Migrants intercepted in the northern desert at the border by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), whose uniforms can be seen in the background.
Source: Sudan Tribune
Much of this information is excerpted from an earlier SudanUprising Germany statement, which can be read in full here.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia is led by Mohammad Hamdan Dagalo (known as “Hemedti”). Hemedti is currently the Deputy Chairperson of the Sovereign Council in Sudan, a key institution of the Sudanese state in the transitional period that has followed the revolution of 2018. The RSF is a rebranding of the genocidal Janjaweed militias, which are accused of committing war crimes in Darfur. In the European Union (EU) and Germany’s statements on Sudan during the revolution and since, there is no mention of the role of the EU, led by Germany, in the rise of the Janjaweed RSF militia. While the EU imposed an arms embargo on Sudan between 2015 and 2018, it simultaneously channeled hundreds of millions of Euros into the country through the “Khartoum Process”, an agreement signed in 2014 between the EU and countries in the Horn of Africa. This flow of funds directly benefited the dictatorial regime in Sudan.
A core plank in the EU’s unethical and immoral “externalized borders” policy, the Khartoum Process’ main objective is to restrict the ability of migrants and refugees to reach Europe. In 2015, Brussels created a special pot of money — the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa — ostensibly to assist the Khartoum Process countries in addressing the root causes of migration and to fight trafficking and smuggling. An Oxfam analysis published in November 2017 found however, that of the 400 million Euros allocated through the Fund, only 3% went towards developing safe and regular routes for migration. The vast majority was spent on migration control.
Another report published the same month by the International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI), The Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA), and The Centre for Human Rights Law at SOAS, University of London, concluded that “the Khartoum Process’ partnership model, whereby the EU provides funding, services and other benefits in return for African countries’ management of migration, is asymmetrical and largely driven by European interests and demands”. It also concluded that this model is part of a broader trend of migrant and refugee “off-shoring” — whereby states pay another state to host asylum seekers or refugees.
For its part, Deutsche Welle noted in a report published on 22 July 2019 that the EU-financed intelligence centre known as the Regional Operational Centre in Khartoum (ROCK), was only suspended in June 2019, seven months after the start of the revolution, and only following the June 3rd massacre. According to this report, the centre had brought together the security forces of nine countries in the Horn of Africa to “share intelligence about human trafficking and people smuggling networks”. The same report notes that a project led by the German development agency GIZ, which provides training and equipment to Sudanese border guards and police, was only “halted” in mid-March 2019, three months after the revolution started, when hundreds had already been killed, injured and arrested by the regime. At the time, the EU made no announcement that it halted the programme, possibly, in order not to draw attention to the fact that the programme had been in operation in the first place.
According to the Sudanese Media Center, cooperation between the al-Bashir regime and the German government included at least one visit to Berlin, in 2016, by a delegation of the Sudanese Ministry of Interior, the same ministry that worked closely with the notorious National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS). And as far as a report published this year (2020) by the Chr. Michelsen Institute is concerned, “much of the EU-funded training and equipment given to the Sudanese has been used for dual-purposes. The equipment that enables identification and registration of migrants has been used for surveillance and human rights violations against Sudanese citizens.”
The effect of this EU policy, spearheaded by Germany, on the RSF’s power, has been catastrophic. As human rights activist Suliman Baldo noted in his April 2017 report “Sudan’s strategy for stopping migrant flows on behalf of Europe involves a ruthless crackdown by the RSF on migrants within Sudan”. Later in the report, he adds that “starting in 2015 and 2016, and convinced of the RSF’s effectiveness as a counterinsurgency force, the regime designated the RSF as Sudan’s primary force tasked with patrolling Sudanese borders to interdict migrants’ movement. The Sudanese government made this designation within the framework of its partnership with the EU for the control of migration. As such, the RSF is positioned to receive EU funds for reducing the flows of migrants from Sudan to Europe. The Sudanese government enacted a law in January 2017 that integrated the RSF into the Sudan Armed Forces … The 2017 law (conflictingly) made the RSF autonomous, integrated into the army, and under the command of President Omar al-Bashir”.
Baldo is further quoted in a New York Times article on the subject, published in April 2018, as saying: “There is no direct money exchanging hands. But the E.U. basically legitimizes an abusive force.” The same article mentions ROCK- the “joint-coordination” centre set-up in Sudan and funded by the EU to exchange intelligence on migration flows and trafficking. “European officials have direct contact only with the Sudanese immigration police, and not with the R.S.F., or the security forces …known as N.I.S.S. But their operations are not that far removed.”
