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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   1052 thread views

Transnational Thursday for December 28, 2023

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Sudan

The anti-government paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has seized a Wad Madani, a major city in an agricultural province previously considered safe. For perspective, Wad Madani is about 100 miles away from Khartoum where the fighting initially broke out, and was even a destination for many refugees, so the conflict has spread significantly in distance. The city fell in under a week, and its seizure represents a major blow for the ruling government.

The army’s loss has raised questions about the future of its leader, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who is also Sudan’s head of state. It also heightens the risk, analysts said, that neighboring countries could be pulled into the war, and that foreign powers, such as the United Arab Emirates, already accused of fueling the war, will further intervene.

The latest dramatic turn in the war has confounded Sudanese citizens who now face the prospect of a Sudan ruled by a dreaded paramilitary force that has looted much of the capital and been accused of carrying out war crimes in the western Darfur region.

The war has already killed at least 10,000 people, though Sudanese health workers and United Nations officials say that is a vast underestimate.

Some 300,000 people have fled Wad Madani in recent days, according to the United Nations. Many of them, ill and hungry, left the city on foot and walked for hours to neighboring states as they dragged suitcases and sheets holding their meager belongings.

The World Food Program has unfortunately also halted some desperately needed food shipments to the area in response to rising safety concerns:

The United Nations food agency has temporarily suspended food assistance in some parts of Sudan’s al-Jazirah state where it was supporting more than 800,000 people, as fighting spreads south and east of the country’s capital, Khartoum.

About 300,000 people have fled the previously peaceful state in a matter of days, since clashes erupted last week, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Wednesday.

I’d thought the Sudanese army was strongly favored to win the war- what changed? Is the janjaweed that much more competent, or are generals backstabbing each other?

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