The Lawfare Podcast: Sudan’s Forgotten Conflict with Reva Dhingra and Ciaran Donnelly

[Introduction]

Ciarán Donnelly: But the reality for people who find themselves in camps like this is that they're very likely to be there for the long haul. As I said, there's 400,000 Sudanese who've been in Chad in camps for, for almost 20 years now. There's very poor prospects of them being able to return home, given the state of the conflict and the impact it's having on Sudan anytime soon. And so, it's a very grim prospect for, for these people who are finding themselves through obviously no fault of their own, uprooted from their lives, forced to flee in very dangerous circumstances, and then dropped into these very hostile and underserved refugee camps.

Tyler McBrien: I'm Tyler McBryan, Managing Editor of Lawfare, and this is the Lawfare Podcast, April 18, 2024. One year ago, fighting broke out in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces. In the intervening months, the death toll and humanitarian costs have been immense and yet, the suffering has gone largely overlooked by the United States and European nations. As U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield recently said, quote, just five years after a revolution that offered a glimpse at a free, peaceful, democratic Sudan, people are losing hope. Aid workers have begun calling this conflict the Forgotten War. Sudanese children are asking why the world has forgotten them, end quote.

To learn more, I sat down with Reva Dhingra, a policy advisor at the International Rescue Committee, and Ciarán Donnelly, a senior vice president for international programs, also at the IRC. We discussed the roots of the current conflict, it's spillover effects and the exacerbating effects of climate change. We also heard about what Ciarán saw on his recent trip to the Sudan-Chad border. It's the Lawfare Podcast, April 18: Sudan's Forgotten Conflict with Reva Dhingra and Ciarán Donnelly.

[Main Podcast]

So, this month marks one year since fighting broke out between rival factions of Sudan's security force, between the Sudanese Armed Forces, the SAF, and the Rapid Support Forces, the RSF. But, to trace the origins of this conflict, I imagine that we'll likely have to go a bit further back than a year. So Ciarán, I was wondering if you could kick us off by way of introduction to just explain how this current full-blown conflict in Sudan started.

Ciarán Donnelly: So, the roots of this conflict go back, back into both the recent but also the more distant history of Sudan. And the more recent history is the political transition, security transition that happened after Omar al-Bashir was deposed and with the institution of a very unstable political and security equilibrium between competing, competing power groups.

And it was that unstable equilibrium that erupted into violence a year ago with the, with the breakdown in relations between Sudanese Armed Forces, the SAF and the Rapid Support Forces, and that erupted into all out conflict. The wider context and background of this, of course, is that Sudan is a country whose post-colonial history has been characterized largely by a very kind of dictatorial governance and by underdevelopment and by international isolation and by a lot of internal conflict. As well as increasingly in recent years, the impacts of climate change, which have impacted on, on livelihoods and on the economy. And so, the kind of wider context is one of underdevelopment, economic challenges, the climate crisis, and poor governance creating the, the enabling environment for a conflict like the one that we've seen over the last year to, to break out and to and to drive huge humanitarian need across the country and indeed into its neighboring countries.

Tyler McBrien: Yeah, and I definitely want to get into the humanitarian crisis and of course, climate change as a threat multiplier in just a bit. But before we go any further Reva, I wonder if you could just introduce us to some of the, the main players here. Could you give a bit of background on, on the, the main groups, if there's anything pertinent about their leaders? And then similarly, any regional or extra regional actors that are, have been especially active in the conflict, whether in arming the groups or, or playing a potential peace brokering role.

Reva Dhingra: Yeah. So, you know, as Ciarán noted, this is a conflict that has roots that go back to before 2023 when the violence broke out especially, you know, post the deposition of Omar al-Bashir and the hopes for a democratic transition and then the subsequent coup by the military leaders. You know, we've seen a number of different actors become involved in this conflict, both within the country and as you noted in the region and in the Gulf and, and across the world. So, within the country, you know, we have the two main groups that, we noted the SAF and the RSF. There are also a number of local and you know, subnational groups, including militias, including the remnants of al-Bashir's security apparatus including other armed groups within the country.

