WASHINGTON (AN) – In response to the world's largest humanitarian crisis in Sudan, a U.S. congressional panel has been seeking avenues to stop the brutal two-year civil war and prevent more civilian deaths.
The United Nations estimates as many as 150,000 people have been killed over two years in the war between paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Army. The U.N. also reported that 24.6 million people, around half of Sudan’s population, have suffered from acute hunger.
"People were dying and were starving to death," Ken Isaacs, a vice president of the Christian nonprofit Samaritan’s Purse told the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee's Africa subcommittee last week. "We had people that had eaten grass to the point where the raw grass couldn't be digested and had ripped through their organs, and they were dying."
California Democratic Rep. Sara Jacobs, a vocal advocate for ending the war since 2023, highlighted the devastating impact that the Trump administration's global funding cuts have had on Sudan's emergency response rooms, or ERRs, which are community-led initiatives that use WhatsApp to coordinate aid deliveries.
"Following the massive cuts to U.S. foreign assistance, which included USAID support to the ERRs, more than 80% of the roughly 1,500 community kitchens across Sudan have been forced to close their doors, cutting off vulnerable Sudanese civilians from life-saving food assistance," Jacobs said.
The subcommittee hearing grappled with how the United States could help end the war in Sudan. One method that was discussed, for example, was to stop weapons sales to the United Arab Emirates, which funnels arms to Sudan's paramilitary RSF.
Since the war began in mid-April 2023, both RSF and Sudan's military have been accused of human rights abuses. RSF and their allied militias from mainly nomadic and pastoralist "Arab tribes" in Darfur have been targeting Masalit civilians from "non-Arab" farming tribes in ethnic killings around El-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur.
Isaacs suggested the United States again appoint a presidential special envoy to Sudan. The Biden administration filled the role in Feb. 2024 to facilitate diplomatic negotiations within Sudan; the Trump administration has provided no replacement. "It needs to be an envoy that has direct access to the president of the United States, carrying gravitas," Isaacs said.
Cameron Hudson, senior fellow in the Africa program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, pushed back against the idea, however, saying "we have to focus on the drivers of this conflict outside of the country."
Hudson insisted the U.S. should persuade the U.A.E. to suspend its support for the Rapid Support Forces. A New York Times investigation, using satellite imagery, offered evidence the U.A.E. smuggled weapons into Sudan and supplied them to the Rapid Support Forces. In its final days, the Biden administration declared the Rapid Support Forces were guilty of committing genocide against non-Arab ethnic groups.
Earlier this month, however, the International Court of Justice threw out Sudan's attempt to hold the U.A.E. accountable for allegedly breaching the Genocide Convention by supporting paramilitary forces in Sudan's civil war.
The Hague-based U.N.'s top court, which was set up to hear disputes between nations, ruled it "manifestly lacked" jurisdiction over the case. Sudan alleged the U.A.E. has been illegally arming and funding Rapid Support Forces in the civil war. "The violent conflict has a devastating effect, resulting in untold loss of life and suffering, in particular in West Darfur. The scope of the case before the court is, however, necessarily circumscribed by the basis of jurisdiction invoked in the application," ICJ's president Yuji Iwasawa said.
'War is big business'
Pressed by Jacobs, Hudson declined to say whether he supported halting U.S. weapons sales to the U.A.E. but suggested President Donald Trump had "a robust bilateral agenda" with that petrostate during a four-day trip to Gulf nations in mid-May. "Will this administration decide to hold that bilateral agenda hostage to the U.A.E.'s support to Sudan or to the RSF?" Hudson asked.
Jacobs suggested Trump was looking out for his own personal finances, saying it's clear the president "is worried" about the U.A.E. ruling family's agreement to conduct a $2 billion transaction with Trump's crypto firm and the Trump Organization's new luxury tower planned for Dubai in 2031.
The White House said the Trump administration secured over $2 trillion in investments from Arab Gulf countries after his trip to the region, including several hundred billion dollars worth of investments from the U.A.E.
Jacobs urged her colleagues to support the Stand Up For Sudan Act, a bill she introduced in March to block weapons sales to the U.A.E. until it stops arming the RSF. She said it was time for the U.S. to use its "considerable leverage" over the U.A.E. as its largest arms supplier.
The subcommittee chair, New Jersey Democratic Rep. Christopher Smith, told Medill News Service the U.S. must step up efforts to prevent arms from getting into Sudan. Smith, however, said he was still reviewing Jacobs' bill and had not yet decided whether to endorse it.
He emphasized the importance of the Abraham Accords, a set of agreements between Israel and four Arab League countries including the U.A.E. that were brokered during the first Trump administration, and the U.S. military presence at Al Dhafra Air Base. "I mean, they have signed the Abraham accords," Smith said of the U.A.E. "They're an ally."
Sudanese political analyst Kholood Khair, founder and director of the Khartoum think tank Confluence Advisory, criticized the role played by other nations, such as China, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, in providing Sudan's warring parties with weapons such as drones that destroy water supplies, power plants, and other key civilian infrastructure.
The use of drones, Khair said, means no place is safe and civilians will struggle to reclaim any kind of normalcy. She advocated for the U.S. to remove incentives from those who profit from war. "War is big business," she said. "Unless the formula is changed, unless this war becomes actually more of a liability than it is a source of revenue, we're not going to see any of these countries, as I say, motivated by the humanitarian situations enough to pull back."
Khair criticized both Sudan's Armed Forces for denying the existence of mass famine and the U.N. for recognizing them as Sudan's default leadership.
"To make matters worse, the U.N.'s inexplicable decision to treat the Sudanese Armed Forces as de facto authorities have made the entire international humanitarian system complicit in the starvation campaign that SAF continues to wage," Khair said. "The deference has not paid off."
Khair pointed out that Sudan's army chief and de facto head of state, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, took part in the first Darfur genocide as a general in the Janjaweed militia and had fought alongside Mohamed Hamdan "Hemedti" Dagalo, the former leader of the Janjaweed and current leader of the RSF.
"Burhan and Hemedti, 20 years ago, were fighting hand in fisted glove against the people of Darfur. They were committing genocide together; this is not a case of two entirely distinct groups," said Khair, who argued for a transition to democratic civilian government instead of allowing RSF or SAF to be given control.
"Having a civilian government in Sudan is the most practical way of changing the structure of the government," she said, "such that it is not through the gun that you compete for power, but maybe through the ballot box."
