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From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Nina Kim. Coming up on Forum, new developments in the brutal civil war in Sudan may mark a turning point in what's been called the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with many tens of thousands dead.
and 13 million displaced amid famine. This hour, we get an update from Declan Walsh of The New York Times, which last month became the first American outlet to report from the capital city of Khartoum after the Sudanese military managed to drive out its rival, the Rapid Support Forces. We'll look at what these developments mean for two years of devastating conflict and what role the U.S. might play as aid cuts exacerbate the crisis. Join us. Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim.
Shortly before leaving office in January, the Biden administration called actions in Sudan genocide. Secretary of State Antony Blinken described the rapid support forces and paramilitary group fighting the Sudan's military as committing systematic ethnically targeted murder and mass rape.
Both the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces have been accused of atrocities in a conflict that has taken 150,000 lives, according to a U.S. envoy, including from war-related famine and disease.
But recent developments are marking a shift in the course of the civil war that broke out two years ago, April 15th. Joining me to talk about them is Declan Walsh, New York Times chief Africa correspondent, who last month was able to get in and report from the center of Sudan's capital, Khartoum, for the first time in two years. Welcome to Forum, Declan. It's great to be here. Thank you.
So for the last two years, the Capital City Center, it was controlled by the Rapid Support Forces and no journalists could enter. Tell me about how that's changed so much just in the last couple of weeks.
Well, the capital Khartoum is really where this war started just under two years ago in April 15, 2023, when these groups, the rapid support forces, a paramilitary group that had been allied with Sudan's military, suddenly began to fight with it. And that set off this conflict immediately.
that quickly spread across this entire country, but has always in many ways been most intense. The fighting has certainly been among the most serious in Khartoum itself. At the start of the war, that group, the RSF, pushed the Sudanese military almost entirely out of the capital. The army was forced to move the functions of government to Port Sudan, a city on the Red Sea, and just held a small corner of the capital for itself.
But in the last six months, we saw this dramatic pushback by the army that started in around September. And it culminated just a couple of weeks ago when the military pushed into the centre of Khartoum, captured first the presidential palace, which really stood in ruins. And then within a matter of days, spread across the rest of the city centre and a
ultimately pushed that rival group entirely out of the city. You've said that the capturing of the presidential palace was a key victory for Sudan's military. Why? Why was that important? Well, I
As in many countries, of course, the presidential palace is a very potent symbol of power and authority. I mean, in Sudan, it almost has an extra dimension for historical reasons. This is a compound or a palace compound that's on the River Nile. It's been the seat of power in the country really since the colonial times for over 120 years or longer.
It was the scene of a famous assassination or a famous killing in the 1890s when Sudanese insurgents killed the British governor general. And it's really been at the heart of Sudan's political and even historical identity since then. So when these rapid support forces captured the palace at the start of the war, it was this very potent symbol that they were a very serious contender to take the whole country. And so when the military pushed back
and recaptured that territory just some weeks ago, they also celebrated it almost like they had won the war. Although, unfortunately, that seems that's far from, it's far from apparent that that will be the case. Why? Why is it unlikely to bring an end to the war?
Well, the rapid support forces have been defeated in Khartoum, but certainly not in the rest of the country. They still control most of Darfur, which is this enormous region in the west of the country. They also control a couple of other adjoining regions.
states, notably called Kordofan. And, you know, as this war has gone on, it is exacerbated or fueled by foreign countries which have been supporting both sides. And so, you know,
We see that the OSF still controls a lot of territory where it has said it intended a parallel government that raises the specter of Sudan turning into a divided country, as Libya has been for the last decade.
14 years or so since the Arab Spring. And it also raises the prospect of further interference from these foreign countries, which are on both sides of the fight, and, you know, which is really complicating efforts to try and reach a negotiated settlement to this conflict. Yeah. It also sounds like there are concerns that even though Sudan's military has taken over Khartoum,
that there could be just new atrocities there? What is the concern that you're hearing from human rights groups? From human rights groups and, frankly, what we saw on the ground,
When we pushed into central Khartoum behind the army when they seized that territory a couple of weeks ago, immediately we saw evidence that people who were accused of being ORSF Synth-Kaisers were being rounded up and in some cases being shot in the street in front of people. While we were there, we saw a number of bodies lying on prominent terror fairs and people told us, even children on the street told us these people had been accused and shot just hours earlier.