And then also including not as, as belligerents, but including the civilian movements, the civilian democratic movements, and we can get to this, but who have really played a role in trying to counter some of the violence and support their communities. Some of the grassroots civil society groups that evolved into what are known as the ‘emergency response rooms’ that are playing crucial roles locally in in driving the humanitarian response. So that's within the country.

In the region, I mean the sad truth is, is that the conflict in Sudan has very much become a proxy conflict. You know, you have key backers outside of the country including that are backing the various sides, including Egypt, including the UAE backing RSF, Egypt backing the SAF. Iran has entered now recently with providing drones, you have Ethiopia, you have you know, a number of external actors that are playing various roles within this conflict. And then just to close the, you know, range of actors that are involved, you also have a number of actors who can and have been playing diplomatic roles, including the backers that we are arguing should be playing a, a heavier role in ending, in ending the violence and putting pressure on the warring parties to, to end the conflict. The U.S. has recently become more involved in pushing for peace in Sudan. You know, these efforts have been very lacking, but what we see is, you know, IGAD, which is the regional authority, the African Union, Saudi Arabia hosting the Jeddah talks and the U.S. along with the regional backers of the warring parties themselves that really have the power to drive peace forward.

Tyler McBrien: And one of the problems that both of you all know, I think, is that at least in the United States and Europe, some have characterized it as a forgotten conflict. But anyone who's viewed, I think, even one headline can tell that much of the weight of suffering has, has been borne by the civilian population. So Ciarán, I wonder if you could give us a sense of the scope of the humanitarian crisis, especially drawing on, as I understand, your recent visit to the Chad-Sudan border.

Ciarán Donnelly: Yeah, of course. And it's both, I think, true, but also a sad indictment of the state of the world today that a crisis of this magnitude can be characterized as forgotten or neglected on the world stage. And that's especially through, I think, politically with the lack of real substantive diplomatic and political engagement to bring about peace talks from some of the actors that, that Reva just spoke about.

On the humanitarian front, in terms of the, the civilian population like in any major conflict, what we've seen is both the direct impact that the conflict has had, and then the indirect and, and kind of spiraling outward spiraling of that impact across the country and into neighboring countries. There's an estimated 14,700 people killed, over 30,000 injured. There's 8 million people who've been displaced by the conflict. Most of those inside the country, but over one and a half million of them have, have fled to neighboring countries. And so obviously for, for those people, for people who've experienced some of the atrocities that have been reported, who've experienced sexual violence that has been widely reported, and for their families, there's a devastating immediate impact. But there's also a wider societal impact as fighting has impacted on the economy and impacted on social services. Civil servants are not being paid, which is driving a decline in in basic, basic provision of, of public services to people. 70 percent of healthcare facilities in areas affected by the conflict, having been destroyed or closed leaving 11 million people in need of urgent care.

The economic crisis is really quite dire. Food has increased by over 300 percent in parts of the country. And nationally, the economy contracted by 12 percent last year and is forecast to contract by 18 percent in 2024. And all of this combined with the impacts of drought that are being experienced across East Africa is pushing people into a terrible food and security crisis where 18 million people are food insecure, meaning they just don't have enough to eat on an ongoing basis and with five million of them on the brink of famine. So, so the, the impact on the civilian population within Sudan is disastrous. And recently I was able to visit Eastern Chad and visit with the IRC teams responding on the Sudan-Chad border and see firsthand the impact that it's having in terms of people who are forced to flee into neighboring countries.

We spent time in a transit camp in a city called Adre, which is one of the main points of entry for Sudanese refugees coming into Chad. There's been 560,000, at least, Sudanese who sought safety in Chad. That's adding to 400,000 Sudanese who've been in Chad since, for almost 20 years. So, it's a significant population, that's more than double the Sudanese refugees in the country. And in Adre, in this transit camp we visited, you know, the idea of a transit camp is it's a place where new arrivals come for a few days. They get registered, they get medical care, and then they usually get relocated to a proper kind of refugee camp setting, which is, you know, far from an ideal setup for them, but it's a place that provides a little more stability, a little more safety, and better services.

The reality in Chad is the volume of people who've come in, coupled with an underfunding of the refugee response, has meant that people are being stuck in this transit center. So instead of being moved onwards to well-established and well-functioning refugee camps, we saw over 150,000 people in this transit center who'd been there for months and were accessing, you know, less than, less than five liters of water per person per day, well below minimum standards, just as one example of the dearth of social service provision, just because there isn't enough capacity in the country, despite the willingness of the government and its international partners. There aren't resources available to establish more permanent camps.

