of five people, missing their hands and feet, at a former Nazi military base in Poland.
Poilievre returns to House unrepentant for calling Trudeau 'wacko,' Speaker not resigning
An unrepentant Pierre Poilievre returned to the House of Commons on Wednesday to pepper the prime minister about his drug decriminalization policies after being booted the day prior for refusing to take back calling Justin Trudeau 'wacko' over his approach to the issue.
Construction begins on LGBTQ2S+ national monument in Ottawa
Shovels have hit the ground for constuction on Canada's LGBTQ2S+ national monument in Ottawa.
B.C. man awarded $5,000 in damages in first-of-it-kind intimate image case
In a first-of-its-kind case, a B.C. tribunal has ruled on a dispute involving the non-consensual sharing of intimate images, awarding damages and issuing orders that the photos be destroyed and taken offline.
Local Spotlight
Here's how one of Sask.'s largest power plants was knocked out for 73 days, and what it took to fix it
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
Quebec police officer anonymously donates kidney, changes schoolteacher's life
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Canada's oldest hat store still going strong after 90 years
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Road closed in Oak Bay, B.C., so elephant seal can cross
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
B.C. breweries take home awards at World Beer Cup
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Kitchener family says their 10-year-old needs life-saving drug that cost $600,000
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.
Haida Elder suing Catholic Church and priest, hopes for 'healing and reconciliation'
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.
'It was instant karma': Viral video captures failed theft attempt in Nanaimo, B.C.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
Fergus, Ont. man feels nickel-and-dimed for $0.05 property tax bill
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.