Both sides fighting in Sudan are targeting doctors and activists and silencing the civilian voices seeking to document war crimes and provide services in the face of social collapse, their colleagues said Wednesday.
War engulfed the African nation April 14 and shows little sign of abating after more than 1 million people fled their homes. Both the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have repeatedly pledged to respect cease-fires and humanitarian law, only to break those promises within minutes. Each side blames the other for sparking and continuing hostilities.
Many Sudanese resist calling the conflict a civil war, pointing out that neither side enjoys wide public support. Instead, they describe it as a naked power struggle between the two men who jointly directed a 2021 coup against a civilian-military government. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan is the head of the military and the de facto head of state, and Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo — known as Hemedti — commands the powerful RSF.
In the country’s capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere, the RSF has taken up positions inside civilian homes, hospitals and even churches. Residents blame the RSF for widespread looting, several rapes and forced evictions into streets under crossfire. Social media is alight with images of military airstrikes pummeling the capital and accounts of families pulverized by heavy weapons.
As bombs rained down on hospitals and aid workers fled, civilians revived the neighborhood resistance committees that helped force a dictator from power in 2019 and ensured that the civilians had a place in the government. The committees document attacks, set up rudimentary clinics and try to pool resources such as water and safe housing for those fleeing the fighting. Now those activists are being targeted, some residents said.
Three days ago, the military arrested three activists from the resistance committee in Bahri, the town just north of Khartoum, said Mustafa Makki, who worked alongside them. All three are young: Saddam Juma is 29, while Amer Abboud and Mujahid Anwar are both 27, he said.
The reason for their arrests is unclear, but all were taken from their homes May 14 by uniformed military forces in marked vehicles, he said. They are being held in the Kadro area, north of Bahri, now the site of a major firefight, Makki said.
“We don’t know why they were arrested,” he said. “We don’t support either side, not the military or the RSF.” A second member of the committee confirmed his account.
It was the second time that activists from the Bahri committee have been targeted. Last week, the military arrested two other activists from Bahri and held them for 48 hours. The military’s spokesman was unreachable for comment.
The neighborhood is largely under the control of the RSF, but fierce battles have raged there every day. Its industrial area houses a munitions factory and is the target of frequent battles and airstrikes.
Doctors at Bahri’s Globe Hospital and Hag al-Safi Hospital have also been repeatedly taken against their will and forced to treat RSF fighters, Makki said. Only about 16 percent of the capital’s hospitals are still functioning; many have lost power or water, run out of supplies or been hit by shelling.
“The RSF come, and the doctors say: ‘We have wounded civilians here. Let us treat them first,’” Makki said. “But the RSF said no, we must be first.”
A member of the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said she and the other doctors on the committee have received death threats. Many fled, and others stopped going to work, changed their numbers and went into hiding, she said. At least 11 doctors have been killed; one was stabbed, and others were killed in crossfire or when their homes were hit.
She said the threats appeared to come from people connected to former president Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who was forced out of office in 2019 following massive street protests. The doctor told The Washington Post, “The purpose of this threat is to end all the tools of the revolution, including resistance committees and trade unions, so that they do not continue their civil struggle.”
On Wednesday, the U.N. humanitarian office in Geneva said 25 million people, more than half of Sudan’s population, need help. That is 10 million more than before the fighting started and the highest number ever recorded for the country. The office called for $2.6 billion in aid from the international community.
The rival sides are holding talks in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, with little apparent progress. They have issued statements saying they will protect civilians and allow aid to move, but no details have been given, and the fighting has continued unabated.
On Monday, the Professional Pharmacists Association of Sudan accused the RSF of hijacking a convoy of medical supplies headed to regional hospitals, which have also been hit hard by the fighting.
The group’s statement called the theft of supplies “a death sentence for the residents of the regions,” noting that 95 percent of all pharmaceutical production takes place in the capital. About 830,000 people fleeing the fighting have gone to other towns within Sudan and about 220,000 to neighboring countries, the United Nations said Wednesday.
Community leaders have also been targeted in the city of Geneina in the western region of Darfur, said an activist there, who listed their names in a message: Mahamed Badwi, an engineer, activist and writer; Motaz Abujalli, a journalist and human rights activist; and Adam Taiar, an activist and member of the medical committee. All were killed April 24, he said, by militias aligned with the RSF that went to their homes. The activist spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
The activist said the militias — referred to locally as the Janjaweed, or “devils on horseback” — were carrying out ethnic killings and have also looted and burned the palace of the sultan of the Masalit tribe. The Janjaweed are ethnically Arab militias; the Masalit are a local African tribe that fought the central government and the Janjaweed for nearly 20 years until a peace deal three years ago.
“Janjaweed militia and RSF are using [gunmen] to shoot people who have influence like leaders, intellectuals and professionals,” the activist wrote, saying it was too dangerous to go home. The phone network was too weak to support calls, so he texted quick answers to questions. “No way to get out of the town … two days I haven’t met my family … even my young brother injured today … most of my friends were killed … I have no doubt I will be killed by them.”
The death toll in the town as of this past Friday was 556, he said, citing a list kept by clinics. On Tuesday, seven members of one family were killed when the RSF fired heavy weapons into a civilian area.
Lt. Gen. Khamis Abdullah Abkar, the governor of West Darfur, confirmed that more than 500 people have been killed in Geneina since the fighting erupted and that militia members were going house to house in some areas looking for individuals. The hospital was not functioning, and hundreds of wounded people needed urgent medical care, but there was no way to take them to help, he said.