Sudanese Londoners rally to raise awareness of ongoing genocide in Sudan

More than 60 Sudanese Londoners and community members gathered at Victoria Park Wednesday to raise awareness of the genocide unfolding in Sudan.

The crowd passed around flyers to people passing by and yelled chants calling for action to be taken to protect Sudanese civilians. “Save El Fasher, save Tawila, even in Canada it does matter,” they chanted.

The protests come after El Fasher, the regional capital of North Darfur in Sudan, fell to paramilitary control by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia after 18-months of siege. Since the militia’s takeover of El Fasher, reports of summary executions of civilians trying to escape, as well door-to-door mass killings, have been seen through satellite imagery viewed by Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab. Reports of targeted mass killings of community kitchens and other volunteer initiatives in the city by the militia have circulated online including videos taken by  members of the militia themselves shooting at refugees escaping to the countryside. 

Around 200,000 civilians are trapped in El Fasher, with an estimated 26,000 people forced to flee to the neighboring regions of Tawila and Mellit, according to the United Nations’ (UN) migration agency. The RSF’s mounting war crimes against civilians have been called genocide as early as June 2023, then by a Sudanese governer. Since then, allegations of genocide have intensified, with reports by Sudanese activists and organizations like Human Rights Watch urging immediate action be taken.

Members of London’s Sudanese community have lost loved ones and are struggling to get in contact with survivors. “Some of the volunteers from our community kitchen are still out of contact,” said a Sudanese doctoral student studying at Western University in a statement to Antler River Media. “I’ve been busy trying with others in nearby towns to help those who survived and made it to safety.”

As Sudan faces the world’s largest humanitarian crisis with more than 12 million people displaced since 2023, journalists and activists on the ground are being kidnapped and in some cases executed — limiting coverage of the devastating violence. Sudanese journalist Muammar Ibrahim, who was reporting on the war on El Fasher, was kidnapped by the RSF on Sunday. Sudanese journalist Al Nour Suleiman died following a targeted RSF drone strike on his home, succumbing to his injuries at Saudi Hospital — the only functioning hospital in El Fasher. 

Londoners join a series of rallies across Canada, including in Calgary and Edmonton, in raising awareness and demanding action from the Canadian government.

“I’m very vocal, I don’t keep quiet,” said Husaam Asheeq, a Sudanese Londoner. “It is all connected. Everywhere you look it is all connected.”

Mounting evidence that the RSF is backed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has resulted in countries like Canada and the United Kingdom being complicit in funding the militia’s ethnic cleansing campaign. Armoured vehicles manufactured by Canadian businessman Guerman Goutorov’s Streit Group are being used by the militia in El Fasher back in August. Despite denying that the company’s exports have violated Canadian and UN arms embargo on Sudan, Goutorov’s Streit Group main manufacturing company is in the UAE, which has credibly been accused of directly supplying weapons to the RSF.

Despite a UN panel of experts starting an investigation into the UAE’s links to seized RSF weaponry back in April, Canada recently deepened ties with the UAE, with Minister of Foreign Affairs Anita Anand saying as recently as June that Canada looks forward to deepening the “strategic and commercial relationship” between the two countries.

Asheeq believes the UAE’s wealth is entirely looted from Sudan, and shared that, due to its plethora of natural resources Sudan is one of the richest countries in the world. He noted that countries like Canada are benefitting from the UAE’s stolen wealth.

“The players are here, they should hear our voice,” said Asheeq. “It can’t go like this forever.”

This article has been updated to anonymized the Sudanese student quoted.