And that's a pattern that we've seen in many areas that the Sudanese military has recaptured over the last six months as they've conducted this drive, that there have been reprisals and killings often of people who've been accused of siding with the RSF. And that's not just a question of individuals. It's often a question of ethnic groups.
who face those accusations. And so we're now starting to see, you know, reports from human rights groups that these killings are taking place on a wider scale. And again, it's just, you know, yet another atrocity, unfortunately, in a conflict that has been
characterized by so many atrocities, including accusations of genocide against the RSF, of course, accusations of using food as a weapon of war that has contributed to famine, you know, so many different brutalities. And in nearly all, in most cases, it's unfortunately civilians who've borne the brunt of them.
We're talking about recent developments in Sudan's civil war. And listeners, you are invited to join the conversation with your questions for Declan Walsh, chief Africa correspondent for The New York Times. What connections do you have to Sudan or to refugees from the region? What role do you think the U.S. should play in addressing the war and its humanitarian crisis?
You can email forum at kqed.org. Find us on our social channels on Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and others at KQED Forum. You can call us at 866-733-6786, 866-733-6786.
You did describe just some chilling details of the incredible destruction there. Trees totally stripped bare, buildings just turned to rubble, Declan. It sounds like, I don't know, so different from what I remember from just a few years ago when there was a popular uprising in that city center. Yeah, that's right. I mean, uh,
On the destruction, I can't really exaggerate, to be honest, Mina, the scale of the destruction of the city centre. It's really jaw-dropping. When we arrived there, almost every significant building was seriously damaged, many of them burned to a crisp after this two-year battle, effectively, that had taken place in this area. And as you said, you know, this was this
this city, this specific locations in the city center that were the scene of such joyous hopes just five or six years ago. I was there myself when, you know, after 30 years of brutal autocratic rule under Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the country's president, you had this, you know, popular uprising, tens of thousands of young Sudanese
who flooded into the streets and assembled outside the military headquarters, saying they'd had enough of this leader and that he had to go. And go he did in April 2015. I'm sorry, April 2019. And, you know, the ouster of Omar Hassan al-Bashir brought about this upswell of hope inside Sudan that this could be
where a popular revolution succeeded and, you know, led to a transition to democracy. Unfortunately, of course, it hasn't turned out like that. The great hope of those institutions
early months after the revolution led to a lot of political turmoil, led to a very fragile power sharing dispensation between civilian and military leaders, and then ultimately led to a military coup in 2021, which derailed that whole process and in many ways set in motion the kind of tensions inside the military that culminated in the outbreak of war two years ago.
So can you give me a sense, Declan, of what territories each side controls now in the country, just generally geographically? So the Sudanese military controls the capital Khartoum. It controls the entire eastern and northern part of the country. The RSF has been pushed into Darfur, the region in the west, and controls also areas along the border with South Sudan in the south.
So, you know, both of these, both sides still, I mean, you've got to remember, this is the second largest country by area in Africa. And so, you know, these are huge distances. It's a huge area. This is a country that pre-war had a population of about 48 million people. Now,
You know, about 4 million of those people have been forced to flee to other countries. But it's still huge numbers of displaced people.
an enormous humanitarian crisis. And now the prospect that it's going to be somehow divided into two areas between these two warring parties. Yeah. And then, as you touched on, the U.S. has tried to broker a peace deal. It's been very difficult because of the different interests of different foreign powers in this place. Do you see this particular administration taking more of an interest in Sudan? Yeah.
Curious to hear your thoughts. Very hard to tell at this point. So far, we don't see many signs of the Trump administration engaging. But
It may be early days. I mean, it has to be said, you know, the Biden administration certainly was engaged in many respects on Sudan. There was, you know, some pretty strong diplomatic efforts by parts of the State Department, at least to try and broker some sort of agreement or at least to get a ceasefire. There was a American diplomats convened a meeting in Switzerland, which
of parties involved in the war last August, notably though that didn't include the Sudanese military, which refused to come. And so that became a conversation about humanitarian access rather than what diplomats really wanted, which was moves towards a ceasefire. But, you know, there was that engagement. And then just before the Biden administration left office, it formally announced
It declared, or rather formally accused the rapid support forces of conducting genocide in the course of the war. And then it also made accusations of war crimes against the military and imposed sanctions on it. Hold that thought, Declan. More after the break. This is Forum. I'm Mina Kim.
