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Welcome to The Village Oak Tree
I am your host, Terrance Ó Domhnaill.
Thank you for joining me once again.
As promised, I have my Canadian friend with me this week to talk about the war in Sudan. I will be bringing you some history as to why this started and where it stands today, and my friend Sam will be talking about the humanitarian crisis all of this has caused. Especially since Trump recently cut out aid money for the NGO's in the area with the closing of USAID.
Once we've presented our case to you in order to bring awareness to all of these atrocities, I would ask everyone to stick around through my commercial break to hear another chapter of The Priest by Michael Campi
So come, pull up a chair, and let us tell you a little about the war in Sudan that the North American media isn't telling you.
For the past two years, Sudan has been devastated by another civil war. This time, it's between the RSF (Rapid Support Forces), and the Sudanese Armed Forces.
These two military groups once shared the government before a falling out in April of 2023 that erupted into open warfare, and they have been rampaging the region since. The dispute supposedly started over arguments about the timeline of integrating of the two military factions together.
In the video, I read this article from RT News that gives us a good idea of how this began and where it stands today. It's dated January 26th, 2025 but it sums it all up pretty nicely.
Land of War: Two generals clash in the heart of Africa, should the world prepare for the worst?
The latest news from Sudan shows the country is still long way from transitioning to civilian rule
By Andrei Shelkovnikov, expert at the Center for African Studies, HSE University for RT News/Africa
The latest goal for the RSF is to establish an Arab Emirate at some point around Darfur and western Sudan, with the help of mercenaries from neighboring African nations and certain Arab nations, notably the UAE.
Obviously, General Burhan and the Sudanese Armed Forces are fighting to stop that. What it's looking like is another classic battle between western colonialism, or what's left of it, versus the Arab tribes in the region who want independence from the west. The west, and some gulf states, don't want to lose access to all of the resources in the area, such as the sea ports and mineral wealth that they want to continue to exploit for themselves along with the rich elites in the Sudanese government, such as it is. As stated in the January RT article, there is no civilian government yet.
I have some more articles from last week, mostly from RT News, because the Russians have been trying to mediate this war to try and bring it to a halt. I read portions of these other articles in the video as well, to try and bring some idea of where they are at this point in the negotiations.
A land of mass graves and mercenaries – Can this genocide be stopped?
The civil war in Sudan has entered its third year and is still far from over
By Tamara Ryzhenkova, orientalist, senior lecturer at the Department of History of the Middle East, St. Petersburg State University, expert for the ‘Arab Africa’ Telegram channel for RT News/Africa
Russia and Sudan discuss crisis in African state
Moscow’s deputy foreign minister has met with the Sudanese ambassador to discuss urgent steps toward ending the conflict in the region
From RT News/Africa
How US policy is hindering peace in this war-torn African state
The latest talks on Sudan have reached a deadlock, yet Washington continues its misguided mediation
By Mohammed AbdAlwahid Mohammed Hussain, teaching assistant of political science, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation for RT News/Africa
Now that you have a good idea of what's going on over there from a military point of view, let me offer you the humanitarian perspective from my young friend and Canadian activist, Sam W. who has graciously offered her take on the situation of all of the helpless Sudanese refugees caught up in this endless warfare that's been going on in this part of Africa for decades, from Ethiopia to Somalia, and the Sudan.
Here is a transcript of her audio file.
There’s a fantastic scene from M*A*S*H that perfectly encapsulates the situation in Sudan.
If you’re too young to know what M*A*S*H is, I've got you. It’s an older television show that ran for about nine years through the 1970s and early 1980s. The show's name stands for ‘Mobile Army Surgical Hospital,’ and it’s a war drama with a great splash of comedy and loads of social commentary.
I’m too young to have watched M*A*S*H while it was airing. Hell, my mother is a bit too young to have watched it. Still, it remains a cultural touchstone for many people across North America. It follows the antics of a small group of field surgeons and doctors stationed in Uijeongbu during the Korean War.
In the particular scene that I’m thinking of, several of the characters are in the middle of performing surgery on a wounded man. You don’t need to know the characters or their backgrounds to understand the point of the scene. Here’s a transcript of the conversation:
Captain Hawkeye says: War isn't Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.
Father Mulcahy asks: How do you figure, Hawkeye?
