The violations of civilian rights have turned out to be a concern in the Sudan civil war. According to multiple sources including the British Broadcasting Corporation and Cable News Network, Sudan’s warring parties have committed various human rights violations against civilians. By this time, thousands of civilians have been killed in the war that has been going on for around two years between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) without any indication of its end soon, and many women were raped in Sudan, one the poorest countries in the world, creating criticism from different organizations and countries. But uncertainty remains on mitigating human rights violations in the war.
Both warring parties have been violating various civilian rights driven by the limited international efforts against such violations and other reasons. Along with rape and gang rape and numerous incidents of ransom (which can amount to hostage-taking), there is clear evidence of arbitrary arrest, arbitrary detention, ill-treatment, and death in custody. Amongst other things, there are many instances of sexual slavery and forced labor. Pertinently saying, due to the high extent, the violation of civilian rights in the Sudan war which is caused by the power struggle between two leaders — General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of the armed forces and, in effect, the country’s president, and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the leader of the Rapid Support Forces — is rendered “horrific”.
Photo credit: https://edition.cnn.com/.
Hopefully saying, the fact-finding based and other steps of international organizations (such as the United Nations) and others have raised some prospects of ending rights violations. Notably, the United Nations sent a fact-finding mission to investigate the violations of human rights in the ongoing civil war, which has displaced eight million and caused unprecedented devastation in different cities including Khartum. Later the UN fact-finding mission provided recommendations aiming at ending civilian rights violations including the deployment of an international force in Sudan to protect civilians from the country’s ongoing civil war. Sanctions were also imposed by the United States against human rights violations. But there is almost not impact of such steps.
There is — pessimistically saying — almost no step of the warring parties to protect human rights in Sudan because of the lack of willingness, the absence of effective implementation mechanisms and other reasons. Rather the warring parties have each been exploiting the ongoing state of conflict to target civilians. While the government of Sudan rejected the recommendations of the fact-finding mission and the subsequent UN’s call for an international force to protect civilians altogether and termed the mission as “a flagrant violation of their mandate” and the UN Human Rights Council as “a political and illegal body”, there is no comment of the RSS on the recommendations, reducing the chance of addressing human rights violations in the war.
Photo credit: https://theconversation.com/.
It is often difficult to address the violations of civilian rights in the war successfully because of various reasons including its complicated nature. But steps help to address such violations. To address the concerns over the violations of rights in the Sudan civil war, the implementation of different UN recommendations will be immensely helpful. Even if international force is not allowed, complying with the intentional laws and ending attacks in civilian areas will help address human rights violations in Sudan. The arbitrary arrests and detention of civilians need to be ended by the government and RSF. But the role of intentional actors is also crucial for it.
But steps are also vital to ending the war. Notably, various mediation efforts were brokered by Saudi Arabia and the US, but they have failed to end the conflict. While there is a lack of interest among the warring parties, the emphasis was given less on ending the Sudan conflict — probably due to the increased focus on the Ukraine war and the Israel-Hamas war. The peace steps of African nations need to be strengthened to reach a solution to the Sudan war. But there is no alternative to the good intentions of the parties.