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Welcome back to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. We're talking about recent developments in Sudan's civil war. And my guest, Declan Walsh, Africa correspondent, chief Africa correspondent for The New York Times, has been reporting on the capture of Sudan's capital city by Sudan's military, saying it marks a momentous shift but is unlikely to end Africa's largest war yet.
which has brought massacres, mass rape, famine, and sweeping destruction. And listeners, you are joining the conversation with your questions and comments about
The war in Sudan at 866-733-6786 at the email address forum at kqed.org and on our social channels at KQED Forum. And Bruce writes, what foreign entities and countries are supporting each side and why are they doing so? What do they hope to gain? Bruce is anticipating exactly where I wanted to go. So yes, talk about who is supporting each side of this conflict, Declan.
Well, on the RSF side, the most prominent foreign supporter and the most meaningful one is the United Arab Emirates. Our reporting has indicated that as early as a couple of months into the conflict, the UAE, whose leaders had a prior relationship with the leader of the RSF,
started to run this secretive arms pipeline effectively through the neighboring country of Chad and started smuggling weapons to the RSF, started providing military support, I'm sorry, medical support to wounded RSF members.
fighters and officers and then eventually flew some very sophisticated Chinese-made drones into an air base that the UAE effectively controlled and started flying those in support of the RSF in the war as well. So
So that's on the RSF side. On the army side, it's a much wider cast of foreign actors that have helped in different ways. But we have seen since the start of the war that Russia has started to supply weapons to the Sudanese military. So did Iran. There are Iranian drones that have been used on the battlefield. And most recently, so has Turkey. Turkey has a drone system, if you like,
that has been deployed in other African wars, often being very, sometimes turning those wars around. And so as we understand it, the Sudanese military's use of some of these Turkish drones played a major role in its recent victories.
The last supporters that I would mention on the army side are other Gulf countries. We have reports that Egypt to the north, Saudi Arabia, perhaps even Qatar in the Gulf, all of these countries have provided financial, if not military support to the Sudanese military, hoping to...
it's going to prevail. So that's another layer of complication here, where what started as a fight effectively between two generals for power in Sudan, ballooned into this conflict that engulfed the whole country and has now been exacerbated by these foreign powers that have gotten involved in Sudan trying to back
a winner and to ultimately meet their own interests. You've got to remember this is a country that has deep reserves of gold, it has huge amounts of valuable agricultural land along the Nile, and it's got
important strategic real estate, if you like, along the Red Sea. It's got hundreds of miles of shoreline on the Red Sea in a critical area. So all of these countries, for different reasons, appear to have gotten involved in the war. And that's frankly one of the reasons why it's proven so difficult to find a solution to, because it's not just, it's no longer just about resolving the differences between these two sides. It's also about, you know,
trying to find the interests or meeting the interests of these foreign, powerful foreign countries, which have also, are also taking a role
Yeah, there has been some suspicion that the fact that it's a mineral rich region could actually bring U.S. interest into this with regard to Trump, which I think you were saying earlier. Let me go to caller Nadine in San Anselmo, who's on the line. Nadine, you're on. Yes. I wanted to know. I heard this on the news. Did Trump.
Did the United States under the Trump administration just withdraw protective status to people who are in this country? And if so, can you tell more about who that covers? And did the status just start two years ago or many years ago? So that's my question. Nadine, thanks. So, Declan, President Trump, as I understand it, he actually revoked the visas of people who are from South Sudan. Is that right?
That's right, Joe. The protective status that the listener is referring to is related to a decision that was taken a couple of days ago where the Trump administration announced that South Sudan, previously part of Sudan until it seceded in 2011, that the Trump administration has effectively rescinded visa status for all South Sudanese citizens, which of course is
created great turmoil in that country for the United States. And now there's...
