The war that erupted in April 2023 from a power struggle between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has created what the United Nations calls the world’s largest and most devastating humanitarian crisis.
For years, Rwanda-backed M23 rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) demanded direct negotiations with Congolese authorities. Battlefield gains mean they can now afford to snub them to try to wring out more concessions.
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu declared a state of emergency on Tuesday in oil-producing Rivers State and suspended the state governor, his deputy and all legislators.
Medics struggle to revive Sudan’s hungry with trickle of aid supplies
In a nutrition ward at a hospital in Sudan’s war-stricken capital, gaunt mothers lie next to even thinner toddlers with wide, sunken eyes.
The patients at Alban Jadeed Hospital are in urgent need of help after nearly two years of battles that have trapped residents and cut off supplies, but doctors have to ration the therapeutic milk and other products used to treat them.
The war that erupted in April 2023 from a power struggle between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has created what the United Nations calls the world’s largest and most devastating humanitarian crisis.
About half of Sudan’s population of 50 million now suffer some degree of acute hunger, and famine has taken hold in at least five areas, including several parts of North Darfur State in western Sudan.
The real situation could be worse, since fighting has prevented proper data collection in many areas, say medics and aid staff.
In Sudan’s greater capital, where the cities of Khartoum, Omdurman and Bahri are divided by the Nile, the warring factions have prevented deliveries of aid and commercial supplies, pushing the prices of goods beyond most people’s reach.
Alban Jadeed Hospital, in Bahri’s Sharg Elnil district, received more than 14,000 children under five years old suffering from severe acute malnutrition last year, and another 12,000 with a more mild form, said Azza Babiker, head of the therapeutic nutrition department.
Only 600 of the children tested were a normal weight, she said.
The supply of therapeutic formula milk via the UN children’s agency Unicef and medical aid agency MSF was insufficient, said Babiker, as RSF soldiers twice stole the supplies.
Both sides deny impeding aid deliveries.
The sharp reduction of USAID funding is expected to make things worse, hitting the budgets of aid agencies that provide crucial nutritional supplies as well as community kitchens relied upon by many, say aid workers.
The army recently captured Sharg Elnil from the RSF, as part of recent gains it has made across the capital.
Fruit and vegetables have become extremely scarce. “Aside from the difficulty of getting these products in, not all families can afford to buy them,” said Babiker.
Many mothers are unable to produce milk, often due to trauma resulting from RSF attacks, or their own malnutrition, said Raneen Adel, a doctor at Alban Jadeed.
“There are cases who come in dehydrated ... because for example the RSF entered the house and the mother was frightened so she stopped producing breast milk, or she was beaten,” she said.
A lack of nutrition and sanitation has led to cases of blood poisoning and other illnesses, but the hospital has also run out of antibiotics.
“We had to tell the patients’ companions to get [the drugs] from outside, but they can’t afford to buy them,” said Adel.
Rebels’ battlefield advantage in DRC complicates push for talks
For years, Rwanda-backed M23 rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) demanded direct negotiations with Congolese authorities. Battlefield gains mean they can now afford to snub them to try to wring out more concessions.
When President Felix Tshisekedi’s government, reeling from M23’s capture of eastern DRC’s two biggest cities, finally agreed over the weekend to talks with M23 on Tuesday in Angola, the rebels pulled out.
M23’s rebel coalition, the Congo River Alliance (AFC), said on Monday that European Union sanctions imposed against their leaders and Rwandan officials accused of supporting them had made talks “impracticable”.
“M23/AFC has taken advantage of the European sanctions to disengage, but this withdrawal also shows a refusal to enter negotiations without a guarantee of obtaining substantial concessions,” said Tresor Kibangula, a political analyst at DRC’s Ebuteli research institute.
Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame both called for a ceasefire in a surprise meeting on Tuesday, their first since the rebels stepped up their offensive in January.
But it was unclear what, if any, impact their hour-long talks on Tuesday, mediated by Qatar and separate from the cancelled M23 talks, would have on the ground, where M23 has been emboldened by a series of decisive victories.
M23 has previously called for an end to what it says is the persecution of ethnic Tutsis in DRC. Kinshasa has said the rebels are terrorists and must lay down their arms.
“Why would M23 stop if they have the upper hand militarily?” said Jason Stearns, a political scientist at Simon Fraser University, specialising in Africa’s Great Lakes region.
“When you combine that with the sanctions imposed on Rwanda that were more aggressive than expected, I think they felt it was not the right time for them.”
Rwanda has denied supporting M23 and said its military has been acting in self-defence against DRC’s army and militias hostile to Kigali.
Progress on bringing the rival camps to the negotiating table has also been complicated by the existence of several different peace processes, including the latest talks in Qatar. All sides are deeply mistrustful of the competing initiatives.
Angola has been trying to achieve a peace agreement since 2022 between Rwanda and DRC in African Union-backed talks. Those broke down in December over Congolese opposition to direct negotiations with M23.
East and southern African countries decided in February to merge various peace initiatives, including those led by Angola.
But Angola expressed concerns at the time about seeing its mediation efforts bogged down amid competing peace initiatives, which it thought M23 could take advantage of to seize more territory, said two government ministers in the region, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Then last week, Angolan President João Lourenço unexpectedly announced the direct talks between DRC and M23.
Having initially agreed to participate, three rebel sources said preparations for the talks fuelled their doubts about Lourenço’s ability to act as an honest broker.
Two of them said a plane sent by Angola on Monday was unable to land in Uganda to pick up the M23 negotiators because Angolan authorities had not informed their Ugandan counterparts of its arrival, making them suspect Luanda was trying to sabotage the process.
On Monday, a joint meeting of the East African Community and Southern African Development Community agreed to a roadmap for resolving the conflict that includes efforts to secure a ceasefire within 30 days.
However, an African diplomat, who asked not to be named, said the DRC government was as distrustful toward that initiative as M23 was toward the Angolan efforts.
“The mistrust is reciprocal,” the diplomat said. “It’s up to us Africans to harmonise our views and not multiply initiatives.”
Nigeria declares state of emergency over pipeline vandalism
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu declared a state of emergency on Tuesday in oil-producing Rivers State and suspended the state governor, his deputy and all legislators.
Tinubu, in a television broadcast, said he had received security reports in the last two days of “disturbing incidents of vandalisation of pipelines by some militants without the governor taking any action to curtail them”.
“With all these and many more, no good and responsible president will standby and allow the grave situation to continue without taking remedial steps prescribed by the constitution to address the situation in the state,” added Tinubu.
Police said earlier they were investigating the cause of a blast in Rivers State that resulted in a fire on Nigeria’s Trans Niger Pipeline, a major oil artery transporting crude from onshore oilfields to the Bonny export terminal.
Rivers, in the Niger Delta, is a major source of crude oil and militants have in the past blown up pipelines, hampering production and exports.
The state has been embroiled in a political crisis pitting factions of the opposition People’s Democratic Party against each other. The state legislators had also threatened to impeach the governor and his deputy.
Tinubu’s state of emergency enables the federal government to make regulations to run the state and also allows authorities to easily deploy security forces to bring order if needed.
Tinubu nominated a retired vice-admiral as caretaker to run the affairs of Rivers State for an initial six months.
The president said he had sent a copy of his proclamation to the National Assembly, which can endorse or reject his decision.
“For the avoidance of doubt, this declaration does not affect the judicial arm of Rivers State, which shall continue to function in accordance with their constitutional mandate,” said Tinubu. DM