I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven AM. The killing in the city of Elfasha, in Sudan's staff War region is so brutal and widespread that bloodstains on the ground can be seen from space. For a year and a half, a militia group called the RSF has been attacking the city, and last week it fell, resulting in the mass slaughter of civilians. In the past two years, twelve million people in Sudan have fled their homes and more than one hundred and fifty thousand people have died,
making this the world's largest humanitarian crisis. The violence is sponsored and enabled by the United Arab Emirates, a key Western ally, raising questions about the West in action and complicity.
Today.
Sudanese political analyst and founder of the think tank Confluence Advisory Hallud Hair on what is unfolded in al Fascia and what comes next for Sudan. It's Friday, November seventh, so a lot a few days ago the world saw these images of blood stained ground into four which is evidence of violence so widespread that it is visible from space. Tell me what you thought when you saw those images.
Well, it's very indicative of the sort of scale of the violence that has been reported. A lot of the violence that we're seeing is actually documented by the RSF soldiers themselves in videos that have been posted on social media, on TikTok, on Instagram and other apps as well. The scale of the violence that we're seeing against the people in fashion is reminiscent of other genocides. You have, you know, the separating of men and boys from women and girls
that we saw during the Srebonita massacre. You see the velocity of the killing that we saw in the Rwandan genocide. You see the siege and starvation of people, you know, ahead of mass episodes of slaughter that was sow for example, in Raza. You know, to my mind, this is very clear that we have the systematic targeting of ethnic communities by the RSF that is very much consistent with the types of a trustee violence we see during a genocide.
Horrific details emerging out of Sudan as the two year civil war reaches a dangerous new phase. AID agencies reporting new evidence of genocide citing these On top.
Of that, we have seen videos where they dehumanize the people they're about to kill and they say you know, it's rabbits a season and we need to you know, chase after them as they're chasing after them in the middle of the desert and killing them. So we see all the hallmarks here of a sort of genocidal violence playing out. There was a recent report that said about seven thousand people had been killed in the past sort of eight days, and that's average of one thousand a days.
So there's a huge number of people that are losing their lives. But we have, according to un estimates, two hundred and sixty thousand people, half of whom one hundred and thirty thousand were children who were in ul fashion before Old Fashed fell, and the numbers of people who have since made it out of Old Faship only number
about sixty thousand. So we still have about two hundred thousand people that are unaccounted for, which means the atrocity risks that have been in place since Lashed fell continued to be there.
And talk to me a bit about how what's happening in El Fashia right now fits in in the broader context of war in Sudan over the past couple of years.
So the RSF has been trying to get its hands on Alfashed for the better part of eighteen months now, and Fashia itself has had been under siege per Abaus five hundred and fifty days before it finally fell in the hands of the RSF.
In Sudan's north, what was once a sanctuary is now under siege. The road to alf Fasher, Sudan's last major city that hasn't fallen, a battleground targeted by the rebel paramilitary Rapid Support Forces or RSF, who've been accused of ethnic cleansing.
The Submizan forces that was stationed there. They fled Al Fashia two days before it fell, effectively leaving the people of Alfasha to their fate. With the RSF.
RSF fighter's cheer in front of the army headquarters and El Fasher in Darfur. It's a strategic victory for the paramilitary group which has been fighting the Sudanese army since twenty twenty three. The government forces have now lost their last remaining stronghold in Sadan sta Full region.
We've seen them make further moves towards other towns in the southwesterly region. The RSF is keen to consolidate its military control over the western territory of Saddan, because this allows it to keep the supply lines of weapons and fuel consistent that come in through Libya, Chad, Central African
Republic and parts of South Sudan. Much of the weaponry that is coming through those supply lines is thought to originate from the United Arab Emirates, which has been a key supporter of the RSF since the start of this war.
So this they believe is quite a turning point for them in terms of their fortunes, after having lost swathes of territory over the past year before the rainy season, and now starting off this dry season or fighting season with sort of a bang, if you will, and moving ever eastwards, eventually they hope into the capital Khartoum again and then eventually into the Red Sea.
So the RSEF is now in control of Elfacher and it has been a bar with the Sudanese Armed Forces since twenty twenty three. Those two militias were initially partners in government. Can you take me back and tell me what happened in twenty twenty three to begin this war.
So if we want to look at the origins of this conflict, we have to go two years before it broke out in Jartu, which is the coup of twenty twenty one.
Now, after thirty years in power, Sudanese President Omar al Bashir has been overthrown by the military. It comes after months of deadly protests over his repressive rule. On Thursday, Defense Minister Alad Mohammad Ahmad ibn Uf announced that Bashir had been arrested. A military council will now be formed and it will rule for two years before elections take place.
Within that period, the staff and the RSF position themselves very well, particularly the RSSEF, to make sort of political claims as to representing the people and allowing civilian democratic rule to take shape, but realized that with the civilian government, the prospect of military rule from which they benefit would be diminished. That civilian rule would show value, that it would bring Sadan back in from the cold and really
become part of the international community. Those successes very much threatened the security state of which the Sudnzan forces and the RSF were each part. But once they conducted this coup together in twenty twenty one, the cracks between them really started to show.
More explosions in Sudan's capital, Hartoum in the first minutes of what was supposed to be a ceasefire but did not take effect as Sudan's army and most powerful paramilitary fight each other for the fourth day.
They did not agree, for example, on how they would consolidate this coup. Then those questions were really never answered because just ahead of an agreement that would have seen a lot of these issues, if not resolved then at least addressed, the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudesearm Forces went.
To war, two warring sides, each supported by multiple armed groups. The Sudanese armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces used to work alongside each other, but have been locked in a bloody civil war since April twenty twenty three.
