DARFUR IS ENGULFED IN ATROCITY, WITH FAMINE, MASS KILLINGS AND DISPLACEMENT NOW DEFINING WHAT REMAINS OF SUDAN’S REVOLUTION. ~ Blade Runner ~ The city of El Fasher in the war-torn Sudanese province of Darfur — a region roughly the size of Spain — has fallen into the hands of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) after around a year and a half of siege. During this time, hundreds of thousands of civilians were trapped, food supplies collapsed, and famine conditions began to take hold. Satellite images and eyewitness accounts now reveal scenes of terror: burned neighbourhoods, mass graves and large-scale killings of civilians. The RSF, led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (“Hemedti”) — direct successors of the Janjaweed militias, the so-called “mounted devils” who for years terrorised non-Arab populations in Darfur — have been fighting the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan for more than two years in what many Sudanese call a “war against civilians”, as women and children are disproportionately among the dead. The total number of people killed is unknown; estimates range into the tens or possibly hundreds of thousands, but no confirmed figures approach one million. More than 12 million people have been displaced inside Sudan or forced to flee to neighbouring countries — particularly Chad, but also the Central African Republic, Libya, Egypt, South Sudan, Uganda and Ethiopia. Around 25 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, with approximately 24 million facing acute food insecurity and outbreaks of diseases such as cholera. Even the aid that reaches the country is frequently blocked or looted by RSF forces, SAF units or local militias aligned to either side. Only a small number of refugees manage to reach the Mediterranean in an attempt to cross to Europe in unsafe boats, often risking or meeting death at sea. This civil war began after the overthrow of President Omar al-Bashir in 2019, when a popular uprising forced him from power. Instead of leading to any kind of democracy, the country was seized by rival generals who eventually turned their weapons on each other. It has become a merciless conflict that the UN has called the ‘perfect storm’, with no visible prospect of ending, drawing in outside involvement from regional powers such as the United Arab Emirates and Egypt — backing different sides — as well as Russian interests and private military contractors. The EU has been spending millions to curb migration while military equipment from Britain, Canada and elsewhere is being used in the battlefields. Less widely known is what remains of the grassroots revolutionary movement that helped ignite the uprising against al-Bashir. Among these forces is the Anarchist Group in Sudan (AGS), founded by students and young workers in 2017. During the revolution, its members helped organise resistance committees — neighbourhood assemblies that coordinated protests, strikes and mutual aid. After the military retook power and the civil war began, many AGS members were arrested, killed or forced underground. Others continued their work in secret: translating and printing anarchist texts, running communal kitchens, assisting displaced families and supporting local defence groups. With the support of international anarchist networks, including Black Rose/Rosa Negra, the AGS acquired a printing press to produce their own material, although constant fighting and repression have limited its use. For them, this is not simply a war between two generals, but the violent destruction of the revolution from below — a deliberate crushing of any attempt at self-organisation, autonomy and popular power. The post Sudan drowning in blood and hunger appeared first on Freedom News.

TWO ACTIVISTS FROM SUDFA (A MEDIA OUTLET FOUNDED BY SUDANESE EXILES IN FRANCE) AND GÉNÉRATION LUMIÈRE (A DECOLONIAL ECOLOGY ASSOCIATION FOUNDED BY YOUNG CONGOLESE PEOPLE IN LYON) DISCUSS THE ONGOING WARS IN CONGO AND SUDAN ~ from Ricochets ~ Hamad (Sudfa): In Sudan we are witnessing one of the most serious disasters in the world. We’re talking about 80% of hospitals that are out of service. We’re talking about 20 million Sudanese, or half of the Sudanese population, who have left their homes, either abroad or displaced within the country. We’re talking about 90% of Sudanese who are suffering from hunger today in war zones. We’re talking about 15 million children who have not been able to attend school since 2023. So there you have it, we are witnessing one of the most serious disasters in the world: but what is not normal in all of this is the silence of the entire world. Jordi (Génération Lumière): Unlike Sudan, what’s quite unusual about the Congo case is that it’s a very well-documented conflict. Basically, the Congolese question is quite simple to understand. It’s purely a question of resources, in fact. It is about recovering a resource from a colonized territory and extracting value from it to target an external market. Hamad (Sudfa): The wars in Sudan and Congo demonstrate how a country’s natural resources fuel instability, instead of the local population benefiting from this wealth. It is a strategic country, which bordered nine countries until 2011, and which has an opening to the Red Sea, a very strategic area in military terms. So, the current conflict is not only linked to the reasons most often presented, when we say that it is a war over power between two generals. This war has its roots in the colonial era, which largely contributed to the division of the Sudanese population, the stigmatization of certain parts of the population, and the racial, ethnic and tribal division of the country. The British, who colonized Sudan, adopted a system of segregation: they divided the Sudanese