And so we're seeing similar patterns play out in South Sudan and Ethiopia, which are also receiving large numbers of refugees and impacted in various ways. South Sudan particularly impacted because the conflict has put a halt to the oil revenues from the shared areas, shared oil production facilities between Sudan and South Sudan, which are a critical mainstay of the South Sudanese economy. And so in addition to the humanitarian burden of refugees coming in across the region, we're starting to see spillover effects that threaten to destabilize regional economies with impacts on stability in some of the neighboring countries as well.

Tyler McBrien: And Ciarán, I want to just stay with you for one more question. The figures that you gave are, are devastating. And I want to maybe ground them in a specific story of maybe someone you met. The IRC just released a report chronicling what one year of conflict, but in it, they, they, there's are a few stories of specific refugees. And if you could just share, you know, something about one or two people that you met to give us a sense of, of day-to-day life for Sudanese refugees, either in the country or, or internally displaced people in the country or, or refugees outside of the country.

Ciarán Donnelly: Yeah, it was important to us in the report that, that we've just released, that we not just highlight these, these very large numbers that are very hard for people at times to, to comprehend, but to bring, bring a human face to that and help people understand the individuals, the very real people who are impacted by this crisis. I'll talk about a couple that I met in a camp in Chad who had arrived from Sudan. And this was one of the new refugee centers, refugee camps that was just being established. We visited it just a few days after it had been opened up. And so it's a camp that will eventually host probably 40 to 50,000 people. There were only a few hundred there when we got there. IRC is providing medical and nutrition services. The team was operating out of tents that they'd set up because the permanent health center and nutrition center were still under construction.

And so we met with a group of refugees who just arrived there a few days earlier, after having spent quite some time in, in the transit center that I described earlier in the conversation, and I was really struck. It was a very, very moving and painful conversation and in, in reality, because I met this couple who had been a teacher and an engineer in Darfur, in Western Sudan. And they had fled and they'd sought safety and had experienced some really difficult circumstances including some pretty horrific attacks along the way that they described. And when we asked them what were their hopes on being there, what did they want, what were their expectations in this new camp setting that they had just moved into. They spoke about the things that any of us would speak about in these kinds of situations. You know, would they be able to get work? Would they be able to get jobs? Would they be able to provide for their family? Would they be able to, you know, kind of access enough food to eat? They didn't want to be dependent on handouts from the humanitarian community. They wanted to be able to establish their lives and to be able to provide for themselves and to contribute to the community in which they were now settled.

But the reality for people who find themselves in camps like this is that they're very likely to be there for the long haul. As I said, there's 400,000 Sudanese who've been in Chad in camps for, for almost 20 years now. There's very poor prospects of them being able to return home, given the state of the conflict and the impact it's having on Sudan, anytime soon. And so it's a very grim prospect for, for these people who are finding themselves through, obviously no fault of their own, uprooted from their lives, forced to flee in very dangerous circumstances, and then dropped into these very hostile and underserved refugee camps.

Tyler McBrien: Reva, I want to go to you to just first see if there's anything you wanted to add about the scale of the humanitarian crisis, but also if you could expand on something we mentioned earlier about how climate change, and drought as a result of climate change, for example, are exacerbating the crisis.

Reva Dhingra: Yeah, no, I mean, Ciarán really, really covered the, just the, the sad indictment of the, the world right now where we have, you know, the biggest displacement crisis in the world, the biggest child displacement crisis in the world, and the humanitarian response for Sudan is less than 6 percent funded. The regional refugee response is also less than 6 percent funded. And you know, last year there was a massive funding gap that really undermines the ability of, you know, organizations on the ground to be able to provide the, the services, the, the, you know, crucial, you know, not only the basic assistance, not only water, but also the mental health services, the psychosocial support for many people fleeing conflict, people who have faced severe trauma, women who have faced gender based violence.

And also for local groups within the country that are providing humanitarian assistance behind conflict lines that international groups, you know, we can't access there oftentimes. So they're you know, really, holding up the humanitarian response. They're providing mutual aid and, and keeping, you know, their community barely afloat, not receiving the support that they deserve. So it's really just a sad indictment of our current situation, again.

