The war in Sudan has come to represent the worst of humanity | African Union

In Sudan, 20 months of armed conflict between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Army (SAF) have killed at least 20,000 people and left an estimated 25 million – half the country’s population – suffering from severe hunger and in urgent need. humanitarian aid. Meanwhile, 14 million Sudanese have been displaced, with an estimated 3.1 million seeking refuge outside the country, mainly in Chad, South Sudan, Uganda and Egypt.

As is often the case, children bear the brunt of this brutal war.

According to the medical organization Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, about one in six of those treated at the Bashair Teaching Hospital in South Khartoum for war-related injuries, such as gunshot, shrapnel and blast wounds, between January and September 2024. were 15 years old or younger.

The medical team revealed that they recently treated an 18-month-old baby, Riyad, who was hit by a stray bullet while he was sleeping in his family’s home. They said they were able to stabilize him but were unable to remove the bullet from his chest. Amid ongoing conflict and limited access to medical care, Riyadh’s future, like thousands of other war-wounded, traumatized and orphaned children across the country, remains uncertain.

Sexual violence is also rife in the conflict in Sudan. Forces commanded by both the RSF and the SAF have committed rape and other acts of sexual and gender-based violence, the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan revealed in its report released in October. The report accused both sides of using rape as a weapon of war, but said the RSF was behind the “vast majority” of documented cases and was responsible for “large-scale sexual violence,” including “gang rape and kidnapping and detaining victims in conditions amounting to sexual slavery”.

Amid the ongoing conflict, survivors of rape and other sexual violence struggle to access medical treatment, essential medications and psychological support services.

Many remain injured, traumatized and homeless.

With war crimes and other atrocities committed daily against men, women and even children in staggering numbers, the conflict in Sudan has come to represent humanity’s worst.

As the people of Sudan prepare to enter another hungry, wounded and scared year, the international community, and especially the African organizations supposedly committed to ensuring peace and stability in the region, have a responsibility to take action significant – including direct intervention.

So far, efforts to end the suffering of the Sudanese through mediation between the conflicting parties have all been fruitless.

Peace initiatives led by the African Union (AU), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the United States, Egypt and Switzerland have failed to secure a lasting ceasefire, a comprehensive peace agreement or meaningful protections for the civilian population.

In May 2023, just a month into the conflict, the two warring parties appeared to have reached a key agreement in Saudi Arabia. They signed the Jeddah Declaration of Commitment to Protect Sudanese Civilians, agreeing to “distinguish at all times between civilians and combatants and between civilian objects and military targets”. As part of the agreement, they also pledged to “refrain from any attack likely to cause incidental civilian damage” and to “protect all public and private facilities such as hospitals and water and electricity facilities “.

The agreement was supposed to result in a ceasefire of at least a week, but in the end it could not stop the atrocities against civilians, let alone the relentless fighting between the SAF and the RSF, even for 48 hours.

Since this US-Saudi-led initiative failed some 19 months ago, no peace initiative has come anywhere close to ending the carnage in Sudan. In August, US-convened talks in Switzerland to end the war made some progress on access to aid, but once again failed to secure a ceasefire.

Efforts to bring the conflicting parties to the negotiating table and appeals to their humanity to demand an end to attacks on civilians are clearly not working.

More needs to be done.

In its harrowing report, based on evidence from the ground, the UN fact-finding mission made clear what the country needs: an international peacekeeping force to be deployed to protect civilians.

“Given the failure of the parties to the conflict to spare civilians, it is imperative that an independent and impartial force with a mandate to protect civilians be deployed without delay,” UN mission chief Chande Othman said in September.

Unfortunately, the Sudanese government rejected the call, just as it rejected IGAD’s similar call for the deployment of a regional peacekeeping force in July 2023. The military government in Khartoum – which has been in power since taking power from a civilian-led transition. in a coup in October 2021 – frames any potential external intervention, including peacekeeping missions focused solely on the protection of the civilian population, as a violation of the country’s sovereignty.

If the Sudanese government were able to provide protection to civilians, the rejection of external intervention would be understandable. But it is clear – ​​after 20 months of devastating war waged without regard to international humanitarian law – that no part of this war is capable or concerned enough to provide safety, security and dignity to the besieged civilian population of Sudan.

Without the deployment of a regional peacekeeping mission supported by the international community – a mission clearly committed to and tasked with immediately ending the relentless attacks on civilians – the suffering of Sudanese civilians will not end in the near future.

Today, the global community, and the AU in particular, faces a simple choice: remain passive as the death toll in Sudan continues to rise, or take meaningful and decisive action – even if it upsets the Sudanese government – ​​to address the crisis.

The regional body would lose all legitimacy if it chose to stand idly by as innocent lives are lost to senseless violence in an endless war.

As such, it is time for the AU to intervene in Sudan’s war to protect civilians.

This would not infringe the sovereignty of the Sudanese state, nor would it constitute an overburdening of the Union.

According to Act 4(h) of the Constitutive Act of the African Union, which Sudan ratified in July 2000, the AU has the right to “intervene in a member state pursuant to a decision of the Assembly in respect of serious circumstances, namely: crimes of war, genocide and crimes against humanity”.

Given the overwhelming number of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law documented in detail by the UN mission and others, the state of affairs in Sudan is undoubtedly “serious”. There is no doubt that the citizens of Sudan would derive significant benefits from the physical protection provided by international peacekeeping forces.

Although the vast territory of Sudan and the widespread nature of the war would present significant challenges in ensuring the safety of millions of civilians, this task is not enough. By implementing effective planning and mobilizing adequate numbers of troops, the AU has the potential to have a substantial effect.

Sudan is a clear test of the AU’s ability to implement and maintain its broad mandate.

If it is to realize its vision of “an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, led by its own citizens and a dynamic force on the global stage”, it cannot afford to continue to fail the Sudanese people.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.