MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Researchers who study global conflicts say there were more direct confrontations between states last year than at any point since the second world war. That finding is from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program in Sweden. Civilian harm also reached record highs last year. We’ll hear from one of the report’s authors in a moment. But first, we have a look at one of the flashpoints highlighted in the report – the violence in Sudan’s El Fasher. Here’s NPR’s Africa correspondent Emmanuel Akinwotu.
EMMANUEL AKINWOTU, BYLINE: The United Nations has said the violence in El Fasher bore the hallmarks of genocide…
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
AKINWOTU: …Violence that was filmed and widely shared by the militias that carried it out. From the deluge of footage posted on social media, fighters from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces at war with Sudan’s army trample over the men, women and children they’ve gunned down. The RSF launched a brutal 18-month siege on the city in the western region of Darfur, the last city in the region where Sudan’s army was stationed. Then, in October last year, more than 60,000 people were killed in just a few days during the RSF’s takeover of the city, according to the U.N. The new report by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program said the massacres in El Fasher pushed one-sided violence in Africa to its highest levels since the Rwandan genocide in 1994.
SHAYNA LEWIS: The fighters were not attempting to hide their crimes.
AKINWOTU: Shayna Lewis is a Sudan specialist and senior adviser with Preventing and Ending Mass Atrocities, a nonprofit organization.
LEWIS: They were rounding up young men on video, celebrating the fact that they had captured them – ordinary people – and were gunning them down in real time.
AKINWOTU: She’s one of a number of researchers who documented evidence of violence by the RSF and allied Arab militias against African ethnic groups shared with the U.N. Security Council. But despite statements of condemnation, nothing was done to prevent it.
LEWIS: I think that a lot of the geopolitical gridlock that is affecting other conflicts around the world, such as Gaza, such as Ukraine, has now trickled down into the Sudan file.
AKINWOTU: So genocidal violence, which once provoked international action and vows of never again, happened in plain sight without obstruction.
Emmanuel Akinwotu, NPR News, Lagos. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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