Showing posts with label Darfur genocide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Darfur genocide. Show all posts

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Darfur War Child raised in Abu Shouk IDP camp: Abdoalnaser Ibrahim, Businessman (Boy) by 11!

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: I received an astonishing email last Monday from a stranger, Mr Abdoalnaser Ibrahim in Canada. Here is a copy, reprinted in full with permission, followed by my reply and Abdoalnaser's story of his childhood in Abu Shouk IDP camp, North Darfur circa 2004.

Email from Abdoalnaser Ibrahim 
Dated Monday, 11 March 2024
Photo: Abdoalnaser Ibrahim, Aspiring Data Analyst | Certified in Data Analytics | Petroleum Engineer

I am a survivor of the 2003 Darfur genocide, spent most of my life in Abushock IDP camp - my Mom wnated for us to get educated and have better life after my father's passing away in the war - I worked hard both in education and in supporting my family. In 2013 I was amongst Sudanese top students and joined University of Khartoum and studied engineering and been volunteering since for the cause of no other child should live what I have been through.

In 2022 I joined UN Youth Delegate program sponsored by Germany for Sudanese youth and attended the UN General Assembly of Sep 2022.

After that I came to Canada, applied for asylum and currently living in a refugees shelter - all excited to enjoy my new life, support family, contribute to Darfur betterment as well as inspire youth around the world in IDP camps and Refugee camps.

Going through your profile was such a delight as you were one of those who have worked hard so that kids like me and all war victims (I was 7 at 2003) can have a better life, heal from what they have lived and get justice.

Also, I witnessed the visit of Koffi Annan, Colin Powell, condoleezza rice and the accompanying delegates to our IDP camps.

Thank you from my bottom of heart for the good that you did to us 🙏

Please let me know if by any chance you would be available for a quick virtual meeting - I would love to know you, the work you did and still doing.

Stay safe and sound !
__________________________________

HERE is a copy of my reply to Abdoalnaser, sent a few days later:

Dear Abdoalnaser, 
Greetings from England UK and thank you for connecting and for your wonderful messages, gratefully received and much appreciated. 

Your news and words brought me to tears. Over the years, I've often wondered what became of all the babies, children and youngsters in Darfur from 2003-4 onwards. Now through the wonders of the internet I have, for the first time in 20 years, heard from one of those children with some feedback. 

You write beautifully with interest, warmth and humour. Your English is very good. I liked your story (boy to man) and wanted to ask you for your permission to publish it and its photos at Sudan Watch. 

Your story is a truly inspiring. What strikes me about your writings and that of some of the Lost Boys [and Girls] of (South) Sudan - some of whom became child soldiers - is that your extraordinary experiences, hard work, resilience, tenacity and persistence have made you incredibly strong clever people with charming manners and personalities. 

I must stop now or another day will pass without you receiving my gratitude and thanks from the bottom of my heart. 

I'm thrilled you got through it all. 
Extremely well done, I look forward to keeping in touch. 
Warm regards, 
Ingrid.
_____________________________

THIS is Abdoalnaser's story of his childhood living in Abu Shouk camp, North Darfur, one of the largest camps for internally displaced persons in Sudan, written in his own words.

Businessman (Boy) by 11!

Dated February 14, 2024


Story about a business idea in my childhood and a message to internally displace persons and refugees around the world

Photo: Myself after a hectic business day in 2010 taking a photograph for high school application.


Post Darfur 2003 conflict at which I lost my father, and after which me, the rest of my family and many others were forced by war to leave our homes and settle into IDP camps — all have lost loved ones and property, I was 7 years old by then. The situation in our IDP camp was very challenging — but luckily humanitarian organizations generously provided us with the needed aids to survive.


That situation tasked me in a very early age with big questions about life and the future, by the age of 10 years old — I asked my mother to allow me work and share with her the financial responsibilities she was desperately trying to meet – selling her valuables and doing tough labor, she agreed after negotiations — with the condition of not defaulting on my education.


