Sudan: one war at a time

By Richard North - April 27, 2023

It’s just as well that the Ukraine war is fairly quiet at the moment, otherwise the media might have difficulty covering events in Sudan. There’ve been all but ignoring the conflict in Yemen and, to all intents and purposes, the prolonged operations in Mali and Sahel might never have existed.

With multiple conflicts around the world also neglected, coverage is largely treated as optional, generally supporting the view that the British media can only cover one war at a time.

Sudan pulls the short straw at the moment because of the direct British involvement, although the pictures of evacuees might require the concept of “Britishness” to be, if not redefined, at least clarified.

By far the bulk of the 4,000 “British” citizens needing rescue are of Sudanese origin – many permanent residents in the country – who happen to have won the lottery of life by acquiring through a variety of means British passports, in addition to holding Sudanese passports.

Those who are permanently resident in Sudan, holding dual passports – some with indifferent English language skills – may technically be British citizens but might be more accurately described as British passport holders.

Certainly, it is hard to accept them as “British”, in any meaningful sense of the word, unless you are the BBC of course, which seems to revel in the idea that Sudanese refugees can qualify as “British families” by virtue of sometimes just one member holding a British passport.

Already there are calls – in this instance by Alicia Kearns, chairwoman of the Commons foreign affairs select committee – for elderly people dependent on their British citizen children to be allowed on flights to the UK, even though they lack entry rights. Should extended family members be accepted, thousands could easily become tens of thousands.

Up to press, though, only about 500 have been evacuated in RAF transports from the Wadi Seidna airbase, north of Khartoum. Another 500 are planned for evacuation today. With the ceasefire currently in force due to expire at the start of Friday, there is uncertainty over whether the airlift will continue past midnight tonight.

However, HMS Lancaster, a Type 23 frigate, is being despatched to Port Sudan on the Red Sea, and this may be able to uplift refugees, either transferring them to the RFA Cardigan, which has also been sent to the region, or taken over the Red Sea into Saudi Arabia.

Interestingly, while the RAF is readily shuttling “British citizens” to safe havens and thence to the UK, those who have managed to make their ways independently to the land borders of Egypt, Ethiopia and even Chad are not having an easy time of it. Crossing points, apparently, have been closed to travellers without visas.

Chad, in particular, has its own problems and will not welcome further instability, having already had to deal with 20,000 refugees from Darfur in the western region of Sudan. The worry is that they will destabilise the already fragile situation.

The situation in Ethiopia is not much – if at all – better. As of last year, the flow of refugees was from Ethiopia to Sudan, after violent clashes between the Ethiopian army and the opposition Tigrayan Front forces near the border.

According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), there are more than 73,000 Ethiopian refugees already living in Sudan, many of whom occupy permanent camps, close to the ill-defined border.

There are claims – strongly denied – that Ethiopian troops have crossed over into Sudan, strengthening fears that the new conflict might threaten the security and development of the entire Horn region.

Then there is the situation on the Egyptian border, where 1,500 Egyptian nationals have been evacuated. This brings us to the lack of any coherent US response.

While critics have been quick to condemn the UK efforts, CNN is relaying the news that Americans feel abandoned by the US government and left to navigate the complicated and dangerous situation on their own.

The broadcaster cites Muna Daoud, whose parents were traveling to get out of Sudan via Port Sudan to Saudi Arabia. He says: “I am incredibly shocked and disgusted by the American lacklustre response to the health and safety of their citizens”.

All US government personnel were evacuated in a military operation over the weekend and US officials say they are in “close communication” with US citizens and are “actively facilitating” their departure from Sudan.

At the same time, the US government says that the conditions are not conducive to a civilian evacuation, while CNN reports that the State Department has provided “barely any assistance” to the “dozens” of Americans who want to leave Sudan.

Another “citizen” complains that “the State Department was useless, utterly useless throughout this entire period”. Evacuees “expected the Department to provide some kind of guidance, but the guidance was the template, just shelter in place, no critical information being provided”, he said.

This had brought the Los Angeles Times into the fray. It reports that, after the US Embassy was shut down, “thousands” of US citizens are finding themselves stuck.

National Security Council spokesman John F Kirby offers a laid-back comment. “It’s hard to know exactly how many Americans are still in Sudan”, he says, but the “vast majority” are dual-nationals, who have “no intention of leaving or wanting to depart.”

He advises them to shelter in place, “hunker down and stay safe”, repeating the government mantra that “the situation is not secure enough to conduct a mass evacuation”.

Away from the glare of publicity though, it seems that the British government is taking a similar stance. The author of the LA Times piece recounts that a British passport holder, when he arrived in Port Sudan with his relatives, including his 80-year-old mother and two young children., there “were no evacuations happening for dual-nationals like him and his family”, despite what the embassy had told him. Instead, he says, “they are all stranded with no information on when, or even if, they will be able to get out”.

It is relevant here to state that the author is Sherine Tadros, deputy director of advocacy and UN representative for Amnesty International based in New York.

He notes that the US has faced criticism previously for leaving behind its citizens in conflict zones, such as in 2015 when war erupted in Yemen, and during the American withdrawal of Afghanistan.

However, in the past year, he adds, we have seen the international community react in a humane way in times of crisis, most recently in Ukraine when those escaping Russia’s aggression were flown out and welcomed in the US, Europe and elsewhere. This is not what is happening in Sudan.

There is no coordinated, forceful action by international governments or the United Nations, let alone a plan for those seeking asylum and making it across the borders – only statements of concern by officials. The UN and others, he argues, should have robust setups at the refugee camps receiving those fleeing, and yet we see little movement.

But Tadros also notes that there has been little US media coverage of what is happening on the ground, and no outrage at the attack on civilians in Africa. The “one war at a time” syndrome, it appears, also applies to the United States.

And soon enough, when the current high-profile evacuations have been wound up, the UK media can go back to sleep, offering fitful coverage of what is, after all, just another war in Africa. The leaders of the rival factions will be able to continue their slaughter without being troubled by Western media scrutiny.

Perhaps this is just as well. According to CNN, the current hostilities are largely due to the neglect and serious miscalculations by the United States and Britain, as well as the United Nations, and African and Arab governments.

It will be much more profitable to focus on the Ukraine war, where everybody has an opinion and the pundits can have free rein to speculate without fear of recriminations.