Abdelrahman Abu Taleb - BBC News Arabic
Thu, June 13, 2024
Cities such as Omdurman have been turned into ghost towns by a year of fighting [Reuters]
Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been accused of violating a UN arms embargo by supplying drones to the warring sides in the 14-month conflict that has devastated Sudan. We look at the evidence to back up the claim.
On the morning of 12 March 2024, Sudanese government soldiers were celebrating an unprecedented military advance. They had finally recaptured the state broadcaster’s headquarters in the capital, Khartoum.
Like most of the city, the building had fallen into the hands of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) at the start of the civil war 11 months earlier.
What was notable about this military victory for the army was that videos showed the attack was carried out with the help of Iranian-made drones.
In the early stages of the war, the army relied on the air force, according to Suliman Baldo, director of the Sudan Transparency and Policy Observatory.
“The armed forces found all their preferential forces besieged, and they had no fighting forces on the ground," he says.
The RSF maintained ground control of most of Khartoum and Darfur in the west of Sudan, while the army maintained its presence in the sky.
By early January 2024, a video emerged on Twitter of an army drone shot down by the RSF.
According to Wim Zwijnenburg, a drone expert and head of the Humanitarian Disarmament Project at Dutch peace organisation PAX, its wreckage, engine, and tail resembled an Iranian-manufactured drone called Mohajer-6.
The Mohajer-6 is 6.5m long, can fly up to 2,000 km (1,240 miles) and carry out airstrikes with guided freefall munitions.
Mr Zwijnenburg identified another version of the drone in a satellite image of the army’s Wadi Seidna military base, north of Khartoum, taken three days later.
“These drones are very effective because they can identify targets accurately with minimal training,” he says.
Three weeks after the Mohajer-6 was shot down, a video emerged of another drone downed by the RSF.
Mr Zwijnenburg matched this one to the Zajil-3 – a locally manufactured version of the Iranian Ababil-3 drone.
The Zajil-3 drones have been used in Sudan for years. But January was the first time they were employed in this war, as observed by the BBC and PAX.
In March, Mr Zwijnenburg identified one more version of the Zajil-3 captured in a satellite image of Wadi Seidna.
“[It is] an indication of active Iranian support for the Sudanese army," he says, although Sudan’s governing council has denied acquiring weapons from Iran.
"If these drones are equipped with guided munitions, it means they were supplied by Iran because those munitions are not produced in Sudan," Mr Zwijnenburg adds.
In early December, a Boeing 747 passenger plane belonging to Iranian cargo carrier Qeshm Fars Air took off from Bandar Abbas airport in Iran, heading towards the Red Sea before disappearing from radar.
Hours later, satellites captured an image of a plane of the same type at Port Sudan airport in the east of the country, where Sudanese army officials are based.
A photo of the same plane on the runway later circulated on Twitter.
This flight was repeated five times until the end of January, the same month the use of Iranian drones was documented.
Qeshm Fars Air faces US sanctions due to numerous accusations of transporting weapons and fighters around the Middle East, particularly to Syria, one of Iran's main allies.
Sudan had a long history of military cooperation with Iran before relations ended in 2016 due to a conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, with Sudan siding with Saudi Arabia.
"Many Sudanese weapons were locally made versions of Iranian models," says Mr Baldo from the Sudan Transparency and Policy Observatory.
Since the start of the current conflict, the Sudanese government has restored relations with Tehran.
According to Mr Baldo, each side has its objectives.
"Iran is looking for a foothold in the region. If they find geostrategic concessions, they will certainly provide more advanced and numerous drones,” he says.
The BBC contacted the Sudanese army, Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Qeshm Fars Air to comment on the allegations that Iranian drones are being used in the conflict but has not had a response.
But in an interview with the BBC, Malik Agar, vice-president of Sudan's Sovereign Council, said: "We do not receive any weapons from any party. Weapons are available on the black market, and the black market is now grey."
Meanwhile, evidence emerged early in the war that the RSF has used quadcopter drones made from commercial components, capable of dropping 120mm mortar shells.
Images and footage on social media show the army had shot down many of these drones.
Brian Castner, a weapons expert at Amnesty International, points the finger at the UAE.
"The UAE has supplied its allies with the same drones in other conflict areas such as Ethiopia and Yemen,” he says.