A dispute has sprung up between the two sides where the South Sudanese government has said this isn't about... I mean, sorry, the Trump administration accused the South Sudanese of not cooperating in deportations of its citizens from the U.S. And the South Sudan has... Its foreign ministry came out yesterday, actually, and issued a statement saying that this dispute really centers on one person,
a man who was deported from the U.S. to South Sudan in the recent past and who turned out to be not South Sudanese, but in fact Congolese. And so that this is and says that this is the root of this dispute and that it's just some sort of misunderstanding.
I was reading a piece actually by the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who is essentially describing the way the US is behaving, not just that it's not doing very much, but that in certain ways, it might even be exacerbating problems in Sudan. And with this issue in South Sudan, where we can get into it a little bit later, but there is concern that
So conflict in South Sudan could merge with the conflict in Sudan. But the other way that he was pointing out that the U.S. may actually be exacerbating the humanitarian crisis is with the cutting of aid to the area through the dismantling of USAID. Can you tell us about that?
Yeah, we saw some firsthand evidence of that while we were there. You know, the U.S. used to give about $830 million to Sudan, mostly in humanitarian emergency aid, until January. When that money was frozen as part of the aid review that the Trump administration announced, it immediately effectively cut funding to a network of food kitchens,
across the country, but particularly in Khartoum and the capital, that were feeding hundreds of thousands of people. And so there was this immediate and quite dramatic effect in those areas where, you know, these soup kitchens, which in some places were really the only form of sustenance available to people living in those areas. These are people who are living under shell fire,
often unable to leave their homes or leave their neighborhoods because of the fighting or because of the fear of being attacked by these fighters who've been accused of rape and massacre and other things. And so, you know, food supplies were not really reaching these areas apart from very meager supply coming through these soup kitchens, which in turn relied on American assistance.
You know, even despite the kind of scale of the suffering in Sudan and the scale of this war and the numbers of people affected, the international response has actually been quite weak. There's constantly been problems with getting enough funding with aid groups or the United Nations being able to get access to the worst hit areas.
And so the assistance that the US was providing through USAID was really a cornerstone of the aid efforts in these really beleaguered areas. And when that aid was frozen, the impact was immediate. And, you know, I met people who worked in those soup kitchens who told me that in the weeks after the aid was frozen, you know, young children, infant children, often in a
really, you know, disturbing state died. Let me go to caller Dalal in the East Bay. Hi, Dalal. You're on. Yeah, hi. I have, number one, I have a question and I have a couple of comments, if I may. The question I have is,
Why don't you go deeper a little bit about the role of the United Arab Emirates in Sudan, just making it look like they are trying to bring democracy into them?
Okay, you want us to go deeper into the role of the UAE? Was there something else that you wanted to say, Dalal? Yeah, yeah. I want to make a couple of comments. He mentioned something about this is a war between two generals. How about making it look like, okay, this is a war between within the army itself and a division of the army, because the RSF was part of the army. So,
If you have a division of the army going against the main army, are they supposed to be allowed just to take over?
And the other thing, he was talking about the Sudanese army, they are rounding people who are supposedly their collaborator with the RSF in Khartoum. And he made it look like, actually, he mentioned on a tribal basis. And that is incorrect. It
It's incorrect. Those are collaborators who used to support the RSF by telling them about the people, about the people who work for the army, about the people who have money, about the people who have beautiful girls so they can go to the houses, rape girls and, you know, loot the houses and that kind of stuff.
Well, Dalal, let me give Declan a chance to respond here. You did note that this was a conflict where initially the military, Sudan's military, had nurtured the forces that are now the RSF. And the hope was to try to, I guess, merge them and then they could rule together after the overthrow of al-Bashir. But do you want to respond to some of the concerns that Dalal has?
Sure, no, I'd be happy to. Look, on the role of the UAE...
I mean, trying to understand why the UAE has decided to throw its weight behind this group that's been accused of so many atrocities is hard to discern. I mean, it should be said, of course, that the UAE has denied any role in supporting either side in this war repeatedly. But the fact of the matter is that there's the reporting that we have done, there's
You know, there's evidence that's come from the U.S. Congress. There's a congresswoman from California, Sarah Jacobs, who's really led efforts to try and halt this Emirati support to the war and, in fact, has introduced legislation a couple of times, you know, to try and halt this Emirati support to the war.
in the House trying to condition American weapons sales to the UAE on the UAE, stopping that support to the OSF. In terms of the point you raised about the OSF and the army, I mean, it's absolutely true that, you know, even though the OSF is a paramilitary group, it was it was
It was brought to Khartoum by the Sudanese military. It had its roots in the Janjaweed militias that were notorious in Darfur during the 2000s and during the genocide there for carrying out ethnic attacks. But it later became this...