You know, adding on to what we've discussed, the impact of, of climate change, and that has been a really serious issue in the region for years. You know, the, the famine, the famine, almost famine conditions that we're seeing inside Sudan I wouldn't say that they're at all a result of, of climate change directly, like in many other conflicts worldwide. What we're seeing is a man-made food insecurity situation where warring parties and challenges around humanitarian access, the collapse of local markets, conflict disrupting agricultural production are all driving extreme food insecurity and extreme need. But climate change has played a significant factor in creating the conditions for this shock to be so severe.

So, it's not only droughts, it's extreme flooding and, and specifically in, you know, neighboring countries like South Sudan, which have experienced repeated cycles of flooding, putting, you know, 15 percent of the country underwater all year. You saw many South Sudanese actually flee to Sudan from South Sudan because of the floods in the years prior that were then forced to return back to areas where they have no prospects for livelihoods, where agricultural systems have been disrupted. In Chad, it's one of, you know, the countries that's deteriorating the most environmentally in the world and also doesn't have the tools to adapt to this rapid environmental deterioration. So, a lot of these countries, because they're conflict affected, receive way less climate financing than you know, middle income countries or even other lower, low income or least developed countries that are more stable. So, we're really seeing a combination of years of intensifying extreme weather patterns as a result of climate change creating, you know, conditions for communities to be pushed over, over the brink when a severe shock occurs acting as a threat multiplier and a lack of access to, to key tools that would help them adapt.

Tyler McBrien: Ciarán, we mentioned a bit earlier this characterization of Sudan as a forgotten conflict, despite the scale of the crisis. To what do you attribute this relative lack of attention and funding, especially from the quote unquote West?

Ciarán Donnelly: I think there's a few things that contribute to it, and I think one is quite simply the overload of humanitarian crisis that the world is experiencing at the moment across Gaza, across Afghanistan, across Sudan, across too many countries to mention in the time we have today. There are deteriorating humanitarian situations driving significant increases in humanitarian need far beyond the ability of the humanitarian sector to respond to them. And at a time in which humanitarian funding is itself declining globally, forcing kind of prioritization exercise by humanitarians, which means we've done to pick and choose as a sector and as individual organizations where we respond to.

Last year, the number of people estimated to be in need of humanitarian assistance was 364 million people by the UN, and there was a 36, almost $37 billion gap in humanitarian financing in 2023. The actual, the formal number being targeted this year is a smaller number as a result of that prioritization exercise, and it's being targeted through humanitarian assistance. But the actual number of people in need remains significantly far beyond the ability of the sector to reach them. So, so new crises that erupt and that deteriorate like Sudan have to struggle for attention, have to struggle for funding, have to struggle for political bandwidth alongside all of these, these, these other existing crises globally.

But I also think people talk about this term polycrisis and the reality of how climate change is intersecting with humanitarian crisis globally. And so, so when we have a country like Sudan, where we've got this, this kind of perfect storm of conflict and erosion of governance and economic collapse and the climate crisis overlaid on it, that's set against a global context in which countries that traditionally have not really been considered as in crisis are increasingly experiencing climate crises and climate shocks of their own. And, and the human, the global community is struggling to figure out how to respond to that. And we've seen, for example, in COP last year, the, for the first time, real attention to this question of how we can ensure that fragile and conflict affected states are not left behind in addressing the impacts of the climate crisis.

But globally the world is still trying to figure out how to bring that commitment to how to, how to make it a reality as the world is looking at, at how to address the impacts of climate change. This, the global systems, the financing, the political arrangements for doing that are still very much tailored to more stable settings, to places where there are governments that are more capable of partnering with international financial institutions, with multilateral development banks, where there's kind of a more established way of working and an easier path to, to delivering climate solutions. Easy being a very, very relative term, of course, in this context.

