The AU has a responsibility to intervene to protect civilians.
By Tafi Mhaka
26 December 2024
In Sudan, 20 months of armed conflict between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese army (SAF) have killed at least 20,000 people and left some 25 million – half of the country’s population – suffering from severe hunger and in urgent need of humanitarian aid. Meanwhile, 14 million Sudanese have been displaced, with about 3.1 million seeking refuge outside the country, mainly in Chad, South Sudan, Uganda, and Egypt.
As is often the case, children are bearing the brunt of this brutal war.
According to medical organisation Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, approximately one in six of those treated at the Bashair Teaching Hospital in South Khartoum for war-related injuries, such as gunshot, shrapnel and blast wounds, between January and September 2024 were aged 15 or below.
The medical team revealed that they recently treated an 18-month-old baby, Riyad, who was hit by a stray bullet while napping in his family’s home. They said they managed to stabilise him but were unable to remove the bullet from his chest. Amid ongoing conflict and limited access to medical care, the future of Riyad, like thousands of other war-wounded, traumatised and orphaned children across the country, remains uncertain.
Sexual violence is also rife in Sudan’s conflict. Forces commanded by both the RSF and the SAF have committed rape and other acts of sexual and gender-based violence, revealed the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan in its report published in October. The report accused both sides of using rape as a weapon of war but said the RSF was behind the “large majority” of documented cases and was responsible for “sexual violence on a large scale”, including “gang rapes and abducting and detaining victims in conditions that amount to sexual slavery”.
Amid ongoing conflict, survivors of rape and other sexual violence struggle to access medical treatment, essential medication, and psychological support services.
Many are left wounded, traumatised, and homeless.
With war crimes and other atrocities committed against men, women and even children on a daily basis with impunity, Sudan’s conflict has come to represent the worst of humanity.
As the people of Sudan prepare to begin another year hungry, wounded and scared, the international community, and especially the African organisations allegedly committed to ensuring peace and stability in the region, have a responsibility to take meaningful action – including direct intervention.
So far, efforts to put an end to the suffering of the Sudanese by mediating between the warring parties have all been fruitless.
Peace initiatives led by the African Union (AU), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the United States, Egypt and Switzerland have all failed to secure a sustainable ceasefire, a comprehensive peace agreement or meaningful protections for the civilian population.
In May 2023, just one month into the conflict, the two warring sides appeared to have reached a pivotal agreement in Saudi Arabia. They signed the Jeddah Declaration of Commitment to Protect the Civilians of Sudan, agreeing to “distinguish at all times between civilians and combatants and between civilian objects and military targets”. As part of the agreement they also pledged to “refrain from any attack that may be expected to cause incidental civilian harm” and to “protect all public and private facilities, such as hospitals and water and electricity installations”.
The agreement was supposed to result in at least a weeklong ceasefire, but in the end could not stop atrocities against civilians, let alone the relentless fighting between SAF and RSF, even for 48 hours.
Since this US- and Saudi Arabia-led initiative failed some 19 months ago, no peace initiative has come anywhere near putting an end to the carnage in Sudan. In August, talks convened by the US in Switzerland to end the war achieved some progress on aid access, but once again failed to secure a ceasefire.
Efforts to bring the warring sides to the negotiating table and appeals to their humanity to demand an end to the attacks on civilians are clearly not working.
More needs to be done.
In its harrowing report, based on testimonies from the ground, the UN fact-finding mission made clear what the country needs: An international peacekeeping force to be deployed to protect civilians.
“Given the failure of the warring parties to spare civilians, it is imperative that an independent and impartial force with a mandate to safeguard civilians be deployed without delay,” the UN mission’s lead, Chande Othman, said in September.
Regrettably, the Sudanese government rejected the call, just as it rejected IGAD’s similar call for the deployment of a regional peacekeeping force back in July 2023. The military government in Khartoum – which has been in office since seizing power from a civilian-led transitional authority in an October 2021 coup – frames any potential external intervention, including peacekeeping missions solely focused on the protection of the civilian population, as a violation of the country’s sovereignty.
If the Sudanese government was able to provide protection to civilians, its rejection of outside intervention would be understandable. But it is obvious – after 20 months of devastating war fought with no regard for international humanitarian law – that no party in this war is capable of, or sufficiently concerned about, providing safety, security and dignity to Sudan’s beleaguered civilian population.
Without the deployment of a regional peacekeeping mission backed by the international community – a mission committed to and clearly tasked with putting an immediate end to the relentless attacks on civilians – the suffering of the Sudanese civilians will not come to an end in the foreseeable future.
Today, the global community, and especially the AU, faces a simple choice: Remain passive while the death toll in Sudan continues to rise, or take meaningful and decisive measures – even if it upsets the Sudanese government – to address the crisis.
The regional body would lose any legitimacy if it chooses to watch idly as innocent lives are lost to senseless violence in a war without end.
As such, it is time for the AU to intervene in Sudan’s war in order to protect civilians.
This would not infringe the sovereignty of the Sudanese state – or constitute an overreach on the part of the Union.
According to Act 4(h) of the Constitutive Act of the African Union, which Sudan assented to in July 2000, the AU has the right to “intervene in a Member State pursuant to a decision of the Assembly in respect of grave circumstances, namely: war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity”.
Given the overwhelming number of breaches of international humanitarian law and human rights law documented in detail by the UN mission and others, the state of affairs in Sudan is undoubtedly “grave”.
There is no doubt that the citizens of Sudan would derive significant benefits from the physical protection provided by international peacekeeping forces.
Although the extensive territory of Sudan and the widespread nature of warfare would present significant challenges in ensuring the safety of millions of civilians, this task is not beyond reach. By implementing effective planning and mobilising an adequate number of troops, the AU has the potential to have a substantial effect.
Sudan stands as a clear test of the AU’s capability to implement and uphold its wide-ranging mandate.
If it is to realise its vision of “an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in the global arena”, it cannot afford to continue to fail the Sudanese people.
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