population, which is multicultural, into two categories. The first is those who benefited from the colonial system and were considered allies, who benefited from all the country’s wealth and the systems that were implemented, and on the other side there are those who were marginalized. THE “COLTAN BOOM” Jordi (Génération Lumière): In Congo, the war was really centred in the east of the DRC, at the time when there was what is called the, “coltan boom.” Without coltan, you can’t make computers, telephones, etc. Towards the end of the 1990s, there was the internet boom, the boom of a whole new generation of products that needed this resource. And the Congo has nearly 60 to 80% of the world’s coltan reserves. However, this boom came at the time of a political transition in the DRC. For nearly 32 years, Mobutu, the one we called “the friend of the West,” was in power. Upon his death, the question arose as to which political leader would take over this enormous coltan market and arbitrate the country’s strategic interests. And that’s when new players came into play, primarily Rwanda and Uganda, which are the border countries to the east of the Congo. In this region, the borders are porous, the populations are used to moving around, and it is quite easy to finance the possibility for groups to enter the Congo and recover the minerals located there. Now we see an extreme militarization of the conflict, with armed gangs massacring everywhere. Until now, we have had more or less 6 million deaths in 30 years in this region. In the 1990s, there were 5 or 6 armed gangs; today, we have more than 200. Why? In this border region, there are a lot of gold, coltan, tin, etc. And some of these militias, these warlord leaders, go to the Congo because it is easier to recover the minerals. It does not require industrial efforts, you do not have to drill, you do not have to go through large companies, to be able to get rich. Coltan is harvested in an artisanal way, by shovel. So the bulk of coltan activity is not at all in the hands of the State, it is done clandestinely. In 2020, it was discovered that Congo was no longer the world’s leading producer of coltan; it had just been overtaken by a few thousand more tons. Rwanda had become a hub for minerals recovered from the Congo. Today, there is no digital company that can certify, with real proof, that the coltan minerals in its products do not come from these war zones. It’s tragic. Hamad (Sudfa): In Sudan, the divisions created during the colonial era created a state that has been very weak since independence and this has opened the door wide for imperialist powers to intervene in Sudanese affairs. Often, this is done through alliances aimed at supporting the current government so that it can allow others to benefit from the country’s natural resources. External countries push local groups to take up arms and create an armed conflict by promising them to control that region one day, in order to be able to benefit from that region’s resources. FOREIGN INVOLVEMENT When we talk about the imperialist powers intervening in Sudan and creating instability, we are talking about the conventional powers, Germany, France, and all the Western countries, which manufacture military components found in the weapons used by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militiamen. But in the case of Sudan, there are other imperialist powers that are much more discreet and silent, but which intervene in a very brutal manner. In particular, the Gulf countries, which have a whole host of interests in Sudan, whether for geopolitical, economic, or security reasons. The United Arab Emirates, which is the primary financial supporter and arms supplier of the RSF, is seeking to seize Sudan’s agricultural land and livestock because it lacks arable land and wants to guarantee its food self-sufficiency in the context of global warming. The war that broke out in April 2023 is not a war between Sudanese people. It is a proxy war between these different powers. For example, between Egypt and Ethiopia, which are in conflict over the Renaissance Dam on the Nile: instead of directly confronting each other, each is supporting one of the two armies fighting in Sudan. Jordi (Génération Lumière): Another driving force behind the imperial logic of extractivism is, at the political level, to block the state apparatus. The objective of the extractivist economy is for the bulk of wealth to depend on a single sector of activity. We will therefore have a form of militarization of the economy. In Congo, for example, the areas where resources are exploited are areas that even local populations cannot access. They are barricaded, militarized, or prey to armed conflict. Hamad (Sudfa): This does not mean that there is no demand for democracy by the local populations. In 2018, a revolutionary mobilization erupted in Sudan. This mobilization brought great hope to the Sudanese, to put an end to the regime that had remained in power for 30 years. This mobilization was extraordinary in terms of demands and organization. But it faced many challenges: we inherited a system where the state apparatus no longer functions, a very fragile economic system, and a divided and war-torn society in all four corners of the country. Even though it was able to put an end to Omar al-Bashir’s regime, the mobilization was unable to achieve its initial objective, which was: “Peace, Justice, and Freedom.” The former dictator created a military system that aimed to serve the regime’s interests. Thus, the army is not independent of the state: it intervenes in a very brutal manner in the political system, in the economic system, and the army controls the entire country, with all its political, economic, etc. aspects. Then, it is an army that is composed of several