According to a UN report presented to the Security Council earlier this year, aviation-tracking experts observed a civilian aircraft air bridge allegedly transporting weapons from the UAE to the RSF – an allegation the UAE denies.
The route starts from Abu Dhabi airport, passes through Nairobi and Kampala airports, before ending at Amdjarass airport in Chad, a few kilometres from Sudan's western border, and Darfur, where the RSF has its stronghold.
The UN report also cites local sources and military groups reporting that vehicles carrying arms unload planes at Amdjarass airport several times a week, before travelling to Darfur and the rest of Sudan.
"The UAE also has economic interests in Sudan and is seeking a foothold on the Red Sea," says Mr Baldo.
The UAE has repeatedly denied these flights have transported weapons, saying they were delivering humanitarian aid instead. In a statement, a government official tells the BBC the UAE is committed to seeking “a peaceful solution to the ongoing conflict”.
The RSF has not responded to the BBC’s request for comment.
The drones that both sides in the civil war have allegedly imported violate a UN Security Council resolution issued in 2005, which prohibits the supply of weapons to the Sudanese government and armed factions in Darfur.
"The Security Council must take responsibility and consider the state of Sudan, the approaching famine, and the number of people killed and displaced, and immediately enforce a comprehensive arms embargo on all of Sudan," says Mr Castner.
Since the appearance of drones in Sudan’s skies, the situation on the ground has partially changed.
The Sudanese army has managed to break the siege imposed on its soldiers in several locations.
And the RSF has withdrawn from some neighbourhoods west of the capital.
According to Mr Baldo, this change has happened thanks to the Iranian drones.
After more than a year of war, at least 16,650 civilians have been killed, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (Acled).
The UN estimates that about nine million people have been forced from their homes - more than in any other current conflict.
Abdullah Makkawi is one who has now fled to Egypt. When he was still in southern Khartoum last July, he says he narrowly escaped death when drones, which he says belonged to the RSF, attacked.
“I rushed into the house, and we took refuge in a room with a concrete roof... My mother, four siblings and I hid under the beds,” he says.
Mr Makkawi says they heard the sound of a drone shell falling onto the next room, which had a wooden roof.
“If we had been in the other room, we would all have been killed. We survived by a miracle,” he says.
At the beginning of 2024, the conflict spread to new areas outside the capital. Civilian deaths due to drone attacks were reported for the first time in northern, eastern and central Sudan.
Before fleeing to Egypt, Mr Makkawi left his family in Port Sudan, considering it a safe place. But now he fears drones might reach them there too.
“Sudanese people are tired of the war. All we want is for the war to stop. If foreign countries stop supporting both sides with weapons, it will end.”
More about Sudan's civil war from the BBC:
What is going on in Sudan? A simple guide
I couldn't bury my brother because of el-Fasher bombing
The children living between starvation and death in Darfur
Famine looms in Sudan as civil war survivors tell of killings and rapes
The two generals at the heart of the conflict
UN Security Council to vote on demand for halt to siege of Sudanese city
Reuters
Wed, June 12, 2024
The United Nations headquarters building is pictured though a window with the UN logo in the foreground in the Manhattan borough of New York
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -The United Nations Security Council is likely to vote on Thursday on a British-drafted resolution that demands a halt to the siege of al-Fashir in Sudan's North Dafur region by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), diplomats said on Wednesday.
The draft text, seen by Reuters, also calls for an immediate halt to the fighting and for de-escalation in and around the city and the withdrawal of all fighters that threaten the safety and security of civilians.
Britain has asked for the draft to be voted on by the 15-member council on Thursday afternoon. A resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by Russia, China, the United States, Britain or France to be adopted.
War erupted in Sudan in April last year between the Sudanese army (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), creating the world's largest displacement crisis.
Al-Fashir is the last major city in the vast, western Darfur region not under control of the RSF. The RSF and its allies swept through four other Darfur state capitals last year and were blamed for a campaign of ethnically driven killings against non-Arab groups and other abuses in West Darfur.
Top U.N. officials warned the Security Council in April that some 800,000 people in al-Fashir were in "extreme and immediate danger" as worsening violence advances and threatens to "unleash bloody intercommunal strife throughout Darfur."
