Sudan

Sudan and Darfur

Sudan: RSF slaughter escalates

Since civil war returned to Sudan in April 2023 , the Rapid Support Force (RSF), formerly the Janjaweed, responsible for much of the killing in the genocide in Darfur since 2003, has taken a murderous grip on much of the country. UN figures state that seven million people have been displaced within Sudan, with 1.5 million fleeing the country. There are fears that the level of violence will escalate if the RSF seeks to take control of the northeast of the country, some of which is still controlled by the SAF. The roots of the current conflict are in 2003 when armed resistance was growing among...

Open safe routes from Sudan!

Despite the civil war in Sudan, the Tories are providing no safe and legal route for Sudanese refugees. The Tories’ response to those fleeing or attempting to flee the civil war between the two right-wing military factions in Sudan has underscored their racist inconsistency, in thick marker pen. 173,000 Ukrainians have come to the UK under special visa schemes , and 25,000 have an extended leave to stay. Solidarity supports Ukraine against Russian imperialism, and supports Ukrainian refugees being welcomed to the UK. The Tory government has not accepted too many Ukrainians, or supported them...

Sudan: stop the war, fight for democracy

At least 427 people, including 264 civilians, had been confirmed dead when the two military factions fighting in Sudan since 15 April began a precarious 72-hour ceasefire on 24 April. This far outstrips the number killed by repression against the mass protests which followed the October 2021 military coup. Something like 4,000 people have been injured. Large parts of Sudanese society have ceased to function as people are trapped in their homes and workplaces, leading to vast suffering and potentially many more deaths. In these incredibly difficult circumstances, the thousands of local...

Sudan coup: against both factions!

In October 2021, a military coup overthrew the joint military-civilian government supposed to be leading Sudan to democracy. Now (since 15 April 2023) two factions of the military regime are fighting each other in the streets. 144 are confirmed dead as of 18 April. The government overthrown by the 2021 coup was brought about by a dramatic popular revolution in 2018-19: generally liberal-democratic but with more radical elements represented by some trade unions and local “resistance committees”. For 18 months since the coup this movement has kept up impressive resistance to the military...

Towards a general strike in Sudan?

The military regime that seized power in Sudan in October 2021, eliminating the civilian half of a government that was supposed to form a bridge to free elections, is still there. It has killed at least 117 protesters and counting. It is reshaping the Sudanese state back towards the pre-2019 Bashir dictatorship: creating special forces to police women’s behaviour, deepening the country’s ties with Russia. Remarkably, despite the repression, Sudan’s democracy movement is still there too, and still mobilising regular mass protests. The “resistance committees”, local neighbourhood-based bodies...

A revolution within a revolution: women in Sudan

Ola Ibrahim, a feminist activist and member of Khartoum resistance committees, and Namaa Faisal AL Mahdi, a London-based Sudanese activist, spoke to Ruth Cashman. A twenty year old woman has been sentenced to death by stoning on in Sudan. Maryam Alsyed Tiyrab, was arrested and tried in a Sharia court. Maryam - who had returned to her family home after separating from her husband - claims to have been interrogated by police and forced to give an illegal confession. She will appeal at the High Court. Ola Ibrahim reports from Khartoum: “Maryam's case did not take place in the public domain. Even...

Sudan's school workers step up

School workers put forward their demands The “Sudanese Revolution” to overturn October’s military coup is continuing in force. As explained by trade unionist Mohamed Nagy Alassam in Solidarity 625 , workers’ struggles are a very important part of the revolt. Workers have struck to support the fight for democracy and for their own workplace and industry demands. Now Sudan’s school workers have stepped up. Following a series of strikes earlier this month, the Sudanese Teachers’ Committee (STC) haw called for workers to come out till the end of March. Most of the reports refer to teachers, but...

Sudan in revolt

Mohamed Nagy Alassam is a Khartoum-based activist with the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors (CSSD) and the union coalition it is part of, the Sudanese Professionals’ Association (SPA). He spoke to Sacha Ismail on 10 February. There were more mass demonstrations in Sudan the day before we went to press, 21 February. The SPA was established in July 2018, involving doctors, lawyers, teachers, university professors, vets and engineers. It was central in the Sudanese revolution which began at the end of 2018; it was the organisation that announced the Charter of Freedom and Change, which...

Sudan: anti-coup movement keeps surging

The fifteenth round of mass demonstrations against the military coup in Sudan took place on 24 January. At least 76 people have been killed by the army since the 25 October coup, and over 2,000 wounded. There is a kind of stalemate in which the coup regime is able to maintain its position and carry out extremely brutal repression, but the anti-coup movement keeps surging up too. Last week, after seven people were killed during demonstrations on 17 January, the Khartoum State Coordination of local “resistance committees” called a two-day general strike , participated in by a wide range of...

Workers still battling in Sudan

Court workers on strike The contrast between the respectable “friends” of democracy in Sudan and the grassroots mass movement actually fighting for democracy is striking. In November Abdalla Hamdok, the prime minister overthrown by the 25 October military coup, did a deal with the military to be reinstated as decoration for their regime. The Biden government rushed to endorse this charade as a path to democracy. The US and UK signed a joint statement welcoming the deal with the autocracies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia — both highly supportive of the Sudanese military. The...

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