We cherished and built up by Sudanese leaders as part of their own internal dynamics. And so, you know, the RSF was brought to Khartoum by the military and the leader of the RSF and the leader of the military came together to mount a coup in 2021. And so that's one thing that distinguishes this war from Khartoum.
many others in this part of the world where you'll often have a government at war with, say, a militia or a rebel group that has come from the margins. But what really, in many respects, has made this war so destructive is that it started in the centre of the capital and in the centre of the security apparatus. But in terms of the reprisals against people in...
in areas that the army has recently controlled. I mean, I can only tell the listener what we saw ourselves. And we saw, you know, firsthand evidence of summary executions. There may have been people, I'm sure there were people who collaborated or have come under suspicion over what they did while the RSF was in control of those areas. But certainly there didn't seem to be much due process for them when we saw the bodies of some of those people lying on the streets in Khartoum.
So Donald writes, besides the desire for power by the competing generals, is there a major ethnic conflict driving the rapid support forces? So why is this genocide, Declan? You know, what ethnic group is trying to get rid of another ethnic group within the RSF, which is the side that's been accused by the U.S.?
So these kind of ethnic conflicts are another layer that underlies the wider, has been part of this wider conflict really since the beginning. As I said, what appeared to be, what appeared as a power struggle and was a power struggle in the beginning
suddenly has now given rise to these older tensions in the country that have risen up. One of them is in Darfur, where that genocide took place about 20 years ago. And at that time, you had a conflict between what are referred to in Sudan as ethnic Arab groups fighting against what are described as ethnic Afghans.
African groups, for want of a better term. And so as the war started up in Sudan again a couple of years ago, we had violence by the RSF, which is dominated by ethnic Arab people, against some of those ethnic African groups, particularly from the Masalit in western Darfur. And there were massacres in which many thousands of people, I mean, by UN estimates 15,000 people were killed in one town alone. And it
It's that kind of evidence that led the U.S. to eventually bring that charge of genocide forward.
against the RSF. Even though I should note that critics said that the Biden administration should have brought that genocide determination far, far earlier and in fact waited until the Biden administration was almost out of office before making that determination. But to the ethnic question, it's not just that. Sudan's an extremely, as I said, an extremely diverse country. It's a country where the
The very idea of Sudanese identity and nationality has been contested for decades, pretty much since it was formed. And it's those questions of ethnic difference that, you know, underlaid several of the wars, the main wars that have taken place. It was part of the war in the south that went on from the mid-80s until the mid-2000s.
of the war in Burr that led to the genocide 20 years ago. And now, unfortunately, it's becoming part of this war as well. I wouldn't say it's the defining factor in this war, not by a long shot, but you see that in local areas, you see...
Ethnic grievances that have been festering for a long time, surging to the forefront, because frankly, there's just so many weapons in the country now. So many people have been armed by either side to join in the fight. And sometimes that leads to these other disputes being prosecuted violently as well.
We're talking with Declan Walsh, chief Africa correspondent for The New York Times. He spent more than a week in the city center of Sudan's capital Khartoum after journalists were allowed in after the Sudanese military was able to take it back from the rapid support forces. It's two years this month since fighting broke out between the Sudanese military and the paramilitary group rapid support forces, leading to a devastating civil war that's taken place.
some estimated 150,000 lives, according to a U.S. envoy, when you take into consideration war-related issues.
famine and disease. It has displaced 13 million, and the UN has declared it the world's worst famine in decades. Listeners, join the conversation with your questions and comments. What questions or reactions do you have to the state of the war in Sudan? Do you have connections to Sudan or to refugees from the region? What role do you think the US should play or would you like to see the US play in addressing the war and its humanitarian crisis?
The email address is forum at kqed.org. The phone number is 866-733-6786. And you can find us on Blue Sky Facebook, Instagram, and threads at KQED Forum. More after the break. I'm Mina Kim.
