[Salon] Sudan is starving - ArabDigest.org Guest Post

Sudan is starving Summary: as Sudan’s forgotten civil war drags on its people are caught between two rival generals in a catastrophic situation that has seen millions displaced and millions more facing famine. While the world’s attention remains fixed on Israel’s ever-expanding war in Lebanon and further killings of civilians in Gaza another war receives only fleeting consideration. Sudan’s civil war being fought between two generals has brought the country of 50 million to its knees. The figures are staggering: between 7 and 10 million displaced both internally and externally, 1.5 million facing starvation, 25 million in dire need of humanitarian assistance and much of the capital Khartoum in ruin. Efforts to end the war have consistently failed with the two belligerents - Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the leader of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, the head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – each believing that he can better the other through a military conquest that takes no heed of civilians. Both sides stand accused of committing war crimes. Both sides have powerful international backers. In Hemedti’s case it is the United Arab Emirates while General Burhan is backed by Egypt. One of the cruel ironies of this war was brought to light in an investigation this past summer by the NGO GRAIN which describes itself as working on behalf of “small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems.” 1.5 million people are facing starvation in Sudan [photo credit: Norwegian Refugee Council] The report focussed on the UAE’s growing power in the global food system. The Emiratis have been involved for more than two decades in efforts to ensure food security for their small and wealthy Gulf state. That quest led them into Africa where they reportedly have 14 land acquisitions in progress and 56 deals already done. One was signed with Sudan as early as the mid-70s and the country remains a high priority target for further land acquisitions. As the report notes: In the pursuit of its own food security, the UAE, like other Gulf states, has been getting control of land to develop farm operations in Sudan. Right now, two Emirati firms –International Holding Company (IHC), the country’s largest listed corporation, and Jenaan – are farming over 50,000 hectares there. In 2022, a deal was signed between IHC and the DAL group – owned by one of Sudan’s wealthiest tycoons – to develop an additional 162,000 ha of farmland in Abu Hamad, in the north. This massive farm project, backed by the UAE government, will connect to a brand-new port on the coast of Sudan to be built and operated by the Abu Dhabi Ports Group. The economic stakes around this project are mammoth. But so are the political ones. The current port of Sudan, which the project will completely bypass, is run by the Sudanese government. The deal worth US$ 6 billion will see the Abu Amama port built north of the Port of Sudan and will include an industrial zone, an international airport, and the agricultural land in Abu Hamad. The deal was signed before the civil war broke out so it is still nominally under the aegis of the government. But the UAE continues to arm Hemedti’s RSF and is heavily invested in him emerging as the winner. He already has extensive engagements with the Emiratis through the gold trade. Almost all of Africa’s gold both legal and smuggled is transited through the Emirates. Hemedti’s family control the Jebel Amer gold mines in Darfur where soldiers under his command carried out massacres from 2003 -2005 that have been recognised as genocidal. The RSF is carrying out similar massacres today. As the GRAIN investigation notes the Abu Amama port project is a partnership between the Abu Dhabi ruling family and Sudan’s wealthiest businessman Osama Daoud Abdellatif the founder and chairman of the DAL group. The conglomerate has five divisions including DAL Agriculture and DAL Food. The new port will see no expense spared in building a state of the art facility, one that will provide intense and potentially lethal competition to Port of Sudan: a win for Hemedti, Abdellatif and the Emiratis and a blow to al-Burhan and his backers. Thus while the people of Sudan are already plunged into food insecurity and famine as the two generals battle for power one of the key outside players in the civil war is busy achieving food security for itself while it enables the war to continue. The GRAIN investigation ends with these words: The mass starvation being waged in Sudan should be a terrible reminder of why agricultural land deals meshed with geopolitical agendas must end. It’s time to call the UAE, and its allies, to account.