Continued……Both the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) under Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the United Arab Emirates-backed Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (infamously known as Hemedti), maintain a monopoly over the trade of commodities like gold. Kaballo offered that competition over control of these resources is a key factor in the rift between the two leaders of the warring factions, who were once close allies collaborating to recruit Sudanese on behalf of Saudi Arabia in its war with Yemen.

Interestingly, the friendship began in Darfur at a time when both the Sudanese army and the Janjaweed militia it funded committed a g*nocide against the non-Arab Darfuris. Today, the RSF is mainly composed of former Janjaweed members. Meanwhile, Darfur continues to be the site of atrocities, with both SAF and RSF targeting civilians.

The war, which began on 15 April 2023, has resulted in catastrophic human loss and displacement. By May 2024, the US Special Envoy to Sudan Tom Perriello estimated that the conflict may have claimed as many as 150,000 lives. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine further estimated that over 61,000 people were killed in Khartoum alone during the first 14 months of the conflict. 

The humanitarian crisis is immense: More than 14 million people have been displaced and over half of Sudan’s population remains in dire need of humanitarian assistance. The war has devastated infrastructure, disrupted food supplies and led to widespread disease. The UN has also confirmed famine in at least five areas, including North Darfur.

Sources

https://english.aawsat.com/features/4948606-al-burhan-hemedti-friends-foes-rift-ignited-sudan

https://www.dailysabah.com/world/africa/sudan-conflict-deepens-as-al-burhan-hemedtis-foreign-backing-soars

https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/horn-africa/sudan/two-years-sudans-war-spreading

https://sudantransparency.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/GoldSectorEN.pdf

https://www.reuters.com/article/world/exclusivesudan-militia-leader-grew-rich-by-selling-gold-idUSKBN1Y01DQ/

https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20250330-sudan-booming-wartime-gold-trade-flows-through-the-uae

https://www.africaintelligence.com/eastern-africa-and-the-horn/2022/07/25/inside-sudan-s-labyrinthine-military-industrial-complex,109801622-ge0

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/04/sudan-faces-worsening-humanitarian-catastrophe-famine-and-conflict-escalate

https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/famine-confirmed-sudans-north-darfur-confirming-un-agencies-worst-fears

SUDAN’S PROXY WAR: TWO YEARS OF HELL

Sudan's proxy-war enters its third year today, 15 April, 2025.

Civilians continue to be caught in the crossfire and subjected to all kinds of abuse and torture, particularly by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). No meaningful action has yet been taken against the genocidal paramilitary’s main external backer and weapons supplier, the United Arab Emirates.

Experts agree that Abu Dhabi's well documented role has prolonged the war, leading to one of the world's worst humanitarian crises - with over 30-million people reportedly in need of urgent assistance. In this video, we take stock of the current situation and look at how the last 24 months have affected the Sudanese people.

Continued……. The UAE is a key Middle Eastern ally of the US. Is that why the world - Washington included - is just standing by rather than trying to pressure Abu Dhabi to give up its RSF support?

Sources

https://www.foreign.senate.gov/hearings/conflict-and-humanitarian-emergency-in-sudan-an-urgent-call-to-action

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crln9lk51dro
https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/04/1162096

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/07/world/africa/sudan-genocide-numbers.html

https://www.rescue.org/article/crisis-sudan-what-happening-and-how-help

https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/power-struggle-sudan

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/16/us-imposes-sanctions-on-sudans-army-chief-abdel-fattah-al-burhan

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-impose-sanctions-sudan-rsf-leader-dagalo-sources-say-2025-01-07/

https://usun.usmission.gov/statement-by-ambassador-linda-thomas-greenfield-on-the-determination-of-genocide-in-sudan/

https://hmh.org/library/research/genocide-in-darfur-guide/

https://www.icc-cpi.int/darfur

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/16/sudan-unrest-what-is-the-rapid-support-forces

https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/evidence-points-to-uae-involvement-in-sudan-civil-war

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2vvjz652j1o

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/jul/25/smoking-gun-evidence-points-to-uae-involvement-in-sudan-civil-war

https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/evidence-points-to-uae-involvement-in-sudan-civil-war

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/21/world/africa/uae-sudan-civil-war.html

https://www.lasillavacia.com/silla-nacional/el-engano-del-coronel-quijano-asi-envian-a-exmilitares-colombianos-a-sudan/

https://apnews.com/article/sudan-war-icj-uae-8b27cb3b8e4fef5b05a6b45084c967c7

https://ntvkenya.co.ke/news/kenya-in-spotlight-as-sudans-rsf-plans-to-announce-parallel-government-in-nairobi/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/09/uk-to-co-host-global-conference-with-aim-of-resolving-sudans-civil-war

Some people find the French accent comical, others charming - but either way, no self-respecting Frenchman is seriously going to doubt his intellectual capabilities or self-worth if he doesn’t sound like a native of England when speaking English as a second language. Likewise, the English - gentle mockery aside - don’t regard their French counterparts as inferior.

