A year ago, on 15 April 2023, Sudan’s two principal militias (the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces) launched a war which has devastated the country. This followed their joint overthrow of the civilian partners in the Transitional Government and months of brutal repression, contested heroically by the Resistance Committees, trade unions and other organisations leading the popular revolution since 2018. 

As millions face famine in a country which has been wrecked by the vicious warlords at the top, the EU states, Britain US look away or at best wring their hands in despair, despite their direct responsibility for this carnage. The EU nurtured the RSF and bolstered the SAF by allowing the dictator Omar al-Bashir to act as their proxy border guards in the struggle against ‘illegal migration’. US, British and EU arms flow to several of the regional states which are stoking the war through alliance with the SAF and RSF, including Egypt, UAE, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, Iran, which is challenging the US, Israel and their allies elsewhere in the region, is also feeding the flames of war in Sudan by backing the SAF. This deadly competition between the regional powers exposes clearly what the war is about: it is a struggle over the rich plunder looted by the leaders of the SAF and RSF from the people of Sudan. 

The revolutionary movement in Sudan shows that there is an alternative to war and destruction which ordinary people themselves have risked so much to build. While the two militias can only destroy, ordinary people build and create by providing food, shelter and medicine and creating their own forms of democratic organisation from below. We reaffirm our unwavering support for the revolutionary movement in Sudan, represented by the Resistance Committees, trade unions, demand-based campaigns and other popular organisations and their demands for freedom, peace and justice for all.

Trade unionists and activists around the world should get behind the call by Sudanese activists opposing both the SAF and RSF and the powers which support them, and organise in solidarity with Sudanese refugees both inside and outside the country. 

MENA Solidarity Network, 15 April 2024