But when the global community looks at a country like Sudan, from a climate perspective, from a development perspective, what they see is a conflict. What they see is a humanitarian crisis, and they don't have the, the tools and the concepts really to think about how to bring a climate lens, a development lens into that setting. So, so part of what we've been saying in order to, alongside, rather, the need for an increased humanitarian effort, increased humanitarian funding and increased capacity for the humanitarian sector to meet the needs of Sudan and many other places around the world, is a need for a new way of working across the climate sector, the development sector, and humanitarian sector globally to find new ways to partner between multilateral and international financial institutions and organizations like, like ours, the IRC, that knows how to work in conflict affected places. But also critically, people on the ground, the emergency response rooms, the civil society groups that are leading response efforts in Sudan and Khartoum today, emerging civil society groups. We need to find new ways to partner to break some of these cycles of conflict, conflict, collapse, climate crisis, and we're still a long way from being able to do that.

Tyler McBrien: So Reva, given this gap that Ciarán laid out and the challenges specific to international actors filling that gap, I want to pick up on, on what Ciarán just said and something you mentioned earlier about, about local actors stepping in to fill the gap, while not nearly enough to meet the entire need, still a significant and noteworthy development. Could you expand on some of those civil society groups the emergency response rooms and what they're doing?

Reva Dhingra: Yeah, so, you know as, as Ciarán noted these are groups that are on the ground. They emerged from the pro-democracy movement that came, you know, during the protests during, and, and were really pushing forward, you know, until, until the coup and are key civil society groups that then as this conflict broke out turned into mutual aid. I mean, actually, even before the conflict, they were doing mutual aid and, you know, even as, as Cara noted, there was neglect even before the conflict. So just as an example, a quarter of the population was food insecure even prior to when the, the war started in April 2023. And so you really saw local actors filling the gaps of international humanitarian and international funding system that, you know, is not providing them enough support and also faces challenges operating in environments where there are severe humanitarian access challenges.

So you know, first and foremost, what, what they need and what we need to do you know, for these groups is push for a cessation of the hostilities, you know, exert as much diplomatic pressure, as much leverage as we can on you know, external backers of the warring parties to make sure that these groups are, are protected. Right now many, you know, emergency response rooms are being are being targeted by warring actors. They're facing threats to their lives. They're facing loss of lives as they do this critical aid work. So pushing for you know, an end to the hostilities, guarantees for, for safety and security for these groups, protecting humanitarian access, and then also increasing direct, flexible financial support to these groups and, and specific security measures to help protect them from persecution.

Tyler McBrien: And Ciarán, I wonder what you think about the prospects of, of peace, at least in the near term. How realistic is it to expect a cessation of hostilities anytime soon?

Ciarán Donnelly: I'm afraid I'm fairly pessimistic about the prospects of peace anytime soon, but in reality, I think the incentives, the incentives for regional actors, international actors, and local actors to come together around peace efforts are sadly not there. And we haven't seen the level of diplomatic and political engagement, so that's very much one of our top recommendations is first and foremost, a kind of a leaning in, a reinforcement of those political and diplomatic efforts to try to bring parties to the, to the conflict together and to establish a peace process.

We've seen, we've seen that this is possible in other places. We also know that it's not easy to do. In the interim, we need to see a continued ramping up of humanitarian access, humanitarian supplies, humanitarian funding. Building on the partnerships that Reva just spoke about through emergency response rooms, local civil society, but also leveraging international actors. We can't wait for peace before we start trying to save the lives of people in Sudan.

Tyler McBrien: And Reva, you and Ciarán have a piece out in Lawfare, at least by the time this will air, in which you describe a broken system. And we've also, you've also really laid out well the bleak situation even before a year ago in terms of food insecurity and, and the need. When peace does come what should change, you know, what, what new system should come in its place when a ceasefire or a peace deal is, is reached?

Reva Dhingra: Yeah. And, and as we mentioned you know, there, this has been a, a long pattern of dysfunction and neglect that is contributing to basically communities living sort of on the brink of survival. Where, you know, when the, when the conflict started, many populations’ food assistance was being cut even though you know, they were still facing food insecurity. There was a lack of longer-term support. And you know, part of this is because of the governance challenges. Part of this is because often there's a model of working primarily with government actors where you see in a context such as Sudan, when these actors are the ones doing the persecution themselves, that can be very difficult to realize. But that doesn't mean we can give, you know, bringing more infrastructural support, more direct support for healthcare, for sanitation infrastructure, more support for agricultural systems and, and building up local economies.

