McLeod Group guest blog by Rita Morbia, October 8, 2025
A War of Atrocities. Sadly, this title of the latest report by the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan is only too apt. The details are new, but not the grim information. It provides additional evidence, sometimes in stark and horrific detail, of the consequences of the ongoing two-and-a-half-year battle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Active conflict is a daily reality across the country. Sudan is now effectively separated into SAF- and RSF-controlled areas. Life under the former is difficult; life under the latter is impossible. Most recently, the RSF has been advancing on the city of el-Fasher in North Darfur, leaving displacement, hunger, and death for hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in its wake.
Since the beginning of the war, almost 12 million people have been forcibly displaced, with some one third leaving Sudan altogether. The country is experiencing famine, including deaths due to starvation. Critical infrastructure such as medical facilities, educational institutions, generating stations, water reservoirs and communications towers have been destroyed. More than three quarters of Sudan’s children are out of school.
The RSF is committing sexual violence on a systematic scale. Genocide perpetrated by the RSF has been confirmed by a number of sources, including the US State Department under the Biden administration. Observers who do not use the term genocide nonetheless emphasize the fact that violence is often ethnically targeted. Such violence is deployed particularly, but not exclusively, by the RSF – killings, sexual violence, assault, kidnapping and slavery. Meanwhile, the silence from the international community and the media is deafening. This is the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.
The economic motives underlying this war cannot be overstated, particularly in the form of agricultural land grabs or the theft of Sudan’s rich mineral resources. Given the vast destruction of basic infrastructure in Sudan, it may defy credulity that the warring parties haven’t run out of money. But both the RSF and the SAF have stable and lucrative sources of funds, especially in the mining of gold, and to a lesser extent, other minerals (e.g., chromite, iron ore, copper and precious stones). The RSF’s estimated revenue from gold mining approached US$1 billion in 2024. Both sides generate income through gold export and sales, as well as taxation, royalties and security guarantees for mining operations and bullion transport.
Peace negotiations to date have failed spectacularly for a number of reasons, including the many vested economic and political interests of countries who have sponsored negotiations. Egypt, a SAF-supporter, is a modest beneficiary of Sudan’s gold mining, but virtually all of the RSF-mined gold ends up in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which has a reputation as a global hub for gold. In turn, there is strong evidence that the UAE provides the RSF with weapons, including sophisticated drones that are critical to their war effort. In contravention of a UN Security Council arms embargo on Darfur, weapons and military equipment have been found originating from the UAE, Russia, China, Türkiye, Serbia, Yemen and Eritrea, attesting to the RSF’s weapons procurement and financing capacity. Many of the companies involved in mining in SAF territory are partially or wholly owned by the Sudanese military or government. Human rights advocates have recommended that the Security Council arms embargo for Darfur be not only more strictly enforced but expanded to cover the whole country.
The conflict in Sudan is a proxy war in which the RSF’s political power is derived in large part through support from the UAE. The RSF has ambitions to become a parallel government. But SAF also lacks credibility as it is the same entity (ruled by the same leader) that crushed Sudan’s most recent experiment with democracy in the 2021 coup. Along with Egypt, Iran and Saudi Arabia are also SAF allies. The region’s complicated geopolitics involves actors such as Russia, which has its sights set on a strategic naval base in Sudan on the Red Sea. Europe seems mostly concerned with preventing Sudanese refugees from arriving at its borders. The Trump administration’s efforts at peace have been wholly ineffective, while the demise of USAID has had devastating effects.
Canada will provide $75 million in humanitarian assistance for Sudan in 2025. It has announced targeted sanctions to complement those already in place. For its part, the Carney government has issued the occasional statement, sometimes in collaboration with other governments, denouncing the harm caused by armed actors and reminding them to uphold international humanitarian law (as articulated in pertinent UN Security Council resolutions). The family-based permanent residence pathway is slated to allow approximately 10,000 people from Sudan to come to Canada. But that program requires applicants to clear numerous hurdles and in any case is currently closed to new applications.
The situation is complex but not intractable. Canada has an opportunity to demonstrate considerable leadership – through humanitarian commitments, diplomatic efforts, economic sanctions and immigration-related measures. But the situation demands a high-level political advocate with dedicated expertise and experience, a hub for collaboration and action. As a first step to scaling up Canada’s action, the Carney government should appoint a Special Envoy to Sudan.
This idea is not unprecedented. Chrystia Freeland has just been named Special Representative for the Reconstruction of Ukraine. Bob Rae was Canada’s Special Envoy to Myanmar from 2017 to 2020, successfully and strategically influencing Canada’s engagement on Myanmar. Jacqui O’Neill helped promote Canada’s thematic engagement as Ambassador for Women, Peace and Security.
An envoy would be able to inform the political agenda of Cabinet members, support Canada’s peacebuilding efforts, keep Sudan in the media, engage with civil society and diaspora groups, hear from Sudanese on the ground, especially women, review the effectiveness of sanctions, influence international counterparts and make informed recommendations for further government action. An envoy’s mandate should include addressing corporate involvement or conflict financing that is perpetuating the war.
None of Canada’s current actions are enough to meet the moment. Canada needs a Special Envoy to Sudan as a catalyst to scale up our engagement in this horrific conflict. There have been instances when, with limited but strategic resourcing, advocacy and action, Canada has led the way on important international issues. It is time we rose to that challenge once more. It’s not just the future of Sudan at stake; it’s our own humanity.
Rita Morbia works for Inter Pares, a Canadian social justice organization that continues to support gender equality activism in Sudan, as it has for two decades. Photo taken by the author in Khartoum in 2019.