♦ Sudan: This week’s news in brief ♦

A compact digest of the past week’s most-read highlights, from the heart of Sudan. Subscribe to receive this digest weekly in your inbox.

Former Sudan PM Hamdok meets Macron in Paris
 
17/04/2024 – PARIS / OTTAWA. Former Prime Minister of Sudan and current chair of the Civil Democratic Forces (Tagaddum), Abdalla Hamdok, engaged in discussions on the war in Sudan with French President Emmanuel Macron during a closed session in Paris.
 
Hamdok expressed gratitude to President Macron for France’s unwavering support of the Sudanese people’s aspirations and their stance in backing Sudan’s December revolution and the transitional civilian government. He commended the success of the Paris conference, which raised €2 billion in pledged support from France, Germany, and the European Union for humanitarian aid. President Macron, in turn, welcomed Hamdok’s participation in the conference activities and reaffirmed France’s commitment to supporting Sudanese efforts for peace, freedom, and justice.

Op-Ed: Searching for peace amid Sudan’s year of war
 
22/04/2024 – AMSTERDAM. A year into the conflict engulfing Sudan, questions loom over the practicability of the protracted war and its immeasurable toll on the nation. Amidst the ineffable uncertainty, Sudanese people question whether peace remains attainable or if the nation is plunging towards an even more volatile future. As negotiations stutter, political experts and advocates offer their perceptions into the country’s perilous condition.
 
Describing the past year as Sudan’s bleakest era in recent memory, Dr Amjad Farid, director of the Sudanese Fikra for Studies and Development, paints a grim portrait of the conflict as a power struggle between a “corrupt state apparatus and a fascist militia”. Journalist and political analyst Mohamed Moussa Harika laments the absence of concrete headway towards peace.

Teachers call for education to resume in Sudan
24/04/2024 – PORT SUDAN. 61 Sudanese organisations, associations, political parties, and national figures from across the political and intellectual spectrum have submitted a memorandum on the deplorable situation of education in Sudan. The memorandum was initiated by the Sudanese Teachers’ Committee.
 
Reports: ‘40k+ displaced by North Darfur clashes’, nine communities ‘razed by arson’
24/04/2024 – EL FASHER. An estimated 40,615 people have been displaced in El Fasher, North Darfur, between April 1 and April 16, due to ongoing clashes between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the Displacement Tracking Matrix reported. A separate report by the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab claimed that at least nine communities west of El Fasher have been razed by apparent arson attacks in the same period.
 
Eastern Sudan: Angry responses to former GIS director’s ‘racist remarks’
23/04/2024 – KASSALA / ADDIS ABABA. Massive demonstrations took place in eastern Sudan over the weekend to denounce the statements of Retd Maj Gen Badreldin Abdelhakam, former director of the General Intelligence Service (GIS) in Kassala, describing three former eastern Sudanese officials as ‘Eritrean nationals’ and demanding their citizenship be withdrawn. Prominent Sudanese warned that the statements ‘aim to divide the various communities in eastern Sudan’.
 
Red Cross president laments ‘failure to protect civilians in armed conflict’
23/04/2024 – OSLO. Mirjana Splojaric, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), expressed her dissatisfaction with the continuation of conflicts in various parts of the world and lamented the failure to protect civilians.
 
Sudan timeline January-March 2024: Sudan becomes ‘the largest humanitarian crisis in the world’
22/04/2024 – DABANGA SUDAN. Humanitarian conditions are rapidly deteriorating across Sudan, in particular in the war zones, as most people have depleted their reserves. International organisations warn that ‘every second person’ in Sudan needs aid. Washington calls Sudan ‘the largest humanitarian crisis in the world’. An overview of the past months.
 
Six activists detained in Sudan’s Sennar and El Gedaref in two weeks
22/04/2024 – EL GEDAREF / SENNAR. A joint force of Sudan’s military intelligence and GIS agents detained a member of El Gedaref Resistance Committees, bringing the total number of activists reportedly detained within the past two weeks to six.
 
Battles between the army and the RSF continue unabated in Sudan
19/04/2024 09:59 KHARTOUM. Clashes between the SAF and the RSF continued in various parts of the country. Artillery shelling led to the death of a person in El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan. The Sudanese Air Force bombed RSF targets in South and North Darfur, El Gezira, and Sennar, and killed two people in Wad Madani, El Gezira. The RSF occupied Mellit in North Darfur and plundered an army base in El Rahad, North Kordofan.
 
El Burhan fires Sudan’s Foreign Minister, governors of Kassala and El Gedaref
18/04/2024 – PORT SUDAN. Lt Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan, commander-in-chief of the SAF and head of Sudan’s Sovereignty Council, has dismissed and replaced Foreign Minister-designate Ali El Sadig and the governors of Kassala and El Gedaref, Mohamed Mousa and Mohamed Abdelrahman.
 
‘At least 990 cases of enforced disappearance in Sudan conflict’
17/04/2024 – OMDURMAN / KHARTOUM / PORT SUDAN. The Sudanese civil society group Missing Initiative shared their staggering documentation regarding the ongoing conflict in Sudan, reporting a total of 990 cases of enforced disappearances since the conflict erupted. Among the victims are 95 women and at least 50 children.