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Rapper Macklemore performs during the opening ceremony of the Invictus Games, in Duesseldorf, Germany.
Macklemore cancels Dubai concert, takes stand against UAE’s role in Sudan war
American rapper Macklemore has called off an upcoming October concert in Dubai over the United Arab Emirates’ role in the war in Sudan. The UN has accused the UAE of providing the Rapid Support Forces, the paramilitary group fighting the Sudanese Army, with weapons to such a degree that without their alleged involvement, the conflict driving the world’s worst ongoing humanitarian crisis would already be over.
While the UAE has repeatedly denied arming the RSF, UN experts reported “credible” evidence they have sent weapons several times a week from northern Chad. To read our full explainer of why the UAE, and other countries like Russia and Iran, are fueling the war, click here.
Macklemore’s decision comes after the rapper publicly declared his support last spring for Palestinians by dropping a song called “Hind’s Hall” about the Columbia University building student protesters took over and briefly “renamed” after Hind Rajab, a young girl killed in Gaza by Israeli forces.
Addressing his fellow artists, Macklemore says he’s not judging those who choose to perform in the UAE but asks: “If we used our platforms to mobilize collective liberation, what could we accomplish?” It’s worth noting, however, that the rapper performed at the Saudi Arabia-owned LIV Golf tournament in June. The Saudis are suspected of supporting the Sudanese Army, which is also accused of committing war crimes.
Residents wait to collect food in containers from a soup kitchen in Omdurman, Sudan March 11, 2024. Nearly five million people in the country are close to famine as Sudan's civil war passes the one-year mark.
Long-feared famine arrives in Sudan
Famine has officially hit Sudan’s Darfur region in Zamzam, a displacement camp with a population of roughly 500,000, as the civil war in the country continues to wreak havoc on the civilian population.
Zamzam is near the city of Al Fasher, home to 1.8 million people and the last significant holdout in Darfur against the RSF, withboth sides of the conflict accused of blocking aid deliveries and using hunger as a weapon.
The top global authority on hunger crises, the Famine Review Committee of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, said, “The scale of devastation brought by the escalating violence in Al Fasher is profound and harrowing.”
This is just the third time a famine classification has been made since the system was set up 20 years ago. It means that at least 20% of the population suffers extreme food shortages, 30% of children are acutely malnourished, and two people in every 10,000 die daily from starvation or malnutrition and disease.
On Tuesday, Sudan’s governmentconditionally accepted an invitation to attendUS-sponsored peace talks in Geneva. The effectiveness of the talks is highly uncertain in a region prone to failed cease-fire conversations.
Sudanese families wait outside a hospital while doctors and medical staff strike to protest late salaries, bringing the struggling health sector in the city of Port Sudan to almost a complete halt as thousands of displaced Sudanese flooded the city due to the raging war in Khartoum, Sudan, August 20, 2023.
Sudan’s paramilitaries shut key city’s last hospital
In moreterrible news for civilians in Sudan, fighting in the country’s civil war has forced the closure of el-Fasher’s last open hospital. This city is the final stronghold of government forces fighting the RSF, a paramilitary group. Hundreds of thousands of civilians are sheltering in the city.
On Saturday, RSF fighters reportedly opened fire, looted drugs and medical equipment, assaulted hospital staff, and stole an ambulance. The hospital had repeatedly come under RSF fire over the past two weeks.
The civil war has killed at least 15,000 people since April 2023, and nearly nine million have been displaced. The RSF is a collection of what was once the Janjaweed militia groups, which have committed atrocities in Darfur. Both the RSF and government forces have been accused of crimes against civilians during this conflict.
Doctors, with support fromMédecins Sans Frontières, a medical relief organization, will try to shift hospital operations to a rundown Saudi-built hospital further from the frontlines, but that building doesn’t yet have electricity, fuel, or water. An MSF spokesperson says trapped and injured civilians in the city will not receive basic care for at least a week.
Iran-Israel crisis: Dangers still high with little room for diplomacy
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Does the Iran-Israel crisis offer a unique opportunity for diplomacy?
I don't think so. They certainly give an opportunity for a bunch of countries to reengage with Israel. We're seeing that with Jordan, with Saudi Arabia, and to show the Iranians that they are still considered to be the big concern as an enemy in the region, a disrupter. But that's very different from saying we're going to see a breakthrough in relations. You're not resetting deterrence. Iran is going to continue to lead the axis of resistance and provide weapons and intelligence and engage in strikes against targets across the region. Israel will still hit Iranians that are operating there. So going forward, I think the dangers are still pretty high.
Is Germany's Scholz meeting with Xi in Beijing indicating a shift in Europe-China trade tensions?
Not really. Here, the fact that Scholz has a large number of German CEOs in tow means that, yes, he's concerned that the Chinese are providing support to Russia, maybe even increasingly dual-use military support to Russia in the war in Ukraine. He's concerned about Chinese industrial policy that's undermining, the interests of Americans and Europeans economically. But ultimately he is very reliant on investment and trade with China, and he's going to continue to support that. He is not fully aligned with his government on this issue, not his advisors, not his foreign minister, and certainly not the other parties in the coalition. But it is Scholz's perspective. And as a consequence, it is going to be a pretty friendly trip.
Why is Sudan's year-long conflict gone largely unnoticed?
Well, we write about it a fair amount, but I mean, the fact that it is in a part of the world that doesn't have economic implications. So you blow up Ukraine, and Russia is in a fight, and energy prices and food and fertilizer prices go up. Major conflict in Sudan. A lot of people suffer, a lot of people die, but the rest of the world has no impact economically. Also, most of the refugees, people fleeing, fleeing to neighboring African countries, they're not coming over to Mexico, the United States or to Poland and to Germany. And that just doesn't lead to a lot of attention. Final point is that there aren't a lot of journalists on the ground from the West in Sudan. And so not a lot of people are actually covering this. So for all of those reasons, not getting a lot of attention, but we'll keep talking about it.