I started working as a plastic containers distributor by carrying a big package on my shoulders containing many of them, going to shops across Abushock and Abuja IDP camps block by block — and asking them if they wanted some. But the tremendous effort exerted in distributing / selling never corresponded with the income gained — average of 3 SDGs (SDG: Sudanese Pounds / currency, I SDG = 3.34USD back then) per day at best with scanning the whole two camps walking, after doing that for a year -I started thinking about alternative ways to do a business that rewards better and pays off, that is when I got into Amir Alpha product selling (a glue- adhesive for many surface materials).

Image: Amir Alpha product carton.


The inspiration stemmed from the fact that shop owners in the two camps when bringing products for final selling, they usually go to a specific side of the market (Food and utilities), but the Amir Alpha product was in another side of the market, so after shop owners are loaded with lots of goods from the first side, it becomes harder for them to go to the other side with the amount of goods they bought, and for just one product, but they often do not even remember it. The reliability of a shop owner in Sudan is in part influenced by whether they have all necessities available for customer buyers, that keep customers returning to same shop — so many shop owners ask me a lot about whether I have it or can provide it — for they get asked about the Amir Alpha product a lot by many loyal customers wanting to fix their broken items, I also asked many others whether they have it and would buy if I were to provide it — and a sizable number of them responded positively.


That is when I got a penalty at the 90th minute, and charged myself with providing it for the shop owners, I would buy a carton and divide the Amir Alpha products inside into dozens a pack, a carton like the one attached above in green makes 21 dozens — the whole carton cost around 30 SDGs back then and I would sell a dozen pack for 2.5 SDGs — making around 22.5 SDGs pure profit, and I am the boss of myself — so with this amount of income I turned into only working on weekends to focus on school — and would use half of it and contribute the rest to family welfare, as time goes by — I have scaled up my business and continued profiting until other competitors appeared in the market, but by then I have already built personal connections with my customers and gained their loyalty.


That window of freedom to work in early childhood taught me valuable life lessons and skilled me in many areas of life, which shaped my resilience and creativity of today.


Back then — I would just look at a shop owner and know whether they were going to buy or not, and was resilient enough to rarely skip a prospect buyer in my scanning of the two camp shops.


So this is a message to all struggling youths around the world including those in refugee and IDP camps, experiencing sheer poverty, balancing education and labor — maybe you were not born into the right context you wish have happened, your thinking power, resourcefulness, and grit are priceless if projected and replicated into businesses, tech, and many other walks of life — your minds are capable as much as MIT and Harvard graduates, if not more - provided with an opportunity to grow, be restless in seeking opportunities and learning new tools to gain more flexibility and ease carrying out your day to day affairs, 


(For example; just today as I was applying to a range of jobs - I discovered a setting in windows that enables you to access any item you have copied before, it indeed increased my productivity afterwards).


END

Thursday, August 24, 2023

UK is sending Darfur Sudan war crimes evidence to UN Security Council, UN Human Rights Council & ICC

UK is penholder on Sudan file at UN Security Council. The ICC launched a new investigation into alleged war crimes in Sudan in July with ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan saying “we are in the midst of a human catastrophe”.

Read more in a report at the Guardian
By Patrick Wintour Diplomatic Editor
Dated Tue 22 Aug 2023 17.25 BST; Last modified 17.59 BST - full copy:

War crimes being committed in Darfur, says UK minister Andrew Mitchell

Africa minister says civilian death toll horrific and UK is to send evidence to UN

Sudanese people fleeing the conflict in Darfur cross the border between Sudan and Chad in Adre. Photograph: Zohra Bensemra/Reuters


War crimes and atrocities against civilians are being committed in Darfur, western Sudan, the UK’s Africa minister Andrew Mitchell said on Tuesday, becoming one of the first western officials to identify that the fighting in Sudan has developed into more than a power struggle between two rival factions.


Mitchell said there was growing evidence of serious atrocities being committed, describing the civilian death toll as horrific in a statement released by the Foreign Office. “Reports of deliberate targeting and mass displacement of the Masalit community in Darfur are particularly shocking and abhorrent. Intentional directing of attacks at the civilian population is a war crime.”


He added the UK would do all it could to assemble credible evidence to present to the UN security council, the UN Human Rights Council and the international criminal court.