This is Forum. I'm Meena Kim. We're talking about recent developments in Sudan civil war that could mark a turning point, but a turning point toward what is what we're discussing with Declan Walsh, chief Africa correspondent for the New York Times, who says that it is unlikely to bring an end to a conflict that has devastated so many lives, an estimated 150,000 dead and 13 million displaced, along with famine, mass rape and disease.
You, our listeners, are sharing your questions and comments about the conflict. Let me go to Ayat in Larkspur. Hi, Ayat, you're on.
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Hi, thank you. And thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. I'm originally from Sudan. I was born in Sudan, but I'm an American citizen. And I would like to speak about the truth about the war in Sudan. And I would like to ask that the U.S., when time comes in the United Nations,
against the Emirates that the US will stand by Sudan and don't veto the results of the ICJ, the International Criminal Justice Court. We have now a case against Sudan against Emirates for the genocide that happened in Sudan. Sudan is a rich country. It's not a poor country.
Sudan's Emirates has been using the gold from Sudan for years, years ago, since the government of the al-Bashir.
Emirates is using our agriculture. They want to occupy our ports. They want to kill all Sudanese people using the rabbit support forces to occupy Sudan and steal its gold, its
It's agriculture. It's uranium. All the minerals you can think of is in Sudan, including the Arabic, what they call Arabic gum. It is Sudanese gum, which is used in all medications. So the war in Sudan, either we exist or not exist.
Ayat, thank you for sharing that. Tehlin, can you help me understand a little more? I have a sense, but the U.S.'s silence with the UAE. Well, it was certainly a very complicated issue for the Biden administration because you had folks within the Africa policy community who felt very strongly that the UAE should be called out by the U.S. for many of the reasons that your listener just enumerated there.
And on the other hand, the UAE is this extremely wealthy, influential country that plays a key role in American foreign policy in other areas. It is an ally of Israel. It is a country that hosts American military personnel. It is a country that...
has been playing a role in efforts to bring relief to Gaza. It's involved in the struggle against Iran. And of course, it's also a country that has huge sovereign wealth funds, enormous wealth at its disposal, and is a massive investor in the United States.
And really the crunch point for the Biden administration's policy was back in September when the leader of the UAE, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, and his younger brother, Sheikh Nadir Pahnun, came to the U.S. and they said,
met with President Biden and with the senior administration personnel in the Oval Office. And in the statement that was made after that by the administration, it was really extremely frustrating to the folks who wanted it to be at least partly about what the UAE was doing in Sudan. It just sort of had diplomatic niceties. It was extremely bland.
and didn't make any reference to the Emirati support for the RSF, which our own reporting had indicated had been documented extensively by US intelligence and other officials. So really that's, for many countries, you know, dealing with this war, kind of, frankly, it gets to the stark geopolitical reality, which is that, you know,
Some of the backers in this war, on both sides it has to be said, are extremely wealthy countries from the Gulf. They have a lot of equities with the US and other Western countries in other domains. And frankly, critics would say there's a sense that Sudan has been far down the priority list in the dealings between these countries, despite the scale of the famine,
The killings, the humanitarian crisis that's going on as a result of this war that critics would say they are stoking. Yeah. Can you actually talk a little bit more about those who are displaced, where they are going to and what kinds of tensions that's creating as well?
It is the largest displacement crisis in the world right now. There are about 13 million Sudanese who have been forced from their homes. Four million have, just under four million, have been forced to flee across borders. But the majority are actually displaced within the country. And it's just been an enormous crisis. I mean, one of the most distressing focus, one of the most...
Disturbing parts of this conflict is a place called Zamzam. It's a camp for displaced people in Darfur. That's where the world's first famine in four years was officially certified last August. It's also a camp that's on the edge of a besieged city. The RSF has been surrounding it for the last year and
has been fighting with Sudanese military and allied forces for control. And the people in that camp, those displaced people, they've endured shelling. Their hospitals have been attacked. Many of them are starving. And there's no help in sight. There are almost no international aid agencies working there. The UN is not there. You know, there are a few people in this area that have Starling terminals and who are able to send
or messages or information about what's going on. But for the most part, it's absolutely cut off. So, I mean, that's one part of the displacement crisis. The other part, though, is people who were forced to leave Khartoum at the start of the war and are now starting, it seems to trickle back. When we were leaving Khartoum
Just over a week ago, as we were driving out of the city, we saw these convoys of large passenger buses speeding back into the city since the Sudanese army had taken control. You know, the pre-war, it's hard to know exactly, but the pre-war population of Khartoum was probably about 8 million. I've heard aid groups estimate that three quarters of those people left during the war. And now there are signs that some of them may be starting to go back.