Hawkeye responds: Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell?
Father Mulcahy: Sinners, I believe.
And Hawkeye says: Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them - little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.
While studying events in Sudan, this scene rolled through my mind like the tolling of a bell.
Hawkeye was correct; war is worse than Hell.
I’ve never fought in a war myself; that experience is something I can’t speak to. But what I do know is that when conflict breaks out, it’s never the people giving orders from the rear who have to suffer. It’s the innocent civilians caught in the crossfire of other men’s ambitions and rage.
Sudan is currently the site of one of the worst humanitarian crises in modern history, with around 13 million people displaced from their homes and forced to flee their homeland. Between the conflict of the civil war and the ravages of Climate Change, they have no choice but to seek safety elsewhere.
Staying close to home and riding out the strife is no longer an option. For many of these people, home no longer exists.
This is bad enough for the adults, but children have it far worse. Instability is a nightmare for small children, and a loss of familiarity is extremely traumatic. Losing their homes and going out into an uncertain world is scary on its own, but interruptions in education, food and clean water supplies can be devastating.
The more stress and scarcity are heaped on already-struggling families, the more they have to fear. The more rough terrain and conflict they must experience, the greater their chances of injury and loss. In these conditions, both their physical and mental well-being are at risk.
Those risks are compounded by the fact that we’re swiftly approaching an extremely dangerous time of year to be on the road. The rainy season is on its way, and with it come the lean times.
The lean season in Sudan is the period between harvests, usually lasting between the start of April and the end of June. It is a critical time of year for food assistance, especially with the unreliable planting season they’ve seen over the past few years.
With the usual cycle of planting and harvest no longer possible in many regions, most people are unable to survive on stored foods the way they would have been able to do in years prior.
Coupled with the rainy season, where the landscape can change radically in an instant and local infrastructure is left shaky at best, the roads and bridges that facilitate food deliveries may soon be impassable due to the mud and rockslides that accompany the weather.
Five regions in Sudan are officially under famine conditions, and experts estimate that a further 8 million people will soon be under threat of starvation. According to the World Food Programme, over 24 million people in Sudan are currently facing severe food insecurity.
On top of all of this, the loss of USAID funding makes the usual assistance untenable, with many organizations simply lacking the resources and manpower to keep up with supply and demand.
No USAID means that for many refugees, safe food, clean water and medical supplies are not coming.
Unfortunately, the neighbouring regions to Sudan are not in a state where they can reasonably support a sudden influx of desperate people. South Sudan and Chad are both in similar distress, being battered by Climate Change and unable to cope.
Ethiopia is likewise facing extreme food shortages and an epidemic of malnutrition, and the loss of USAID has shuttered several programs dedicated to providing supplemental foods for the starving population.
Egypt is contending with uncertainty owing to the conflict in nearby Israel and Gaza, Yemen is in a civil war and facing targeted bombing campaigns, and Saudi Arabia is the previous holder of the ‘worst crisis’ title as of only a few years ago.
Sudan and its surrounding nations make up one of the poorest and most heavily impacted areas of the world, and there is nowhere safe to turn.
Hawkeye spoke no lie when he said that war is worse than Hell; what we see in Sudan demonstrates it quite clearly.
A humanitarian crisis of this magnitude is difficult to grapple with. The destruction of crucial funding programs and the total breakdown of order make it nearly impossible to provide these refugees with the supplies and care that they so desperately need.
In reading firsthand accounts of the war in Sudan and the conditions faced by refugees, I was struck with heartache. The women whose stories I read spoke of passing through checkpoints, walking past bodies in the road and trying to keep their children from crying as they made their way past soldiers holding guns.
One woman spoke of being molested by an armed soldier who held her son at gunpoint, arresting him for speaking up on his mother’s behalf, a minor child. She was later able to find her boy again and bring him to the relative safety of a refugee camp, but only after weeks of beating and humiliation for the entire family.
Other people spoke of being split apart from their families, unable to leave the country themselves but sending their children away from the war to keep them safe.
One woman spoke of the horror of finding out a young man, who tried to help protect her, was murdered by armed men in the street after she made her way home to her children.