One thing that we're really arguing for as, as Ciarán mentioned, we can't wait for the conflict to be over. So one thing we're really arguing for right now is cash assistance to both help individuals buy food and support local economies to prevent market collapse, where markets are functioning within the country. But what we're really advocating for is looking to broaden the scope of actors that you know, development actors are willing to partner with, including these local groups including you know, humanitarian development nexus approaches, and also including support for a neighboring refugee hosting countries, increased support for neighboring refugee hosting countries.

So Chad, for example, where Ciarán was recently, even prior to the arrival of Sudanese refugees from, from this conflict, hosted almost 500,000 Sudanese refugees already. And they were facing, you know, lack of sustainable support, lack of investments in infrastructure. There wasn't even enough money to, to drill, you know, boreholes for water. And so there's, we don't need to wait until the conflict is over. There's things that we can do now to provide more long-term support for, for communities within especially neighboring refugee hosting countries.

Tyler McBrien: Reva, I want to turn to you to hear what you think is the most immediate and pressing need as a next step in the conflict.

Reva Dhingra: Yeah, so, you know, what, what we're arguing for and, and what I think is, is really crucial in this moment is not, you know, seeing this as a moment to be paralyzed by, oh, this conflict is too complex or, you know, focusing our attention on, on this at the expense of, of other conflicts, thinking of it as a zero sum game. What we're arguing for is using all the leverage possible, all you know, the efforts by the U.S. through the appointment of the new special envoy, through you know, regional efforts, through backchannel diplomatic efforts to push for a cessation of hostilities and combine that with concrete measures to protect civilians, to ensure humanitarian access, and refocus on diplomatic efforts, and UN Security Council resolutions that have called for halting the conflict to be implemented. And that means working to stop arms transfers. It means working to have key backers interface directly with the warring parties and really bringing peace forward as the most immediate concern. I think it's a key responsibility of the global community, given the scale of this humanitarian crisis.

Tyler McBrien: So, Ciarán, as you mentioned, the crisis is such that the people of Sudan really can't wait for peace though it, it must come very quickly. So until then, I wonder if you could just tell us a bit about what the IRC is doing on the ground right now.

Ciarán Donnelly: Yeah, of course. So we have restarted our programming in Sudan in recent years after a suspension of a number of years. We were working there for, for 1981 until 2009, and then were actually expelled from the country along with quite a number of other international organizations. But we were able to restart programming just a few years ago and were well placed to respond when this crisis broke out. We've been scaling up health and nutrition programs, as well as focused on what we call protection services for vulnerable women and children. And what that means in a conflict zone, for those who aren't familiar with the humanitarian terminology, is often programming around responding to sexual violence and services for women and children who've, who've suffered from assault and particular forms of violence. But also providing safe spaces and psychological support to help people to cope with some of the situations they're in.

Reva mentioned cash programming, which is a very important part of our response and scaling that up is, is a priority. Cash programming, cash distributions and emergencies are not just an efficient way of delivering aid, they're an empowering way of delivering aid. They enable, they enable people to, to make their best own choices about what support they need and whilst reinforcing, whilst reinforcing local, local market economies.

You know, our staff, it's important to say, are Sudanese themselves have been displaced along with those of other humanitarian organizations. And so, so we've had to reestablish offices. We've had to establish backup bases and essentially reconstruct our operational footprint in order to be able to support these efforts. A critical part, that I do think it's important to underscore, of what we've been able to do has been this reliance on local groups, the emergency response rooms, who have been incredibly courageous at the front line of, of humanitarian response in their communities, as is the case in conflicts all around the world. The first responders are always people from communities, and so we've been really proud to be able to financially support those groups. That's enabled them to do things like organize local food distributions or provide oxygen cylinders and, and medical supplies for health clinics to keep critical services going.

But one of the challenges there is the kind of the, the, the structures of the aid sector aren't always well set up to support those locally organized civil society groups. So we've been kind of pushing to, to do as much as we can within that space, but often constrained by, by some of the, the, the compliance systems that we're required to follow and so on. And so hoping that we can change some of that and do more and expand that will be part of our priorities going forward.

Tyler McBrien: Well, Reva and Ciarán, thank you so much for joining me today.

Reva Dhingra: Thanks so much, Tyler.

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