Atrocities that are occuring every day in Sudan are often neglected and quickly forgotten. If the conflict is not addressed soon, current events will likely add to an already darkened past of unprevented mass atrocities.

As the conflict between the General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan-led Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti), continues to make Sudanese people vulnerable to mass atrocities, war crimes and ethnic cleansing, concerns over the effectiveness of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine have emerged. The idea to establish an international norm that would deal with excesses of conflict began following the horrifying experiences that resulted from the inability to stop uncontrolled violence in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda where genocide, mass atrocities, and serious breaches of international humanitarian law led to the death of many people. This dark past provoked a sense of responsibility and a euphoria of “never again.” This dream to have an international norm capable of deterring future atrocities received a boost during the 2005 UN World Summit, where world leaders affirmed their willingness embrace R2P.

What does the doctrine entail?

R2P is an international human right and security norm that seeks to enhance the ability of states to protect non-combatants and civilians from four types of threats. These include crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and war crimes. Thus, countries considered to be sovereign entities have an obligation to protect people within their political and physical jurisdiction against these four mass atrocities.

In application, R2P has three pillars each with their own unique sense and level of responsibility. Pillar I highlights the obligations by states to shield populations in their jurisdiction against mass atrocities. Pillar II stipulates the role of the international community in assisting states in attaining their goals under pillar I. Pillar III explains how the international community is expected to respond in situations where the state has failed to protect its citizens. In such cases, the international community has at its disposal humanitarian, diplomatic, and coercive or peaceful means of response.

The idea of having both the state and the international community play a role in ensuring the protection of people is based on the assumption that the state can in some cases be the source of violence and mass atrocities. Indeed, recent experiences in Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia, and South Sudan have shown that this line of thought is not farfetched. Yet despite having the safeguards of the state and international community as key actors in protecting civilians from mass atrocities, R2P seems to have failed the people of Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Syria, Yemen, Palestine, Libya, Ukraine, Myanmar, and now Sudan.

Some of the obstacles towards the implementation of R2P include growing instances of isolationism, especially by great powers which are increasingly reluctant to intervene in highly risky or less significant (in terms of their national interests) conflict environments. Similarly, the United Nations Security Council, which has the mandate to authorise international interventions, has been turned into a club where permanent members use their veto privilege to protect themselves or their allies. In addition, humanitarian resources are strained and inadequate, leaving some conflicts in a “forgotten” state. This is further worsened by the prioritisation of certain conflicts over others, leaving citizens in some countries, such as Sudan, exposed to the worse forms of mass atrocities.

The cost of R2P in Sudan

The situation in Sudan can best be understood by looking at the number of events, casualties, and the frequency of displacements. According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), the country has experienced a total of 5170 political violent events that have claimed the lives of 14,790 people, most of whom are civilians caught up in the power struggle between the SAF and the RSF. The number of people killed is conservative given the difficulties with information collection. It is however possible that many more have been killed, particularly in areas such as El Geneina. The difficulty of distinguishing civilian and military objectives, especially in Khartoum, Kordafan, and Darfur has left many civilians exposed to unrestrained violence. Furthermore, the shift of hostilities to peripheral towns, such as al-Jazirah, has left many internally displaced persons with limited places to seek shelter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: ACLED (2024)

The International Migration Office (IMO) puts the figure of people displaced by the conflict at over six million people. Some of the most affected parts of the country include the capital city, Khartoum, where 57 percent of the recently displaced persons come from. South Darfur accounts for 15 percent of the displaced, while 8 percent are from North Darfur.

It is noteworthy that these displacements are not only happening internally, but externally also, with a total of 1,870,422 refugees who have left the country. Many have gone to neighboring countries such as Egypt, Libya, Chad, Ethiopia, Central African Republic, and South Sudan. It is not just the displacement of refugees that is of concern, given the limited support reaching them, but also the state of affairs in most of the countries they are heading to. Of the six major destination countries, perhaps only Egypt has some level of stability. South Sudan, Ethiopia, Central African Republic, and even Chad have recently experienced or are in the middle of internal conflicts. This not only means that the arriving refugees will put more pressure on already unstable host countries, but that their suffering will increase as a result. An even more alarming revelation, marked by the head of the United Nations Human Right Council Volker Türk in February 2024, is that widespread acts of sexual violence and rape are likely taking  place.

Meanwhile, those not directly affected by the conflict have to endure severe shortages of food, medicine, and water as supply chains and infrastructure have been destroyed, as based on satellite and photograph images from Sudan. The conflict in Sudan ticks most boxes of a situation that needs R2P. However, the slow pace of response, and the lack of prompt as well as thorough investigations, could mean that more victims will emerge, and they too will not find justice. The search for justice in the post conflict Sudan will also have to contend with the challenges of identifying and punishing perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Until then, the fate of millions of civilians depends on urgent intervention to stop the violence that has been going on for a year now from getting even worse. Failure to address the violence in Sudan will only embolden skeptics of international norms, and R2P in particular, who believe that mass atrocities are a permanency in international relations.

Dr Israel Nyaburi Nyadera teaches National Security and Strategy at the National Defence College, Kenya. He holds the Swiss Government Excellence Postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding, Geneva Graduate Institute, Switzerland. He is also a 2024 Irregular Warfare Initiative Nonresident fellow a joint production of Princeton University’s Empirical Studies of Conflict Project and the Modern War Institute at West Point.

This article is published under a Creative Commons License and may be republished with attribution.