The situation in Sudan

Sudan is a country in north-east Africa, five times the size of Germany and home to almost 50 million people. The country is characterized by aridity and is largely located in the Sahara or on its southern edge, the Sahel region.

Sudan was a British colony until 1956, and there has been political unrest in the country since independence. An almost 50-year civil war between the predominantly Christian south and the Muslim north ended in 2011 with the independence of South Sudan.
However, uprisings also repeatedly broke out in other regions of the country, the best known and most momentous in 2003 in Darfur in the west of the country. This region alone is as big as France.

The background to the conflict was a dispute over the distribution of water and grazing land between nomads and farmers. The government under Omar al Bashir supported the nomads and equipped them with weapons, the consequences were terrible. Armed nomad riders, the Janjaweed, attacked thousands of villages on horseback and camels, burning them to the ground, killing the inhabitants and looting or destroying the supplies. Almost 400,000 people fell victim to the attacks and half of Darfur’s six million inhabitants were forced to flee. Most of them sought refuge in huge camps within the country.

The civil war continues even after more than 20 years. The refugee camps have now turned into ghettos, as there is hardly any prospect for people to return to their villages.

In 2019, the long-term dictator Omar al Bashir was deposed by the military following mass protests by the Sudanese population, and civilian groups and the army formed a transitional government. However, in October 2021, the military under General Abdel Fatah Burhan staged another coup and made him the de facto head of government. Following mass demonstrations and international pressure, a new transitional government was formed between the military and civilian politicians in December 2022, with the aim of holding free elections in 2024.

In April 2023, however, a power struggle broke out between Burhan and his powerful deputy Mohammed Hamadan Daglo, known as Hemeti, the former leader of the Janjaweed. He is now head of the so-called RSF, a militia of one hundred thousand men, and is fighting with the army, which is roughly equal in numbers. The conflict is being carried out on the backs of the population. The power struggle has driven almost seven million people to flee their homes and thousands have fallen victim to it. He is hardly noticed by the global community. Although supplies in the country have now almost completely collapsed and international aid organizations have hardly any access to the people.

Darfur, Hemeti’s homeland, has also once again become the focus of the fighting, with his militias terrorizing the civilian population.
Saraf Oumra, the small town in the west of the country, and the village of Karakoulle, which is attached to it, are not affected by the fighting. Nevertheless, the situation is difficult, contact with the outside world is difficult, telephone and internet connections are repeatedly interrupted or switched off. Nevertheless, the people in Karakoulle continued to build their school even after the outbreak of war. They need our support more urgently than ever.