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FILE PHOTO: Lieutenant General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, deputy head of the military council and head of paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), greets his supporters as he arrives at a meeting in Aprag village, 60 kilometers away from Khartoum, Sudan, June 22, 2019.
Sudan’s warring parties resume peace talks
Six months into the civil war in Sudan – which has killed 9,000 people and displaced over 5 million – the armed forces and their paramilitary enemies in the Rapid Support Forces have resumed peace talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Representatives from the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the African Union’s Intergovernmental Authority on Development are moderating the talks, and they set modest expectations. “The talks will not address broader political issues,” according to the US State Department, and instead are focused on setting up cease-fires, humanitarian corridors, and confidence-building measures that will eventually lead to “permanent cessation of hostilities.”
Neither side seems prepared to make concessions that would end the war, but a temporary pause in the fighting likely serves both of their military interests. Six months of war has taken a toll on their armies without scoring a decisive blow, and the conflict may now shift to lower intensity. Their interest in a pause has more to do with rearming and reorganizing for another push than bringing relief and organizing a permanent peace.
Eurasia Group Africa analyst Connor Vasey says that while a temporary arrangement may emerge from Jeddah, the war will drag on. “So far, there is limited – if any – reason to believe that either side has hit a wall in terms of fighting spirit,” he says. “Inasmuch as some frontlines may be solidifying and forcing the two ‘big men’ to rethink their aspirations in the conflict, both will see continued fighting as a way to gain leverage in any mediated talks.”
A snapshot of the humanitarian crisis in Sudan.
The Graphic Truth: Crisis on top of crisis in Sudan
Recent clashes between two military factions in Sudan have brought fresh misery to a people long plagued by conflict – and in some regions genocide – under longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir (1993-2019). Violence in Khartoum, now in its third week, has displaced more than 330,000 people, adding to the millions already displaced as a result of ethnic violence in South Sudan in recent years. When al-Bashir was ousted in a popular uprising in 2019, there were hopes that Sudan could undergo a democratic transition, but those aspirations have mostly been quashed. Here’s a snapshot of the humanitarian toll of recent fighting.
Fleeing Sudanese seek refuge in Chad.
Sudan at risk of biological hazard
As if things weren’t bad enough in Sudan, there’s now growing fear of a biological catastrophe after one of two warring military factions took control of Khartoum’s National Public Laboratory.
The World Health Organization warned Wednesday of a “high risk of biological hazard” at the lab, which stores pathogens like measles and cholera and other hazardous materials.
After militants forced lab technicians to leave, WHO said the situation was “extremely dangerous,” though it wouldn’t say which group – the Sudanese army or the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces – had seized the compound.
The two sides agreed this week to a 72-hour ceasefire that will expire on Thursday night. While fighting has ceased throughout much of the capital, allowing people to leave their homes and access food aid, clashes persist in some pockets of the city.
But things were already dire at NPL and throughout Khartoum’s health system since clashes erupted in the capital almost two weeks ago. At the lab, lifesaving treatments – including blood bags for transfusions – couldn’t be stored properly due to electricity outages. Meanwhile, officials say that 61% of the city’s health facilities aren’t operational due to shelling.
This development comes amid a greater sense of lawlessness in Khartoum after a number of former officials associated with longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir escaped from prison.
The WHO says it is still conducting a thorough risk assessment, but the situation is deteriorating quickly as a tenuous truce frays.
People gather at the station to flee from Khartoum.
Fleeing Sudan
As fighting in Sudan between two warring army factions reached its ninth day on Sunday, a wave of countries evacuated their embassies in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. (See this primer on what’s fueling the conflict and who the main players are.)
The US and UK, for their part, announced that they’d evacuated embassy staff and their families in a mission that’s proved increasingly difficult amid heavy shelling that’s kept Khartoum’s five million plus residents hiding in their homes.
Indeed, the Pentagon said it had flown in Navy Seals and Army Special Forces for a mission that lasted less than one hour and resulted in around 70 diplomats and family members being flown out. Still, the US State Department has said that evacuating the 16,000 American citizens there, mostly dual nationals, remains a long shot.
The Netherlands, Canada, Japan, Italy, and other countries say they are conducting similarly complex operations as Khartoum’s airport remains closed amid ongoing bombardments.
But these missions are anything but straightforward. A German evacuation attempt had to be aborted in recent days due to shelling. On Sunday, a French convoy came under fire while evacuating its citizens and had to turn back to the embassy.
Also on Sunday, a UN convoy started a 525-mile drive toward the Port Sudan on the Red Sea to evacuate UN staff and aid group workers. While the two warring factions refused last week to honor a number of ceasefires, it appears that they agreed, for the most part, not to fire on aircraft carrying foreign diplomats or on UN vehicles.
However, for millions of Sudanese stranded in the war-torn country, there is no safe haven. Many of those trying to flee have been turned back from neighboring countries, like Egypt, for not having appropriate travel documents. There's growing fear that this could spiral into a full-blown regional crisis: Around 20,000 people in the western Darfur region have crossed into neighboring Chad since the fighting began, and more than 2,000 have fled to South Sudan.
The humanitarian situation is becoming increasingly dire. Food and water supplies in the capital are dwindling. Many are resorting to getting water from the River Nile to get by. Meanwhile, Netblocks, a watchdog group, says that the internet is functioning at 2% of ordinary levels, making communication and evacuation efforts even more difficult.