Sudanese people who fled the city of El Fasher carry supplies to their camp in Tawila, Sudan, on Wednesday.Muhnnad Adam/The Associated Press
Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand made her first public comment on the latest civilian massacres in Darfur. In a brief statement on social media Tuesday afternoon, she expressed horror and urged “all parties” to uphold the law – but made no mention of the Sudanese militia that is perpetrating the atrocities.
Critics, including human-rights advocates, say the vague statement was an example of Ottawa’s lack of interest in a catastrophic war that is often described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Many are calling on the federal government to take stronger action on a conflict that continues to escalate after 30 months of fighting.
A day after Ms. Anand’s statement, Global Affairs Canada issued another statement. This time it explicitly mentioned the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary group that has reportedly killed thousands of civilians in the Darfur city of El Fasher. But it failed to dispel the disappointment that many Canadian civil-society groups have felt as they monitor Ottawa’s response to the war.
Mutasim Ali, legal adviser at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, a Montreal-based human-rights group, said the lack of any mention of RSF in Ms. Anand’s statement on the Darfur atrocities was “beyond disturbing.”
Here’s what you need to know about the war in Sudan, including how the conflict started, and its human toll so far.
He noted that RSF soldiers themselves had posted videos of their attacks, leaving no doubt about which side was committing the mass killings. The muted response from countries like Canada is “yet another reason perpetrators commit the horrific acts we’re witnessing in El Fasher and elsewhere with impunity,” he said.
Nicholas Coghlan, who was Canada’s top diplomat in Sudan from 2000 to 2003, said the statement by Ms. Anand was “disappointingly weak.” At a bare minimum, he said, Canada should be calling out the countries that fuel the war by supplying weapons to the RSF and others in Darfur, where a United Nations arms embargo is being routinely breached.
A spokesperson for Ms. Anand did not respond to messages from The Globe and Mail seeking comment on Wednesday.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Anita Anand rises in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa last week.Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press
Proposals for stronger federal action have been circulating for months among Sudanese-Canadian community groups, human-rights activists, civil-society groups and scholars.
Some have called for Ottawa to appoint a special envoy for Sudan, with the power to mobilize a range of diplomatic and humanitarian responses. Others have suggested that the government could designate the RSF as a terrorist organization, make an official determination on whether the Darfur killings are a genocide, and put political pressure on the foreign countries that supply weapons to the warring parties.
The RSF, once an ally of the Sudanese government, has been battling Sudan’s army since 2023 after a power struggle erupted between the two sides. The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, forced 12 million to flee their homes, and left 30 million in need of emergency aid.
The war took another ugly twist this week when the RSF captured El Fasher after an 18-month siege in which it blocked humanitarian aid, bombarded the city, triggered a famine and surrounded the city with an earthen wall to prevent any movement in or out.
More than 200,000 people, including more than 100,000 children, are believed to remain in the city. Since Sunday, RSF social-media accounts have been posting videos of RSF fighters killing large numbers of unarmed civilians.
the globe and mail, Source: openstreetmap
the globe and mail, Source: openstreetmap
the globe and mail, Source: openstreetmap
Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday that it had verified some of the videos, in which RSF soldiers are “taunting, abusing and killing severely injured people.”
In one verified video, it said, an RSF fighter crouches next to an injured man who is begging for mercy. “I will have no mercy on you,” the fighter tells him. “We are here to kill.” Then he stands and shoots the man five times with an assault rifle.
Pro-government militias in Darfur said the RSF had killed more than 2,000 civilians in two days. Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab said the large pools of blood from massacres were visible in satellite photos.
The World Health Organization’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he was shocked by reports that the RSF had killed more than 460 patients and others at the Saudi Maternity Hospital in El Fasher.
Many humanitarian groups had similar worries. “We have received credible reports of summary executions, attacks on civilians, house-to-house raids and obstacles preventing civilians from reaching safety,” said the Interagency Standing Committee on Sudan, whose members are UN agencies and other relief groups.
The Zaghawa Community Association in Canada, which represents an ethnic group that is targeted by the RSF in Darfur, has written to Ms. Anand and Prime Minister Mark Carney to urge the government to list the RSF as a terrorist entity.
People with ties to the RSF are living in Canada and have spoken openly in support of the paramilitary group, the association says. If Ottawa listed the RSF as a terror group, Canadians would be banned from financially supporting it, and RSF members would be inadmissible to enter Canada, it said.
Sudanese Canadians urge Ottawa to help family members flee Darfur
“This is not a conflict between equal sides – it is a campaign of extermination against civilians,” said the association’s president, Abdulkarim Bashir, who has relatives in Darfur. “Canada has the legal authority and moral responsibility to respond.”
Simon Lafortune, a spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree, declined to say if the government is considering designating the RSF a terror group. The decision would be based on the advice of Canada’s security and intelligence services, he told The Globe.
Heather McPherson, the NDP foreign affairs critic, said Canada should apply pressure on the United Arab Emirates, widely reported to be the main supplier of weapons to the RSF.
“As the crisis in Sudan has worsened, Canada has continued to trade in military goods with the UAE,” she said in a statement. “Canada must ensure that no weapons it sells to the UAE go to the RSF.”
Mr. Ali, from the Wallenberg Centre, said Canada should suspend its defence and security co-operation with the UAE and launch legal proceedings against any countries or corporate entities that support the RSF.
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Khalid Mustafa Medani, chair of the African Studies Program at McGill University, said the federal government should appoint a special envoy for Sudan and revive the working group that had co-ordinated Sudan policy in the Foreign Affairs Department in the past.
Unlike countries in the region, Canada would be seen as neutral on Sudan and could play a mediating role, using its good relationships with African countries that could influence the RSF, he said.
Meredith Preston McGhie, secretary-general of the Ottawa-based Global Centre for Pluralism, said the appointment of a special envoy would be a starting point for improving Canada’s policy on Sudan.
“Someone experienced in the region, resourced and connecting with the huge range of other players on the conflict, is important to focus Canada’s efforts to be more strategic,” she said.