Sudan's Warring Generals Weaponise Rape and Starvation Against Their Own People

Imagine being a mother in El Fasher. The siege has lasted for months. The market is empty, the hospital has been shelled, and the men who came through your street carried rifles and no mercy. Now imagine that the men who did this to you are sitting in comfortable offices in Port Sudan or Nairobi, moving money, buying weapons, and planning the next city. Nobody in that chain has been arrested. Nobody has stood trial. And the world has been watching for so long that watching has become a habit.

On Monday, Britain finally moved. The UK has sanctioned 15 Sudanese commanders, militia leaders and security officials for war crimes committed during the fall of El Fasher. Travel bans. Asset freezes. Formal naming and shaming. It is the most concrete step any major Western government has taken in a war that has already killed tens of thousands and displaced 14 million people since April 2023, according to Amnesty International. We will not pretend this is nothing. But we will not pretend it is enough either.

Look at who was sanctioned, because the list is the story. Hussein Abu Jalak, an RSF colonel, is accused of atrocities during the siege. Al-Nour Ahmed Adam, known as "al-Qubba," is identified as a prominent figure in the besieging and assault on the city. These are not names from a distant rumour. They are men tied to specific crimes. And the list does not stop at the Rapid Support Forces. Commanders from the Sudanese Armed Forces are on it too, sanctioned for sexual violence, torture and attacks on civilians. That matters. Both armies have blood on their hands, and anyone who tells you this is a clean war between the good general and the bad general is selling you something.

The evidence did not come from a press release. It came from UK-funded reporting by the Centre for Information Resilience, which documented what the Foreign Office describes as a campaign of systematic starvation and conflict-related sexual violence. Read that phrase slowly. Systematic. Not a few rogue soldiers. Not a regrettable outbreak of chaos. A system. Starvation used as a weapon, because a hungry population is easier to control. Rape used as a weapon, because terror is cheaper than an army. Hospitals attacked, because the people who might save you are the first target.

The UK has pledged £5 million to support survivors of sexual violence and another £10 million in humanitarian aid. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said perpetrators of crimes against humanity "must be held accountable" and that support from external backers to the warring parties "must end." That last sentence is the one that should keep African capitals awake. Because the uncomfortable truth is that this war is not being fought with Sudanese money alone. Gold smuggled out of Darfur, weapons flown in through third countries, drones and armoured vehicles reaching the front: all of it requires patrons. UN investigators and multiple governments have pointed to outside backers on both sides, including the UAE, which denies involvement. Egypt, Turkey and Iran have been linked to the army. And Russia's Wagner network has been tied to gold mining in Sudan for years. Different flags, same logic. Every outside power wants a stake in Sudan's gold, its ports and its Red Sea coastline, and not one of them seems particularly concerned with whether the people living on that land survive.

We have seen this movie before. Under the old colonial scramble, European powers carved up our continent with rulers and railways and called it civilisation. Today the scramble has new actors with new contracts, new loans and new arms catalogues. The method is the same. Extract the resources, arm the strongman, and when the civilians pay the price, shrug and say it is complicated. It is not complicated. It is a choice made in boardrooms and palaces, and it is paid for in human lives.

The West has its own hypocrisy to answer for. Western governments lecture Africa about democracy and human rights, then sell arms to the regimes and militias that shred both. We do not need lectures. We need consistency. If sanctions are right for a commander who starves a city, they are right for the financiers and foreign governments who keep his supply lines open. Britain's move should be the beginning of a list, not the end of one.

So what must happen? First, the sanctions must be extended to every external financier, arms broker and gold-trading network that keeps these forces fighting. Follow the money, freeze the accounts, and publish the names. Second, the UN Security Council must enforce its arms embargo on all of Darfur, not just on paper but with inspections, interdictions and consequences for violators. Third, the African Union must stop hiding behind diplomatic courtesy. It suspended Sudan after the 2021 coup. It should be pushing for an independent investigation with subpoena power, and it should be backing evidence-gathering so that future prosecutions can stand up in court. Fourth, the International Criminal Court must receive the resources and political cover it needs to pursue Darfur cases, including the ones involving El Fasher.

There is also a model for what good governance looks like, and it is not a fantasy. Botswana built one of Africa's most stable economies by protecting property rights, managing diamond revenues transparently, and keeping its institutions independent of its army. Mauritius built prosperity on rule of law and open markets. Senegal, in 2024, proved that a peaceful democratic transition is possible even when the stakes are high and the incumbents are tempted to cling to power. None of these countries is perfect. But every one of them shows that the alternative to warlords is not chaos. It is accountable institutions that answer to citizens rather than to guns.

Sudan's own people have shown what that looks like in practice. The Emergency Response Rooms, volunteer networks of doctors, teachers, engineers and young people, have kept food, medicine and information moving through the worst of the siege when armies and aid agencies could not. They are the proof that civil society is not a luxury. It is the immune system of a nation. Any serious peace process has to put them at the table, with real power over humanitarian access, not as a footnote in a donor report.

And citizens? We have a job too. Demand that your government explain where its arms exports and investments end up. Demand that your parliament ask its ministers which foreign backers of Sudan's warlords have been sanctioned, and which have not. Demand that your media stop treating Sudan as a background story. If an atrocity cannot hold a headline, it will be forgotten, and the people who committed it will be promoted.

Remember the mother in El Fasher. Her city fell. Her neighbours were killed, and the women who survived were violated by men who will likely never face a court in their own country. The sanctions announced this week will not feed her or bring back the dead. But they are a signal that the world is finally, belatedly, reading the files. Now we must make sure the files lead somewhere. Sanctions must reach the backers, not just the foot soldiers. Arms must stop flowing. And the institutions of our continent must stop acting as if Sudan's suffering is someone else's responsibility. It is ours. Write to your MP. Write to your ambassador. Say the names of the victims in public. Africa's dignity is not something our generals or our foreign patrons get to trade away.

Based on reporting by ALJAZEERA