The challenge, though, is, you know, how they're going to manage, because frankly, this is a city where there's no electricity in most of the city. There's very little running water. Huge parts of the city have been entirely destroyed.
So it's going to be a real challenge for people to reestablish their lives there. But then again, you know, the conditions where some of them are living right now are pretty terrible in other areas. Can you say a little bit more about what the RSF has done since it was driven from that capital city and what it's likely to do next? You were saying that their stronghold is in Darfur. So I imagine they're going to try to regroup there. But then what do you think?
Well, the next focus is likely to be on that city I just mentioned, El Fasher, where the Zamzam camp is located. The RSF controls, you know, all...
The large part of Darfur, the only major urban centre it doesn't hold at this point, the only major city, is the city of Al-Fasher. They've been besieging it for just over just about a year now. And, you know, they've met fierce resistance from local groups that are allied with the military who are trying to defend the city.
But nonetheless, there's now an expectation that militarily the RSF is likely to try and redouble its efforts to capture that city. And then, you know, if we go by its own
it's going to sort of seal off Darfur, impose some sort of formal rule in the areas under its control. And I mean, this is perhaps more speculative, but we can only imagine, I mean, their leaders have said that they're going to fight on, that they've lost the battle, but they haven't lost the war. So if that's true, we can only imagine that the RSF is likely going to regroup
and try and figure out how and where it's going to strike back at the Sudanese military. I mean, it's worth saying that as in many wars across the world and in Africa, drones are playing an increasingly large role. So even though this is a paramilitary group that didn't have an air force at the start of the war, it has now, partly through help from countries like the UAE and others, acquired a fleet of armed drones,
which enable it to strike far beyond the areas that are within its physical control. So there's certainly a prospect that we could see the drone part of this war accelerating as the RSF is forced back into this area that it considers its stronghold.
And as you said earlier in the show, their goal really is to try to create a parallel government as well. There are a lot of concerns about the conflict drawing in the country of South Sudan. Can you just explain why those concerns are so acute? Because, well, but South Sudan was part of Sudan until 14 years ago. Even after the separation, there are very...
I would say, intimate ties between these two countries. There are many South Sudanese who lived in Sudan and, uh, there are a certain number of Sudanese who went over. It was a, a, not a very strong border between the two countries. And now in this war, as things have gotten more chaotic, um, we've seen the boundary, that border become increasingly blurred. And in fact, our reporting indicates that there are fighters from one side in the war, the RSF, who have actually been, uh,
crossing the border, coming into South Sudan, and then getting involved in a fight that has broken out in South Sudan itself over the last couple of months. So there are tensions in South Sudan between the president, Rayak Mashar, and his deputy that go back many, many years that led to a war in that country about 10 years ago. There was a peace deal in 2018 that put a stop to that. But that
arrangement has started to break down in recent months very badly. In fact, just in recent weeks, we've seen
serious clashes between gunmen loyal to both sides. And the upshot of that has, and a lot of that has taken place in this border area with Sudan and in an area where the RSF have been using as a back base and have taken part in that fight. So you can see that there's a real prospect that as the conflict in Sudan continues to grow, as this conflict in South Sudan is suddenly re-emerging,
that you're going to have and you have a border between the Qatar and the U.S. There's a very real prospect that the fighting is going to start spilling in both directions across the two countries. Let me go to caller Emery in Indianapolis. Hi, Emery, you're on.
Hi, I'm a cardiac surgeon representing Emergency International, which you just mentioned there aren't a lot of agencies that are able to provide help from inside Khartoum. And I know Declan is familiar with the Salon Center and with Emergency has been a champion actually of them in many different settings over the years. And I think you just spoke with our President Rosella just recently during your visit.
