Since the civil war broke out in Sudan in April 2023, more and more people are facing a daily struggle to find food. Humanitarian aid, deliberately blocked by the warring parties, continues to arrive in dribs and drabs. Health and education are collapsing. In this context of widespread shortages and need, however, there is one commodity that has continued to flow into the country and be distributed within it with little restraint: weapons. This is what Amnesty International denounces in a report in which it reveals that part of the arsenal coming from China, Turkey, Iran or Russia ends up in the troubled region of Darfur, on which a UN embargo has weighed since 2004 precisely to prevent the arms trade.
The Sudanese conflict began in the capital, Khartoum, as a power struggle between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. It has since spread across the centre, west and south of the country, and has recently reached the south-east, on the border with Ethiopia. In addition, armed movements that initially stayed out of the conflict have broken their neutrality in favour of one of the two main sides, and there have been extensive campaigns to recruit and arm civilians.
In just over a year, the war has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Some 25 million people, more than half of the population (out of a total of 48 million), are in need of humanitarian aid, which continues to be hampered by the army and paramilitaries. A similar number of people are suffering from acute levels of hunger, including more than 750,000 in catastrophic conditions. More than 10 million people are displaced within and outside the country, 65% of the population has no access to healthcare, and some 20 million children are out of school.
This devastation has been made possible in large part by a constant flow of weapons that is helping to fuel the war, according to an Amnesty International report published on Wednesday, which documents how a large quantity of arms and ammunition, including newly manufactured weapons, has been imported into Sudan in recent years. Some of these shipments also end up in Darfur, one of the areas hardest hit by the conflict and which has been subject to an arms embargo since 2004.
“The continued flow of arms into Sudan continues to cause civilian death and suffering on an immense scale,” Amnesty International’s regional human rights officer Deprose Muchena said in the report. For the research, the organization analyzed more than 1,900 records of arms shipments from two commercial data providers, as well as more than 2,000 digital and open-source pieces of evidence.
Since the start of the war, both sides have used advanced drone jammers, Chinese-made rifles and mortars, and there are indications that the latter have been used in East Darfur, Amnesty International said. The report also identifies newly manufactured Chinese light weapons in several parts of Sudan, including Darfur, in violation of the UN embargo.
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The investigation also reveals the diversion of Turkish light weapons destined for the civilian market, to armed opposition groups and to government forces, including the security personnel of army commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. At the same time, Turkish firms have in recent years shipped hundreds of thousands of weapons and millions of blank cartridges that could then be transformed on a large scale into lethal weapons.
Russian companies, including two minority-owned by Rostec, a state-owned defence conglomerate, have also exported large quantities of small arms to Sudan for civilian use, which have then been used by both warring parties, including in parts of Darfur, the report said. Some of this trade has been conducted through arms dealers closely linked to the Sudanese military.
In recent months, the military has been forging closer ties with Iran, and one of its most coveted supplies is believed to be its drones, which have already been used on the front lines in apparently small numbers, according to images circulating on social media. Some of these, however, may be locally produced. In parallel, a cargo plane from an Iranian company sanctioned by the United States for delivering Revolutionary Guard supplies to Syria, including weapons, has made at least seven flights to Sudan since December, according to online flight-tracking services.
Amnesty International’s report also identified Serbian assault rifles in the country, with indications of recent transfers, but notes that their presence does not necessarily imply that the shipment was made from Serbia, but that they could have been supplied by actors from other countries. Another key country is the United Arab Emirates, the main ally of the Rapid Support Forces, which have used newly manufactured Emirati armoured personnel carriers, according to the research.
Amnesty International’s findings reinforce what has been revealed in other reports on arms supplies to Sudan. One of the most detailed so far was one produced by a group of UN experts late last year, which documented how the paramilitary offensive to seize control of all of Darfur launched in August 2023 was accompanied by an escalation of the means used and the opening of new supply routes that had “enormous impact on the balance of power on the ground.”
The group of experts identified three main supply lines. The first involved a constant traffic of Emirati cargo planes bound for an airport in eastern Chad and “credible” indications that they were carrying weapons and ammunition on a large scale. Abu Dhabi has always denied this. The other routes crossed from eastern Libya, mainly with fuel, weapons and cars, and from South Sudan with fuel.
Amnesty International’s report sheds new light on the entities importing significant quantities of weapons into Sudan. These fall into two groups: companies with close ties to the military and the national arms industry, and importers focused on the civilian market that feed the warring parties. The military has struggled to secure military supplies since it lost control of the country’s main military-industrial complex in Khartoum last summer.
In light of the flow of arms into the country, Amnesty International believes that the UN embargo, which currently only affects Darfur, should be updated, extended to the whole of Sudan and accompanied by a strengthening of monitoring mechanisms covering all types of weapons that may be used in combat. They also call on states and companies to immediately suspend the supply of all types of arms and ammunition to Sudan, and call on all countries to explicitly ban such transfers.
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