Famine and atrocities mount as Sudan’s civil war enters its third year

A Sudanese evacuee carries her son as they leave the USNS Brunswick at Jeddah Port, Saudi Arabia, May 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)

CAIRO — As Sudan marks two years of civil war on Tuesday, atrocities and famine are only mounting in what the United Nations says is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Last month, the Sudanese military secured a major victory by recapturing the capital of Khartoum from its rival, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. But that has only moved the war into a new phase that could end up with a de facto partition of the country.

On Friday and Saturday, RSF fighters and their allies rampaged in two refugee camps in the western Darfur region, killing at least 300 people. The Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps, which shelter some 700,000 Sudanese who fled their homes, have both been stricken with famine, and aid workers cannot reach them because of the fighting.

Up to 400,000 people have fled the Zamzam camp in recent days, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Tuesday. “Local sources are telling us that armed groups have taken control of the camp and are restricting the movement of those remaining, especially young people.”

Half the population of 50 million faces hunger. The World Food Program has confirmed famine in 10 locations and says it could spread, putting millions in danger of starvation.

“This abominable conflict has continued for two years too long,” said Kashif Shafique, country director for Relief International Sudan, the last aid group still working in the Zamzam camp. Nine of its workers were killed in the RSF attack.

He said the world needs to press for a ceasefire. “Every moment we wait, more lives hang in the balance,” he said. “Humanity must prevail.”

Here is what is happening as the war enters its third year:

Carving up Sudan

The war erupted on April 15, 2023, with pitched battles between the military and the RSF in the streets of Khartoum that quickly spread to other parts of the country.

It was the culmination of months of tension between the head of the military, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and the RSF’s commander, Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo. The two were once allies in suppressing Sudan’s movement for democracy and civilian rule but turned on each other in a struggle for power.

The fighting has been brutal. Large parts of Khartoum have been wrecked. Nearly 13 million people have fled their homes, 4 million of them streaming into neighboring countries. At least 20,000 people have been recorded killed, but the true toll is probably far higher.

Both sides have been accused of atrocities, and the RSF fighters have been notorious for attacking villages in Darfur, carrying out mass killings of civilians and rapes of women.

The military’s recapture of Khartoum in late March was a major symbolic victory. It allowed Burhan to return to the capital for the first time since the war started and declare a new government, boosting his standing.

But experts say the RSF has consolidated its hold on the areas it still controls — a vast stretch of western and southern Sudan, including the Darfur and Kordofan regions. The military holds much of the north, east and center.

“The reality on the ground already resembles a de facto partition,” said Federico Donelli, an assistant professor of international relations at Università di Trieste in Italy.

Donelli said it’s possible the two sides could seek a ceasefire now. But more likely, he said, the military will keep trying to move on RSF-held territory.

Neither side appears able to defeat the other.

“Both parties are suffering from combat fatigue,” said Suliman Baldo, director of the Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker.

The RSF is weakened by internal fissures and “lacks political legitimacy within the country,” said Sharath Srinivasan, professor of international politics at Cambridge University.

But it has strong access to weapons and resources, bolstered by support from the United Arab Emirates, Chad, Uganda, Kenya, South Sudan and Ethiopia, he said.

“Without understanding the complex regional geopolitics of this war, it is easy to underplay the RSF’s resilience and ability to strike back,” said Srinivasan, author of ”When Peace Kills Politics: International Intervention and Unending Wars in the Sudans.”

Famine is deepening

Hundreds of thousands of people trapped by the fighting face hunger and starvation. So far, the epicenter of famine has been in the North Darfur province and particularly the Zamzam camp. The RSF has been besieging the camp as it wages an offensive on El Fasher, the regional capital and the last main position of the military in the Darfur region.

Amna Suliman, a mother of four living in the camp, said people have resorted to eating grass and tree leaves.

“We have no choice,” she said in a recent phone interview. “We live in fear, with no communication, no food, and no hope.”

Since famine was first declared in Zamzam in August, it has spread to other parts of the province and nearby South Kordofan province.

The WFP warned this week that 17 other locations will also soon fall into famine — including other parts of the Darfur region but also places in central and south Sudan — because aid workers cannot reach them.

“The situation is very dire,” said Adam Yao, deputy representative of the U.N. Food and Agricultural Agency in Sudan.

Already, at least 25 million people, more than half of the country’s population, face acute hunger, including 638,000 who face catastrophic hunger, the most dire rating used by aid agencies, according to the WFP. Some 3.6 million children are acutely malnourished.

Huge needs everywhere

In other areas, the military’s capture of territory allowed aid groups to reach refugees and displaced people who have been largely cut off from aid for two years.

Sudan has been hit by multiple outbreaks of cholera, malaria and dengue in the past two years. The latest cholera outbreak in March killed about 100 people and sickened over 2,700 others in the White Nile province, according to the Health Ministry.

The economy has been decimated, with a 40 per cent drop in GDP, according to the United Nations Development Program. Full-time employment has been halved and almost 20 per cent of urban households reported that they have no income at all, it said.

At the same time, U.N. agencies and aid groups have faced funding cuts from major donors, including the United States. Only 6.3 per cent of the US$4.2 billion required for humanitarian assistance in Sudan this year has been received as of March, said Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Sudan.

“The reductions come at a time when the needs in Sudan have never been greater, with more than half of the population hungry and famine spreading,” she said.

About 400,000 people managed to return to their hometowns in areas retaken by the military around Khartoum and nearby Gezira province, according to the U.N. migration agency.

Many found their homes destroyed and looted. They depend largely on local charities for food.

Abdel-Raham Tajel-Ser, a father of three children, returned in February to his neighborhood in Khartoum’s twin city of Omdurman after 22 months of displacement.

The 46-year-old civil servant said he found his house, which had been occupied by the RSF, severely damaged and looted.

“It was a dream,” he said of his return, adding that his life in the largely destroyed neighborhood with almost no electricity or communications is “much better than living as a refugee or a displaced person.”

Associated Press writer Lee Keath in Cairo contributed to this report.

Samy Magdy And Fatma Khaled, The Associated Press