Continued….. But for many Africans, it’s different. Even though English may be our second or third language, some of us suffer from an inferiority complex if we don’t speak it in the same way as the former ‘master’ does. During colonialism, it was drilled into our ancestors’ minds that English (or French etc.) was the language of a superior culture and an indicator of intelligence. They were taught enough to get on with the menial jobs reserved for them, while our own languages and cultures were gradually erased.

This conditioning has persisted down the generations. And thanks to this linguistic imperialism, non-Africans also still look down on us if we don’t speak English (etc.) ‘properly.’ This week’s words of wisdom from playwright Alice Childress remind us that we still have work to do when it comes to decolonising our - and their - minds.

Sources

https://libquotes.com/alice-childress

YOUTH POET TO UN: ‘PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR MORALS ARE!’

On 25 March, the UN held its annual International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, which, according to the body’s website, provides an ‘opportunity to honour and remember those who suffered and died at the hands of the slavery system,’ as well as ‘raise awareness about the dangers of racism and prejudice today.’

Among the speakers this year was former United States Youth Poet Laureate, Salome Agbaroji (@salomeagbaroji on Instagram). Her powerful, eight-minute speech emphasised ‘the peculiarity of [the] strange and bitter crimes’ of Europeans when they approached foreign peoples and declared ownership over them. She argued that restitution for the ills of slavery is a matter of restoring dignity; not of the enslaved, but of the enslavers. Further, she added that true remorse is not shown through words but concrete action. Yet, the silence of former slaving nations remains deafening.

Continued….. The UK, for example, declares that slavery is a dark stain on the nation’s history - yet refuses to pay reparations as redress for the centuries of progress attained at the expense of the Africans it enslaved and colonised (this, despite the fact that the UK compensated slave owners for the supposed loss of their ‘human property’).

Moreover, to add insult to injury, some ex-slaving nations are determined to cling on to stolen African artefacts. Experts estimate that over 80% of plundered African artefacts remain in European museums. The British Museum, in particular, holds over 70,000. Meanwhile, Belgium’s Royal Museum has nearly 200,000, with another 75,000 in Germany’s Ethnological Museum and almost 70,000 in France’s Quai Branly Museum.

Sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBLdwp5l99o

https://www.npr.org/2019/08/12/750549303/across-europe-museums-rethink-what-to-do-with-their-african-art-collections

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/05/15/africa-art-museum-europe-restitution-debate-book-colonialism-artifacts/

https://amp.dw.com/en/africas-lost-heritage-and-europes-restitution-policies/a-59763966

Continued……This was followed by a visit from French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot to Algeria on 6 April, signalling a thaw in relations, but it seems that progress has now stalled.

Anti-French sentiment runs deep in Algeria, a country that endured a brutal war of independence against France from 1954 to 1962 that k*lled as many as 1.5 million Algerians. Relations soured significantly last July when Macron expressed support for Morocco’s claim over the contested Western Sahara territory, which angered Algeria and led to the recall of its ambassador to France.

Algeria says that 5.6 million of its citizens perished during 132 years of French colonial rule, along with those who suffered from injuries from landmines and radiation due to French nuclear tests in the Algerian desert.

Sources

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2y9dl5xzlo

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1vdl92zlzqo

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62xw575w9yo
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250413-algeria-protests-after-consular-official-indicted-in-france

https://www.dw.com/en/algeria-protests-to-france-over-detaining-consular-official/a-72230799

https://www.voanews.com/a/europe_report-frances-colonial-past-algeria-spurs-criticism-little-action/6202543.html

https://www.britannica.com/place/Algeria/Colonial-rule

https://www.newarab.com/news/algeria-says-56-million-died-under-french-colonialism

APARTHEID-ERA DEATHS OF LIBERATION FIGURES RE-EXAMINED

After decades of waiting, the families of two South African anti-apartheid activists might finally learn the truth about what happened to their loved ones. The country’s National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has decided to re-open inquests into the deaths of former African National Congress leader Chief Albert Luthuli and human-rights lawyer and ANC member Griffiths Mxenge.

Luthuli, who in 1960 won the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his campaign against apartheid, was discovered dead on 21 July 1967. An investigation, widely seen as a sham, claimed he had been killed by a train. However, the NPA now says there is evidence indicating that the regime killed the ANC leader and dumped his body next to the rail tracks as a cover-up.

Continued……In its opening submission at the inquest on 14 April, the NPA said different organs of the regime, such as the judiciary, health department and the police, colluded to hide key evidence that pointed to a murder and not an accident.

Despite the new inquest coming 58 years later, Luthuli’s family have welcomed it, saying it will allow the family, especially his two daughters, who are now in their 90s, potentially to find closure.