units, including paramilitary groups like the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The RSF militia was created at the time of the war in Darfur in 2003 to do the work that the Sudanese army does not want to do: the massacre, ethnic cleansing and mass displacement of the population of Darfur. The RSF was able to do this work with the support of certain foreign countries, and notably the European Union, through the Khartoum process. This is an agreement signed in 2014 between the Sudanese government and the European Union to control immigration to Europe, on the border between Sudan and Libya. Border control was delegated by the Sudanese army to the RSF, which was able to benefit from technological and financial support from the European Union. And this is one of the reasons why the RSF was able to become a much stronger military force or power than the Sudanese army, so much so that in 2023 they turned against the army to take power in its place. Jordi (Génération Lumière): European states are also involved in the conflict in eastern Congo, through the military support provided to the Rwandan army. The French government has cooperation agreements with the Rwandan government, which means that some of the military personnel receive their training in France. These excerpts that we have chosen to publish from the cross-discussion on the current conflicts in Congo and Sudan highlight the interdependence of the global economy with that of extractivism, an activity based on the exploitation of resources and populations. It is the legacy of a colonial and racial order that justifies foreign intervention in these areas, as well as the opacity and violence of the actions perpetrated to maintain this economy. For us at Sudfa, it is important to think about local issues while maintaining an international perspective that allows us to highlight the globalized logic of colonial capitalism, as well as the paths of solidarity between peoples. Machine Translation. Image: stimson.org The post War and Extractivism – a view from Sudan and Congo appeared first on Freedom News.

A REPORT ON THE GROUP’S CONTRUBUTIONS DURING THE DISASTROUS FACTIONAL WAR, CALLING FOR CONTINUED SUPPORT ~ Sudanese comrades ~ Every day, we witness global conflicts over resources, power, and ideology, with peoples divided into camps—either supporting the existing authority in their countries or seeking to seize control of the state. In Sudan, the struggle for resources and power has long been the driving force behind conflicts, culminating in the catastrophe that befell the country on April 15, 2023. These events starkly revealed the truth behind the slogans of the December Revolution, which anarchists actively worked to clarify. When the Janjaweed were an integral part of the military state and participated in the violent dispersal of sit-ins, comrades bravely opposed them, demanding their popular dismantling, recognizing them as a threat to the revolution and society. Later, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) emerged as an independent power based on tribal foundations, wielding their authority and weapons to impose dominance through explicit racial supremacy. In Sudan, organised tribal conflict is visibly fuelled by the state, with ignorance serving as the primary tool for igniting division among communities for the benefit of the ruling powers. Certainly, the war had a devastating impact on the formation of our group, as displacement and dispersion were inevitable consequences of the violent conflict in the country. However, thanks to international solidarity, we were able to rescue comrades trapped in conflict zones, bring them to safety, and assist them in adjusting to their new housing situations. We also helped others find shelter. Personally, during the war, I hosted more than three families of comrades, reinforcing the principle of solidarity until they were able to stabilise their situations. Despite our limited resources, we exceeded our capacities significantly. Most of our comrades volunteered to serve the affected community and vulnerable groups such as children, women, and the elderly. With humanitarian aid being scarce and the crisis worsening, we had no other choice but to step up. Additionally, it was essential to reflect the true causes, trajectory, and developments of the war from our anarchist perspective to the world. We also sought to defuse the tensions that warring factions aimed to escalate in order to fuel the conflict, by raising awareness about the nature of the war. Another crucial aspect of our efforts was educating people about the dangers of war remnants and how to handle situations involving captivity, detention, starvation, injuries, and war-related waste. Despite our lack of resources, we remain committed to our liberatory duty—spreading awareness in such complex circumstances. We hope to expand participation and broaden the scope of the struggle. Today, Sudanese people are not fighting over religion or ideology but are engaged in a fundamentally authoritarian struggle. With social movements against ideology losing momentum, anarchists remain the only ones capable of offering a correct analysis and critique of authoritarian policies. As we give our utmost efforts—and possibly even our lives—to maintain our existence and spread awareness, the support of comrades worldwide is crucial. We cannot fight this struggle alone. Just as we recognise that we are not alone in this world, international solidarity strengthens us. That is why we call on all comrades to support anarchists in Sudan—because supporting them is supporting freedom and justice against tyranny in all its forms. The post Anarchists in Sudan: “We were able to rescue comrades trapped in conflict zones” appeared first on Freedom News.