There had been an expectation that the US would have explicitly joined the UK in making a formal atrocity determination, but so far the State Department has held off, partly because the US does not want to jeopardise talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, designed to end the civil war between Sudanese Armed Forces and the independent Rapid Support Forces (RSF).


Observers claim the larger power struggle that broke out in April, with fighting in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, has provided cover for RSF allied forces to undertake ethnic cleansing in west Darfur, reviving memories of the genocide committed in Darfur 20 years ago.


The attacks on the Masalit and other ethnic communities are led by the Janjaweed militias allied with the RSF. The RSF is commanded by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo.


More than 300,000 Sudanese nationals have crossed the border into neighbouring Chad since the conflict broke out, according to the UN’s migratory agency.

Africa minister Andrew Mitchell is one of the first western officials to identify that the fighting in Sudan is more than a struggle between two factions. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images


Kate Ferguson, co-executive director of the human rights NGO Protection Approaches, welcomed Mitchell’s statement saying: “He is absolutely right to condemn not only the armed conflict between the SAF and RSF which is devastating Sudan but also to highlight the deliberate targeting and mass displacement of non-Arab communities in Darfur.


“These two related but distinct trajectories of violence require related but distinct solutions; this reality must be a cornerstone for the UK government and the entire international system in the pursuit of peace in Sudan.


The Saudi peace talks rely on progress being made between different bad faith actors over which Riyadh seems to have little leverage. Others say the true external players in Sudan are Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, which are closely linked to the SAF and RSF respectively.


The ICC launched a new investigation into alleged war crimes in Sudan in July with ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan saying “we are in the midst of a human catastrophe”.


The UK has imposed sanctions on businesses linked to the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces in an effort to register its disapproval.


View original: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/22/war-crimes-being-committed-in-darfur-says-uk-minister-andrew-mitchell


[Ends]

Sunday, July 09, 2023

Ruto chairs inaugural IGAD meeting on Sudan peace process. End violence in Sudan: IGAD asks fighters

Report at www.kbc.co.ke

Published 10 July 2023 - here is a full copy:


President Ruto chairs inaugural IGAD meeting on Sudan peace process


President William Ruto is currently chairing the inaugural IGAD Quartet meeting on Sudan peace process in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The Quartet comprises of representatives from South Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya which is chairing the high-level delegation. 


In a statement issued on Monday, State House Spokesperson Hussein Mohamed said the meeting aims to foster collaboration among member nations to ensure peace and stability prevails in Sudan.

“The focus among others is to achieve a cessation of hostilities, facilitate humanitarian access and undertake concrete steps in support of an inclusive civilian Sudanese process that leads to sustainable peace in Sudan,” said Hussein.


The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Quartet meeting on the Sudan Peace process also aims to establish a sustainable framework that can lead the nation towards a path of reconciliation and development.


https://www.kbc.co.ke/president-ruto-chairs-inaugural-igad-meeting-on-sudan-peace-process/


_____________________________


Africa Press Release
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of President of the Republic of Kenya
Published Monday 10 July 2023 - here is a full copy:


End violence in the Sudan: Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) asks combatants

Parties to the Sudan conflict have been asked to declare an unconditional ceasefire.


President William Ruto said Sudan Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces must also agree to establish a humanitarian zone.


He said the move will stop the loss of lives, ease access to public services and facilitate a settlement of the conflict.


This, he pointed out, will lead to the resumption of the final phase of the political process.


“This will lay the foundation for a peaceful, stable and prosperous Sudan.”


He made the remarks on Monday in Addis Ababa during the IGAD Quartet Heads of State and Government meeting that focussed on the Sudan conflict.


Present were Prime Minister of Ethiopia Abiy Ahmed, IGAD Executive Secretary Workneh Gebeyehu, UN Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, Djibouti Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Mahamoud Ali Youssouf and representatives from South Sudan and rival factions.


President Ruto, who also chairs the IGAD Quartet, termed the situation in Sudan as dire with data indicating that over 2.9 million people have been displaced.


On the other hand, death toll stands at more than 2,000 as the crisis exerts more pressure on neighbouring countries.


“The intensity and scale of the humanitarian crisis is a harrowing calamity,” he told the meeting.


