Foreign Affairs Op-Ed “The UAE’s Secret War in Sudan How International Pressure Can Stop the Genocidal Violence”

Note: This op-ed was originally published in Foreign Affairs and was authored by John Prendergast, co-founder of The Sentry, and Anthony Lake, former National Security Adviser.

The UAE’s Secret War in Sudan How International Pressure Can Stop the Genocidal Violence

How International Pressure Can Stop the Genocidal Violence

In the next four months, two and a half million Sudanese could die of hunger-related causes. That’s twice as many as Pol Pot’s regime starved in Cambodia over four years, and two and a half times as many as died in the 1983–85 famine in Ethiopia that inspired the charity recording “We are the World.” As Martin Griffith, the United Nations’ top humanitarian official, recently put it: “I don’t think we’ve ever had this kind of number at risk of famine.”

The explosive expansion of graveyards in Sudan’s Darfur region and the genocidal violence marking the battles for its main cities are the visible tip of a mountain of human suffering. Even as wars rage elsewhere in the world, there is no parallel to the intensity and scope of conflict in Sudan. Since civil war erupted in April 2023, ten million Sudanese have fled their homes. One out of every eight internally displaced persons in the world is Sudanese, and more children have been displaced from their homes in Sudan than anywhere else.

And yet the world seems to hardly notice the agony of Sudan and its people. Donors have contributed only 31 percent of the $2.7 billion the UN has requested for Sudan—a shortfall that is worsening the hunger crisis. Occasionally governments will announce sanctions or world leaders and international organizations will make statements expressing concern. For the most part, however, they are not taking meaningful action to stanch the bloodshed.

No country is doing enough to end the suffering, but some countries are actively fueling and benefiting from Sudan’s civil war. Egypt, Iran, and Turkey have provided military support to Khartoum, despite evidence that the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) engages in indiscriminate bombing and torture, and that it uses starvation as a weapon of war. Russia initially backed the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the other party to the conflict, which has roots in the Janjaweed militias that committed genocide in Darfur two decades ago. But Moscow is now playing both sides; in May, it entered an agreement with the SAF to establish a Russian logistical support base on the Red Sea in exchange for weapons and equipment. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, which has historical links to the SAF leadership, spent months undercutting efforts to restart negotiations between the warring parties that had stalled in late 2023. It took until this July for the United States to gain Saudi agreement to restart the talks, which will take place in August in Geneva.

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Click here to read the full op-ed in Foreign Affairs.