Meanwhile, an inquest into the 1981 killing of Mxenge has been moved to June after the NPA requested more time to prepare its witnesses. Mxenge, who, despite numerous threats to his life, defended many anti-apartheid activists, was kidnapped and brutally murdered in the city of Durban.

Sources

https://x.com/MYANC/status/1911411729004634176
https://www.ewn.co.za/2025/04/14/npa-says-several-organs-of-apartheid-govt-colluded-in-a-lie-about-chief-albert-luthulis-death
https://sundayworld.co.za/politics/cops-doctors-magistrate-colluded-to-cover-up-albert-luthulis-death/
https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/amp/news/2025-04-14-griffiths-mxenge-inquest-postponed-until-june-for-witness-preparation/

Continued……This is not a side story. This is a global emergency.

Swipe through to find out what's going on and why the world needs to step up its efforts to end this foreign-instigated crisis in the Congo that can trace its roots to Europe's 1884-85 Berlin conference that carved up Africa.

Sources

https://apnews.com/article/un-congo-humanitarian-sexual-violence-conflict-minerals-0f5ebeaccff39ab97c61e981f1a7a3cf

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/14/dozens-of-children-raped-by-armed-men-in-eastern-drc-unicef-says

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/dec/21/children-executed-and-women-raped-in-front-of-their-families-as-m23-militia-unleashes-fresh-terror-on-drc

https://www.euronews.com/2025/02/14/scores-of-children-raped-by-armed-fighters-in-eastern-dr-congo-unicef-says

https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/child-reported-raped-every-half-hour-eastern-drc-violence-rages-amid-growing-funding

On 16 April 1862, US President Abraham Lincoln signed into law the so-called District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, which outlawed slavery in the US capital.

From the name of the act, one might assume that the victims of slavery received some form of compensation. However, it was the total opposite. The US paid about 930 enslavers, who were loyal to the US government during the Civil War, $300 for each of the 2,989 freed enslaved people. In total, the US government doled out $896,700, the equivalent of $28.39 million in 2025.

The Africans, who, for centuries, had endured the most depraved and brutal form of labour ever known to humanity, were not compensated beyond a measly $100 each (or about $3,100 in today’s dollars) and only on the condition that they leave the US.

While some like to hail the act as having set the course for the eventual abolition of slavery across the US, it, in fact, established the blueprint for the country's continued refusal to pay reparations to the victims of slavery

Continued……. Countries such as Britain and France, which had abolished slavery years earlier, had also taken a similar path. For instance, the British began doling out £20 million in 1835 to enslavers in Britain and the Americas, or the equivalent of $17 billion in 2025. It was the largest bailout in British history until the 2008-09 financial crisis. The government even took out a loan to compensate enslavers. This loan was not repaid until 2015. France went as far as making Haiti pay the equivalent of between $20 billion and $30 billion in today's money for the 1804 revolution, when enslaved Africans drove out French enslavers.

It took Haiti more than 120 years to pay off the debt that historian Marlene Daut described as the ‘greatest heist in history.’ The effects of paying that illegal debt are still playing out in Haiti today as the country grapples with a security and socioeconomic crisis that Western countries have played a role in.

Now, centuries later, the countries that set up and benefitted from the European Slave Trade continue to refuse to pay reparations.

Sources

https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/dc-emancipation-act

https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1862?amount=900000
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/articles/z67dbdm

https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/compensated-emancipation-act

https://haitiantimes.com/2020/06/30/when-france-extorted-haiti-the-greatest-heist-in-history

https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1862?amount=896700

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/10/05/1042518732/-the-greatest-heist-in-history-how-haiti-was-forced-to-pay-reparations-for-freed

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/06/30/fact-check-u-k-paid-off-debts-slave-owning-families-2015/3283908001

https://taxjustice.net/2020/06/09/slavery-compensation-uk-questions

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/12/british-history-slavery-buried-scale-revealed

CASH-STRAPPED ZIMBABWE ‘COMPENSATES’ SETTLER FARMERS

The decision by the Zimbabwean government to spend billions of dollars on compensating White settler farmers whose land was expropriated during the country’s land-reform programme in the early 2000s has sharply divided opinion. According to the country’s finance minister, Mthuli Ncube, $3.5 billion will be paid out by 2028.

Critics say the billions could instead be used to address the many challenges the country is currently facing, mainly due to the sanctions that the West imposed on the country as retribution for the land-reform programme. They say it does not make sense to spend money to appease the beneficiaries of colonialism at a time when the country’s hospitals lack basic drugs and equipment. Some also add that the payments amount to capitulation to bullying by the West, which for years has demanded that Harare pay the farmers.

Continued…….. However, those who support the decision say that the government is simply trying to end the pain of Western-imposed sanctions and has few options on the table with which to bargain. They argue that the country’s economy will continue to bleed as long as the sanctions remain.

What do you think? If someone steals your watch and you manage to take it back a few year later, should you pay them for the loss of a watch?

Hear Us Roar: https://news.1rj.ru/str/AfricanStream