The draft Security Council resolution "demands that all parties to the conflict ensure the protection of civilians, including by allowing civilians wishing to move within and out of Al-Fashir to safer areas to do so."
It also calls on countries "to refrain from external interference which seeks to foment conflict and instability and instead to support efforts for a durable peace and reminds all parties to the conflict and member states who facilitate the transfers of arms and military material to Darfur of their obligations to comply with the arms embargo measures."
The U.S. says the warring parties have committed war crimes and the RSF and allied militias have also committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. The U.N. says that nearly 25 million people - half Sudan's population - need aid and some eight million have fled their homes and hunger is rising.
Between 10,000 and 15,000 people were killed in one city alone in Sudan's West Darfur region last year in ethnic violence by the RSF and allied Arab militia, according to a U.N. sanctions monitors report, seen by Reuters in January.
The draft text to be voted on by the Security Council "calls on the parties to the conflict to seek an immediate cessation of hostilities, leading to a sustainable resolution to the conflict, through dialogue."
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Eric Beech and Kim Coghill)
Key Sudanese city could fall to rebels imminently - US
Anne Soy - Deputy Africa Editor, BBC News
Wed, June 12, 2024
More than 15,000 people are estimated to have been killed since the conflict started [AFP]
The United States' envoy to Sudan has warned that el-Fasher, a besieged city in western Darfur, could fall to rebel forces imminently.
El-Fasher is the only city still under army control in the western Darfur region.
The armed forces have been fighting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in a civil war that has lasted for 14 months.
US envoy Tom Perriello told the BBC that some in the RSF think capturing El-Fasher will help them establish Darfur as a breakaway state.
Mr Perriello said the US would not recognise an independent Darfur "under any circumstances".
"I think if there's anyone in RSF territory who thinks taking el-Fasher means somehow they will have a right to the state of Darfur, they need to disillusion themselves of that myth," he said. "It does not mean that.
He also called for a ceasefire in the city, which the RSF has been attacking since the middle of April.
"We see upwards of a million innocent people being starved by the siege of the RSF," he said. "Bombings have killed people inside of hospitals.
"We see 45,000 pregnant women who not only have no real prenatal care, but don't even have enough meals a day to be nourished enough for a healthy pregnancy.
"And as bad as it is, it could get worse any day if el-Fasher falls, not only the horrors that would come from the battle, but as people flee."
America's warning about the fall of el-Fasher follows weeks of bloody fighting in the city.
I couldn't bury my brother because of el-Fasher bombing
The children living between starvation and death in Darfur
Hundreds of thousands of civilians are trapped inside the town, with many enduring hunger and thirst amidst shortages of food and water.
El-Fasher had been a sanctuary for many who had fled their homes because of the conflict. But it has now turned into yet another frontline.
Civilians there have reported being hit by shelling and bullets in their homes and even in hospital.
One of the last health facilities still running is the Sayyid Shuada health centre.
Footage filmed in the hospital for the BBC shows a distraught mother too shocked to speak after shelling hit her home, injuring five family members.
She held her toddler as her husband and other children received emergency treatment.
The mother said she couldn't tell whether the blood on her toddler's face was his, his siblings’ or his father’s.
Sayyid Shuada is overstretched by the mounting casualties.
“Every day there is a new wave of patients that are wounded arriving... on average maybe 50 per day, which is already what we consider mass casualty," said Claire Nicolet, who leads medical charity MSF's emergency response in Sudan.
There's only one surgeon present at the facility who is forced by the situation to work "round the clock".
"Most of [the patients] need surgery so it's pretty dramatic," says Ms Nicolet.
[BBC]
Local community volunteers have formed committees to try and support the hospital. They take care of non-medical tasks, like finding water and fuel and collecting data.
Volunteer Khalid Abdul Hamid tells the BBC committees are collecting donations of cash, goods and services, including from the already war-battered community.
“From our own efforts and the efforts of well-wishers, we have managed to get some medicine… or cash contributions to buy medicine from the local market," he said.
The situation is deteriorating by the day and an increasing number of facilities are put out of operation by the fighting.
On Saturday, RSF fighters stormed the South Hospital, a referral hospital that was treating civilians wounded in the war. Gunmen opened fire and looted the facility, stealing an ambulance.
The hospital, which was also ran by the medical charity MSF, has now been closed.