Thank you, number one. Number two, we're in this lifeline of the Salam Center, which provides free care to not just patients in Sudan, but all through sub-Saharan Africa. They've provided 10,000 free cardiac surgeries in the past 15 years or so. It's really astounding. Our team is heading back in.
to Khartoum and you may know that the $9 million budget, which was completely funded by Emergency International with 35% from the Sudanese government is really struggling because of course the government couldn't put funds toward anything but the war these past two years.
So really, my question is, you know, this lifeline of the Salam Center in Khartoum is really in crisis. And do you have any ideas for ways that we can draw funding in such a difficult time just to get us basically to 2026 so we don't shut our doors? Emery, thanks. And before you answer, Declan, let me just note to our listeners, you are listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. Go right ahead, Declan.
So, yeah, thank you, Emery. I'm glad you mentioned the work of emergency. Emergency really does stand out as, you know, I can, off the top of my head, I think I can think of maybe two or three international aid groups that had a presence in that part of cartoon through the war. Emergency is one of them. And they've certainly done incredible work in that one hospital they have. Uh,
And when I met the president of emergency in Port Sudan, I mean, she told me the challenges they faced, the compromises they also had to make. It's been extremely challenging for them to provide the help they could in that area. But I think, you know, the funding question is, you know, it's one that all aid groups are facing now. Like I said, you know, this is a crisis situation.
that despite its scale has not received the attention or the international funding that, frankly, I think it deserves. And so the U.S. really stood out as, you know, by far the largest single donor to this catastrophe. And so when that funding was suspended in January, the impact was huge across the board. Now,
I think I should mention that the Trump administration has indicated just some weeks ago that it intends to issue another waiver for its aid to Sudan. And I know that some of that USAID money for large groups working in Sudan, I believe, has been processed recently. So there is a prospect that some of the money is coming back.
But it comes after two months of, frankly, what aid workers call chaos and dysfunction of money not flowing and still now great uncertainty about what's going to happen. I mean, the money that's programmed at the moment, I think, will last through the summer or into the beginning of the summer, if indeed it goes. You know, part of the problem is that the people in USAID who used to process those kind of payments have now been fired. So it's a very slow process.
difficult process. But even what has been renewed is now, as I understand it, expected to run out this coming summer and the coming months. And there's no indication of what's going to come next. So that is really one of the most pressing questions because it's really unclear who else will pick up the tab. Other European countries, other donors, they've
Many of them have started to cut back their aid programs in recent years as well. And then the other source of funding for humanitarian efforts are often with these Gulf countries. But as we've spoke about on this show, they all have their own agendas in Sudan war as well. So it's difficult.
Yeah, Alex on Blue Sky writes, it's crazy to think that a drone war is happening at the hands of China and the UAE against Russia, Iran and Turkey using proxies in Sudan. And interestingly, and you touched on this, Declan, but you know, Russia has switched sides, which also, I guess, underscores our earlier caller Ayat's point about just what people's interests are in this fight in Sudan. But do you want to, you know, say a little bit more about that? Yeah, sure.
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up just so we could clarify. Yeah, I mean, at the start of the war, Russia was helping the RSF through the Wagner Group, you know, this mercenary group that's
spread across many African countries in recent years. It's very closely linked to the Kremlin. And before the war, it operated gold mines in Sudan in exchange for military assistance to groups like the RSF. So at the start of the war, they supplied surface-to-air missiles to the RSF to help it to shoot down enemy planes. But then
At some point last year, there was suddenly this sign of a dramatic U-turn on the part of the Kremlin, which started to send delegations to Port Sudan, offering weapons supplies now to the Sudanese military on the other side of the war in exchange for weapons.
Largely, it appears for what is Russia's longstanding and cherished goal in Sudan, which is to have naval access for its warships to Sudan's Red Sea coastline. This has been a publicly stated goal of the Kremlin going back
At least seven or eight years, there's been several pushes to try and get a promise from the Sudanese military. And now we see the Russians providing weapons in exchange for what they hope will be that promise being delivered on. So many major foreign powers with so many interests, but it's the people who are bearing the cost. And I thank you, Declan, for sharing that with us and for your reporting on Sudan and joining us today. Thank you.
Declan Walsh, New York Times Chief Africa Correspondent. My thanks to Caroline Smith for producing this segment and my thanks to listeners for sharing their experiences and questions. You've been listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim.
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