These stories bring home the reality of life in a warzone better than cold, hard statistics ever could. Even though this is happening on the other side of the world to people we will likely never meet, it doesn’t matter– we know these are real people, facing real tragedies, and enduring far worse nightmares than many of us can even imagine.
They need help. I donated to help support UNICEF’s drive to help feed and provide for the children displaced by the war in Sudan, and I encourage our listeners to give what they can. Even a little bit can go further than you think, and without USAID, every dollar counts.
UNICEF, the Sudanese Red Crescent, and the UNHCR are all good organizations that are working on the ground in Sudan to help as many people as possible. They’re drowning under the flood of hunger, disease and catastrophe, but they are working as hard as they can with what little they have.
Please consider supporting one of these organizations today. The people of Sudan deserve a chance at a life of peace.
Now, more than ever, it’s vital to remember: Solidarity wins.
I created a small video using her audio file that she made for today's show, with her permission, and inserted it into the video that encapsulates the humanitarian crisis going on in this region. For more of her excellent writings on activism of all kinds, I invite everyone to visit her substack page at World Weary.com to read more and listen to an occasional audio podcast.
I've been to war zones a couple of times during my long military career. I hope no one ever has to endure such chaos and deprivation but we all know about people around the world who are, thanks to the media, or lack thereof in this case and in Gaza. Today, we want to bring awareness to the plight of all of these helpless people in Sudan struggling to survive the atrocities being committed against them by these ruthless soldiers. Atrocities such as mass rape of women and children, mass killings in so called refugee camps, the constant displacement of innocent people trying to escape the fighting and so on.
The whole area of this part of Africa has been in near continuous warfare for decades now and this is just another part of a bigger picture. The bigger picture of climate change that started there decades ago. For as long as a lot of people can remember now, the horn of Africa, that encompasses Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Chad, has been in a state of warfare over a lack of basic resources for the people, and the selling off of the mineral resources to the west. Which only benefits those corrupt warlords strong enough to hold onto the rights to these resources. Rarely do any of the proceeds of these sales of minerals make it down to the ordinary people.
This has been the issue for the west. This area is high value real estate for the west, especially for the U.S., beyond the minerals they can extract The U.S. has had a base in Djibouti since right after 9/11, Camp Lemonnier. There has been increased tension since the Chinese started building a base back in early 2016. That and the African horn is a good staging area for combat operations in the middle east and central Africa. All of this fighting going on in the neighborhood has to be making the Americans very nervous, along with all of the neighbors over there. Not to mention the loss of corporate revenues as it's too dangerous to exploit any of the wealth due to all of the factional fighting.
All of which makes it harder for the humanitarian organizations trying desperately to help all of those surviving refugees with food, water and shelter to provide much needed relief.
We in the west need to pay attention to this as this could be coming to a region closer to home in the U.S. soon. The south west region of north America. Imagine what a humanitarian crisis a limited war with Mexico would create? A refugee crisis just like what's happening in Sudan right now. Add to that, a severe water shortage, which is already happening right now, and you have a mirror of Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia right here in North America. Given what Trump's doing to the federal agencies, and pissing off his neighboring countries, this scenario isn't too hard to imagine anymore.
I will add some other news story links here that I found that gives readers some idea about the humanitarian crisis over there. I know we’ve all heard or read stories like this before but pay attention anyway, as these stories could be coming to a state near you in the next few years.
Two years into Sudan’s war, where is its civil society?
Civil activists negotiate with warring sides to work but face harassment, arrests, and accusations of bias.
From Al Jazeera
'Child in arms, luggage on my head, I fled Sudan camp for safety'
Gladys Kigo BBC News
The mother and children trapped between two conflicts
Akisa Wandera BBC News, Renk
To wrap things up once again, I read chapter 32 from The Priest by Michael Campi after the break.
Thank you for joining me once again. I hope you enjoyed it and that you'll return again to talk about the world we live in.
Please like, subscribe, reply and share the videos or audio podcasts, however you watch or listen. The goal here is to resist the people who want to take our freedoms away from us. I appreciate everyone around the world, no matter who or where you are. Together, using independent media like this, we can resist the authoritarian oligarchs in the west.
As I say good bye this week, I wish to leave you with a quote from a young Afghan woman, Malala Yousafzai. "When the Whole World is Silent, Even One Voice Becomes Powerful." Slán go fóill.
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