As satellites witness the crimson remains of massacred villages, so too does the world, slowly turning its sleep-crusted gaze to the horrors of Sudan. There, for the past two years, civilians have been at the mercy of a conflict between two military groups, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
In a brief article outlining the reasons behind the war, the BBC points to the 2019 deposition of former Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir as a key turning point. Following Bashir’s removal, the SAF sought to integrate the RSF, a paramilitary group founded by Bashir and funded by the United Arab Emirates, into its ranks. However, the proposition proved controversial as neither military party was interested in losing their power, resulting in escalating tensions starting in 2023 and the subsequent outbreak of the ongoing war, which is just as invested in attacking each side as it is in targeting and punishing civilians.
Pulling back the curtain of the military campaign reveals the full extent of the story, where the exploitation of natural resources and organized religion have become the primary motivations behind ethnic cleansing, gender-based violence, and famine. In recent years, the brutality of such war crimes has become more visible than ever, through the ease of online access and the repeated assertions of genocide echoing across the world, from Sudan to Palestine. What has escaped our attention, however, is the reasoning paving the bloodied ground, the persistent yet hidden “why” that continues to lay the foundation for mass atrocities. Finding our answer requires us to investigate another history, in the hills and rivers at the heart of Afrika.
In her collection of short stories titled Ce que murmurent les collines, which translates to “What the Hills Whisper,” Scholastique Mukasonga writes about the various daily lives and cultural practices unfolding in Rwanda prior to the 1994 genocide. Whereas most of the short stories are narrated from the perspective of native Rwandans and their experiences with religion, superstition, and colorism, the opening story follows the writings of German explorer Richard Kandt as he ventured onto the Rukarara River.
The river was no ordinary water source, however, having been called into question as a mythical sight in a country nearing paradise and inhabited by seemingly enchanted people. Under the sheen of orientalist fascination, Kandt encountered the Tutsi people and determined their physiques aligned with their presupposed superiority.
What started as a legend soon became the pedestal upon which German and Belgian authorities placed the Tutsi people. In a society that had long been aware of its demographic divides, from the Tutsi who were traditionally wealthier than their Hutu and Twa counterparts to the centuries of Tutsi monarchies implementing anti-Hutu policies, a colonial power decreeing which ethnic group held entitlements had devastating consequences.
Within the colonial trend of dividing and conquering, the act of threading mytho-histories to confirm pre-existing narratives was then a critical component to sustaining dominance. And as with most colonial practices, dominance came with the cost of violence. When narrowing this lens onto Sudan, we capture a mirror image.
Like Rwanda, Sudan is also home to multiple ethnic groups. In his article titled “Rethinking Identity, Citizenship, and Violence in Sudan,” Professor Amir Idris suggests this inability to contend with ethnic pluralism staged much of the conflict between the Northern region inhabited by people deemed Arab and Muslim, and the Western and Southern portions inhabited mainly by Afrikan and Black people. While racialization is one point of contention, another is the notion of civilization, exacerbating the differences that emerged in the 16th century with the rise of an Islamized and Arabized Sudanese population.
Following that period, much of the Afrikan population was reduced to enslavement, leaving room for supremacy to take form. Not only was bondage accepted as a norm by Northern Sudanese nationalist groups, but it also became a practice for British administrators and Christian missionaries, facilitating the repression of Afrikan bodies on all fronts. Without being accorded agency or humanity, Afrikan Sudanese people witnessed their stories sink from the annals of history under the guise of primitivity. The suggestion that Southern Sudanese bodies were lesser than Northern ones was then the foundation that would be used to justify multiple campaigns of ethnic cleansing, including the one unfolding at this very moment.
Last month, after a brutal siege of almost two years, El-Fasher fell to the RSF, precipitating another wave of mass displacement as an estimated 82,000 civilians fled from house searches, detentions, and executions. Like many of the campaigns the RSF has waged against Sudanese civilians, the violence witnessed in El-Fasher is targeted, notably against the Masalit, an indigenous Afrikan ethnic group native to Darfur, the western region of Sudan, and the site of the 2003 massacre. In both El-Fasher and Tawila, where many have fled to find shelter and safety, conditions continue to deteriorate as Sudanese civilians struggle to obtain basic aid, plunging them into a second wave of famine.
Against the current of war, the United States formed a mediation group involving Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. Yet as of right now, no concessions nor truces have been made, and a lack of pressure has been applied to the UAE for its human rights violations in supporting and arming a genocidal campaign.
History is then more than a date or a distant memory to be called upon in times of need. It is a promise and a protection insulating the most vulnerable people from a fate of silence. When we shine a light on the histories that oppressors have attempted to erase because they deemed them unworthy of remembering, we must commit to bringing back the humanity lost in the fray of atrocity.