Now to this day, we don't have firm evidence of who fired the first shot and therefore started off in Khartoum, But what we do know is that because the war started in Khartoum, then Sudan has such a centralized state structure. This has had a reverberating impact on state functionality in general. So we have seen very sharp state collapse across the country. Banks suddenly weren't able to function, telecommunications struggled. Services such
as health and education became impacted. Seventy percent of health centers were suddenly out of commission. Ninety percent of school children were suddenly out of school in the first few years of the war. By and large, most of the population Insteradan has no access to public infrastructure, public services, policing, etc.
Coming up, how Western weapons are being used in the genocidal violence. And this is not simply a conflict between two rebel groups. This is too fully armed and back militias. The SAFF is supported by countries including Egypt and Russia and Iran. But as you mentioned, the RSF has been supported by the UAA. Can you tell me more about what we're not about that?
So the UAE denies supporting the RSF, But there have been very well grounded and well founded pieces of evidence that point two are very sustained campaign by the UAE to support the RSF. So we have had investigative reports by the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times. The UN's own panel of experts has said that its found credible evidence of the UE supporting the RSF.
The UAE's foreign Ministry tells for UA it is not providing any support or supplies to the Rapid Support Forces or to any of the warring parties in Saddan, but to UN reports, says there is credible evidence to the country and we.
Know through open source intelligence analysts or ocent analysts that there are several flights, especially over the past few months, but certainly since the start of this war, that saw plane falls of weapons land in nearby countries for use of the RSF, where the UAE has created us sort of alliances with countries all around Sudan.
The waterrn country is surrounded by major arms trafficking hubs. Apart from Chad, weapons and ammunition are smuggled in through countries like Libya, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, and Uganda.
But the RSEF also sits on land that has a lot of gold deposits, and the UAE of course has some of the world's largest gold markets, particularly in Dubai.
Now the irony is that the UAE also had very until very recently economic agreements and economic relationships with the Sydney's Armed forces as well, particularly around gold where several gold companies, especially one in the eastern part of the country was co owned by the Sydney's Armed Forces and then several Amoralti companies, and so what we see here is, you know, sort of a scramble for Sudan, if you will.
That has a lot more to do with access to resources and an influence over the Nile and the Red Sea. And because Sidan straddles so many geo strategic zones, whether it's a Hell, the Horn of Africa or the Red Sea, it becomes a prize for countries like the UE that have these imperial ambitions in the region. That sees it sort of rise out of its middle power status to
really become a hegemen in the region. The UAE, for example, outspends China and parts of the African continent, and it's actually relied upon by the West to outspend China economically speaking, and so that has given its a very particular position which it has relied upon in order to minimize the level of censure it gets from the West.
Can we talk a little more about that, because the US is of course a key ally to the UAA. It's got diplomatic partnerships with many countries in Western Europe, So to what extent do you think that those global ties have allowed these atrocities to continue to occur.
Well, the atrocities are fed by local dynamics. We see the Arab groups that make up the RSF really try to settle scores historical scores around key grievance's local grievances under the cover of this national level conflict that is ongoing. But certainly the RSF would not have the capacity to be able to carry out such acts of violence and certainly will not be in such a sophisticated position, particularly in regards to the weaponry that it has, were it
not for the support of the United Arab Emirates. But every statement that we have seen from Washington, from Whitehall, from Brussels, from New York, the United Nations, even closer to home of the African Union, whilst all of them mentioned the violence committed by the RSF and mentioned the RSF by name, they do not mention the support that
they get from the United Arab Emirates. And that's because the UE has positioned itself very well visa v its allies, particularly in the West, where it's become indispensable on several files on data and crypto, particularly following Donald Trump's recent visit of the summer to the Gulf region also interests around Israel and the security of Israel, in which the United Arab Emirates has positioned itself as really the only
Arab ally in the region on that file. Then because of that, Sudan doesn't really rank very highly in terms of the foreign policy priorities that the West has with the UE.
And so if the US and the Western world are as it seems unwilling to put pressure on the UAE to stop arming the RSF, how do you think this conflict is going to play out from here?
Well, quite clearly, unless the West are going to call out the UAE, but also have consequences for the actions of the UAE, including are not limited to sanctions as well as stopping arms transfers and sales from these countries to the UAE, not much is going to change. We have seen recent reporting that shows that British, American and Canadian weapons or weapons parts finding their way into the
rsf's hands having first been bought by the UAE. And this is very concerning for not just these countries that now become implicated in the acts of the RSF, but also becomes very concerning for the publics in these countries that do not want their governments to be party to the kind of genocidal violence that we're seeing taking place
in therefor by the RSF right now. But again because of these shared interests with the UAE around data around Israel, it's very unlikely under the current conditions that we're going to see the West call out the UAE for supporting the violence of the RSF is committing.
Well.
Thank you so much for speaking with me.
Thank you.
Also in the news, almost three million Australian Microsoft customers who upgraded their plans plans to include the AI feature copilot will be offered a refund. The company emailed the refund offered to subscribers, admitting they had fallen short following legal action against them by the a Triple C. The consumer watchdog alleges Microsoft intentionally misled customers to believe they had to pay more for AI, even though they actually
had the option to remain on their current plan. The tech giant faces multimillion dollar penalties if the court rules in the A Triple C's favor, and police are expected to apply for a warrant to arrest Bruce Lammon after he failed to appear in court on a charge of vehicle theft. The former staffer is alleged to have stolen a Toyota Prado last year, an allegation he denies. But when Lamman's matter was called in court yesterday, neither heat nor his lawyer were present. I'm Ruby Jones. This is
seven am. Thanks for listening.