Its head of emergencies, Michel Lacharite, said the attack was outrageous. “Opening fire inside a hospital crosses a line," he said.
The South hospital had been hit by shelling and bullets at least three times in 10 days before the Saturday raid.
A paediatric hospital managed by the MSF in el-Fasher was bombed in May, killing two children.
The constant shelling in th city has sent tens of thousands fleeing once again. Most are heading towards Sudan's west, with options for safer places running out.
"We need this to end," Mr Perriello said.
"We need cooler heads to prevail and get this particular battle paused, while also we don't take our eye off of other parts of Sudan."
More about Sudan's civil war from the BBC:
Medics flee as rebels attack and shut down North Darfur’s main hospital
Eve Brennan, CNN
Wed, June 12, 2024
Sudanese paramilitary forces stormed the main hospital in North Darfur, opening fire and looting vital medical supplies, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) have reported.
Fighters from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) plundered the facility on Saturday stealing an ambulance among other supplies, the aid agency said.
“On Saturday, MSF and the Ministry of Health suspended all activities in South Hospital, El Fasher, North Darfur, after RSF soldiers stormed the facility, opened fire, and looted it, including stealing an MSF ambulance,” MSF Sudan said on social media Saturday.
Armed men pose at the front gate of South Hospital in al-Fashir. - Obtained by CNN
The hospital was the only one in the region “equipped to deal with mass casualties” and “was the main referral hospital for treating war-wounded.”
It was also one of the two hospitals in El Fasher with surgical capacity, according to MSF. As a result, patients are being moved to Paediatric and Saudi hospitals “which were unprepared for such an influx,” it added.
Video posted on an apparent RSF “X” account shows armed men at the front gate of South Hospital. The footage was geolocated by CNN and shows at least one man firing an AK-style weapon on hospital grounds.
According to MSF’s statement posted on Twitter, only ten patients and a small medical team were at the hospital when it was attacked. Medical teams had already begun transferring patients and services to other facilities earlier in the week after intensified fighting in the region, the MSF said.
Images posted to social media and verified by CNN show damaged medical equipment strewn in and around the facility. In one video, an armed man poses inside what appears to be an ambulance parked outside South Hospital. It is unclear whether the vehicle belonged to MSF.
CNN has reached out to the RSF for comment.
A trail of blood through the halls of South Hospital. - Obtained by CNN
MSF said most patients and the remaining medical team, which included all MSF staff, were able to flee the violence but they are unable to say for certain if there were any casualties due to the chaos that ensued.
South Hospital is the latest medical facility to fall into warring factions’ crosshairs in Darfur.
The medical facility had already been hit by mortar shells and bullets multiple times in the preceding weeks between May 25th and June 3rd resulting in two deaths and 14 injuries among patients and caretakers, according to MSF.
On May 11, nearby Babiker Nahar Paediatric Hospital was impacted by an SAF airstrike 50 meters from the facility, per an MSF press release. Two children and a care giver in the intensive care unit were killed in the strike after a roof collapsed.
“It is outrageous that the RSF opened fire inside the hospital. This is not an isolated incident, as staff and patients have endured attacks on the facility for weeks from all sides, but opening fire inside a hospital crosses a line,” said MSF’s Head of Emergencies Michel Lacharite, as quoted by MSF Sudan on X Saturday.
“Warring parties must halt attacks on medical care. Hospitals are closing. Remaining facilities can’t handle mass casualties. We are trying to find solutions. The responsibility is on warring parties to spare medical facilities,” Lacharite added.
Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs & Security Policy of the EU Nabila Massrali said on X Sunday, “The EU is appalled by RSF-Janjaweed assault of staff at the El Fasher South Hospital in Darfur also looting it, as it did with many other hospitals in Sudan.”
“We remind again the [RSF] to show restraint and respect International Humanitarian Law,” she added.
The United Nations (UN) has said that El Fasher hosts around 1.8 million people who are at “imminent risk of famine.”
The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) said an escalation in fighting from April 1st this year between the warring RSF and Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) was monitored across El Fasher, displacing almost 130,000 people in just April and May this year.
Civil war in Sudan between the SAF and RSF broke out in April 2023. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, since the war’s outbreak more than 8.8 million people have fled their homes and 24.8 million people are in need of assistance.
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