In Darfur, Dr Ruto added, targeted inter-ethnic attacks were steadily spiralling towards the commission of genocide.


“This alarming state of affairs calls for a bold and all-inclusive peace dialogue.”


View original: 

https://www.zawya.com/en/press-release/africa-press-releases/end-violence-in-the-sudan-intergovernmental-authority-on-development-igad-asks-combatants-v41sclpk


[Ends]

Saturday, February 29, 2020

Sudan: Will genocide charge against Bashir stick? (Alex de Waal)

SUDAN'S announcement that it plans to hand ousted long-serving President Omar al-Bashir over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) was dramatic and surprising, but it also takes the country into uncharted waters, writes Sudan expert Alex de Waal in the following important and carefully worded analysis. 

Note, the analysis copied here below includes an amazing BBC video showing what Darfur is like today. The BBC gained rare access to the region, the BBC’s Mohanad Hashim is one of the first journalists to travel freely in the region in a decade. The original piece at BBC online contains some visuals not shown here.

Analysis from BBC News - www.bbc.co.uk
Written by Dr Alex de Waal
Dated Friday 14 February 2020
Omar al-Bashir: Will genocide charge against Sudan's ex-president stick?
REUTERS 
Caption: Omar al-Bashir led Sudan with an iron fist for 30 years

The decision to get the ICC involved was welcomed by the majority of Sudanese who long for justice.

After all, one of the central demands of the protesters who helped bring an end to President Bashir's 30-year dictatorship was that he should be accountable for his alleged crimes.

It should also be seen, alongside other diplomatic moves, as an attempt by Sudan to normalise relations with the West and ditch its pariah nation status.

But the process will be fraught with difficulties and the extent and timing of bringing past leaders to account is a matter of delicate political judgement.
GETTY IMAGES
Caption: The prosecution of Omar al-Bashir was a key demand of those who called for his removal
It also depends on the readiness of the ICC itself.

The priority of the government, an uneasy cohabitation of civilians and generals, is to keep the fragile transition to democracy on track, and there is concern that army commanders could be antagonised by getting the ICC involved.

Bashir is already serving a two-year sentence for corruption but he is wanted by the international court for crimes relating to mass atrocities in the country's Darfur region from 2003 to 2008.
He is also under investigation for violating the democratic constitution by mounting a military coup in 1989.

Shortly after his overthrow in April last year, Bashir was arrested and taken to the colonial-era Kober prison, which is where he sent hundreds of parliamentarians, trade unionists, journalists and other opposition figures over the years.

But whether Bashir will be sent to the court in The Hague, or if he will be tried in a judicial process that may have ICC involvement in Sudan itself is still not clear.

Lt Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of the sovereign council, which has replaced the presidency for now, told rights group Human Rights Watch that "no-one is above the law".

"People will be brought to justice, be it in Sudan or outside Sudan, with the help of the ICC," he is quoted as saying. "We will cooperate fully with the ICC."

There is also still a lot to be sorted out on the part of the ICC.

Bashir rejected foreign court

At the height of the war in Darfur, in March 2005, the UN Security Council referred the case to the court in resolution 1593.

The prosecutor's office began its investigations at once - though they never travelled to Sudan itself.

Two years later they announced arrest warrants against a militia leader, Ali Kushayb, and the co-ordinator of the Darfur campaign, government minister Ahmed Haroun.

Bashir vowed he would never hand over a Sudanese to a foreign court.

AFP
Caption: There were demonstrations in Khartoum in 2008 against the ICC investigations into events in Darfur

The ICC prosecutor at the time, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, set his sights higher. In July 2008 he announced he was seeking an arrest warrant for the president himself, on 10 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

Eight months later the judges of the ICC issued the arrest warrant, dropping the genocide charges as they did not consider the case strong enough.

But after the prosecutor appealed, the judges reversed their decision.

Students of international criminal law should look carefully into the judges' reasoning, because the question of the standard of proof for a genocide charge will loom high if Bashir is transferred for trial in The Hague.

The arrest warrant was controversial. Bashir responded by expelling 13 foreign relief agencies and abandoned any discussion of stepping down before the 2010 elections.

Fearing that any successor would hand him over to the ICC, he concluded that he would ensure his safety by staying put in Khartoum's Republican Palace.

He may now be proved correct, but his exact fate is still not certain.

Many of the soldiers in the current government served in military campaigns that witnessed egregious violations of human rights, notably in Darfur but also elsewhere in the country.
Prominent among these is Gen Mohamed Hamdan "Hemeti" Dagolo, leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Although not personally named in investigations into those responsible for atrocities during the height of the war in Darfur, Hemeti was a brigade commander of the Janjaweed, closely associated with mass killing, displacement and rape.

Additionally, seven weeks after Bashir's overthrow, armed men from the RSF unleashed a violent attack on civilian protesters in the capital Khartoum, killing at least 87 people.

BBC video: Contains disturbing scenes.
Caption: What happened during the 3 June massacre?

There may be some concern about who else could face the law, but the authorities in Sudan have other issues influencing their decisions.

The most immediate is the peace talks between the government and the armed opposition in Darfur. The opposition has been adamant that the ICC arrest warrants should be served, and agreeing to that demand is an important step towards peace.

Cornered country

A second element is that the Sudanese government is desperate for the US to lift its designation as a state sponsor of terror.

This goes back to the 1990s, when Sudan hosted Osama Bin Laden, and al-Qaeda operatives mounted terror attacks on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

Sudan was also blamed for having a role in the deaths of 17 US sailors when the USS Cole was bombed by al-Qaeda in a port in Yemen in 2000 - on Thursday, Sudan agreed to pay compensation to the families of the dead officers [ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-51487712 ].
GETTY IMAGES
Caption: The head of the sovereign council, Lt Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, wants to end Sudan's isolation

The country is cornered. Unless its terrorist designation is lifted it cannot expect debt relief or economic stabilisation.

Last week's unexpected meeting in Uganda between Gen Burhan and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should also be seen in the light of desperate efforts to garner anti-terror credentials.

Handing Bashir to the ICC would also be a step to get advocates for human rights and democracy in Sudan onside. Some of these advocates, such as Hollywood actor George Clooney, have been conspicuously lukewarm in supporting the Sudanese revolution.

ICC prosecutor 'overreached'

They would welcome the extradition of Bashir to the ICC. But they should also be careful what they wish for. The arrival of the former Sudanese president in The Hague will present a formidable challenge to the prosecutor.

When Mr Ocampo presented his case for an arrest warrant against Bashir 12 years ago, he overreached.


BBC video
Caption: What is Darfur like today? 
The BBC gains rare access to the region
To view the above video click here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/51489802

He described the president as a supreme dictator, commanding every instrument of state policy, who had carefully nurtured a genocidal plan against Darfur's black African tribes over the decades.

That claim simply does not stand up: the atrocities were mainly the result of a panicked overreaction to an insurgent threat, carried to a brutal extreme.

Mr Ocampo also alleged a two-stage plan: massacres and displacement followed by systematic annihilation in the camps.

Conditions in Darfur's camps were deplorable, but to compare them to the Warsaw Ghetto, where Jewish people were contained, before being sent to their deaths in the Holocaust was, in the words of one humanitarian leader at the time, "insane".

The people of Darfur were, at that point, recipients of the world's largest humanitarian operation. 

At the time, some Sudanese wryly commented that Mr Ocampo had charged Bashir with the only crime he had not actually committed.
GETTY IMAGES
Caption: The situation in Darfur was the subject of major international concern more than a decade ago

If Bashir is extradited to The Hague, the first step will be a confirmation of charges hearing.

The current prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, will need substantially to improve on her predecessor's performance if the charges, especially on genocide, are to go forward.

The ICC has suffered recent cases in which defendants were acquitted.

It cannot afford another high-profile failure. And a few years ago it put its Darfur investigations on ice, expecting no progress.

The ICC just is not ready for Bashir yet.

Given this, and despite the public excitement, it is likely that the prosecutor at the ICC and the Sudanese authorities will realise that they have a common interest in moving ahead slowly.

Alex de Waal is the executive director of the World Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Related reports

Who are the RSF?

Omar al-Bashir: Sudan’s ousted president

Why Omar Bashir was overthrown