Furthermore, an investigative report published in The New Humanitarian (formerly IRIN NEWS) on 30 January 2018, less than a year before the revolution started in Sudan, notes that “the pattern of corruption and rights violations uncovered feeds into broader concerns over whether the EU’s migration policies are making a difficult situation worse…. Sudan’s previously porous northern border with Libya has become increasingly dangerous to cross after Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir deployed the former Janjaweed — a paramilitary group implicated in war crimes during the Darfur conflict — in 2015 as border guards. This militia, re-named the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and integrated into Sudan’s army in January 2017, arrests asylum seekers and hands them over to the police, who detain, fine, and deport them for illegal entry — regardless of whether returning them to their countries will result in torture or imprisonment.”
Since the fall of the al-Bashir regime due to the peaceful, mass uprising in Sudan of 2018-2019, the German government and the EU have presented their interests in Sudan as purely altruistic. In fact, one of the biggest threats to the transition in Sudan is European policy itself. The RSF, led by Hemedti, was helped indirectly by EU policy to continue the violent and oppressive security measures that the Sudanese have suffered from for decades.
As the leader of the RSF, Hemedti’s power has only grown under the “externalized borders” policy of the EU, so much so that during the revolution, when the RSF was constantly deployed to commit violence against protestors, a political deal could not be reached without him. The constitutional declaration signed in August 2019, in a potentially disasterous move, legitimizes the RSF as a parallel force to the army. Not only is Hemedti now the deputy head of the Transitional Sovereign Council, as mentioned at the beginning of this report, but he and his militia have increasingly come to represent not only one of the biggest obstacles in the way of Sudan’s transition to a fully civilian and democratic state, but in achieving justice- a core demand of the revolution for those in war-affected regions, for women and for the murdered, raped and injured protestors around the country.
The repression of migrants and refugees as a matter of German and EU policy of course does not begin and end in Sudan, but extends to those on European soil. On 3 February 2020, the Ministry of Interior of the German state of Lower Saxony made the decision (here in German) to deport Sudanese refugees. The decision was based on information from the Federal Foreign Office at a German Ministers of Interior meeting (Innenministerkonferenz, IMK) which took place from 12 to 14 June 2019. Since February, this decision has come into force in different cities in Germany, including Braunschweig, Göttingen, Hannover, Lüneburg, Oldenburg, Osnabrücke and Stade.
What is the situation today?
Cooperation with the Sudanese state on migration control in the region continues, and in fact, there is disturbing evidence that Sudan, as a major source and transit country and one that is desperate for western aid and support, is becoming a hub for such activities. The Khartoum Star reported on the 27 October 2019, weeks after the new transitional government assumed power, that Khartoum will now permanently host the African Union’s Center for Illegal Migration. The article points out that a statement by the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted that “the center is the first of its kind in the African continent, where it will provide services to all African countries” and that “the European Union supports the center technically and financially”.
Hiding behind the discourse of “combatting human trafficking”, and perhaps, increasingly behind regional bodies such as the African Union, the EU, Germany, is escaping accountability. But as AbdelMageed Yaha points out in a recent brief “a new public discourse labels irregular migration as human trafficking. The new discourse has been shaped by emerging globalized migration patterns and the increased securitization of Europe’s borders”.
It is time that the EU’s border securitization agenda and the devastating impact it has on human rights in Sudan and elsewhere is exposed. The #endjanjaweed is part of these efforts. It aims to end the EU’s migration control policies in Sudan and by extension, its complicity in the power of the RSF militia.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia is led by Mohammad Hamdan Dagalo (known as “Hemedti”). Hemedti is currently the Deputy Chairperson of the Sovereign Council in Sudan, a key institution of the Sudanese state in the transitional period that has followed the revolution of 2018. The RSF is a rebranding of the genocidal Janjaweed militias, which are accused of committing war crimes in Darfur. In the European Union (EU) and Germany’s statements on Sudan during the revolution and since, there is no mention of the role of the EU, led by Germany, in the rise of the Janjaweed RSF militia. While the EU imposed an arms embargo on Sudan between 2015 and 2018, it simultaneously channeled hundreds of millions of Euros into the country through the “Khartoum Process”, an agreement signed in 2014 between the EU and countries in the Horn of Africa. This flow of funds directly benefited the dictatorial regime in Sudan.
A core plank in the EU’s unethical and immoral “externalized borders” policy, the Khartoum Process’ main objective is to restrict the ability of migrants and refugees to reach Europe. In 2015, Brussels created a special pot of money — the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa — ostensibly to assist the Khartoum Process countries in addressing the root causes of migration and to fight trafficking and smuggling. An Oxfam analysis published in November 2017 found however, that of the 400 million Euros allocated through the Fund, only 3% went towards developing safe and regular routes for migration. The vast majority was spent on migration control.
Another report published the same month by the International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI), The Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA), and The Centre for Human Rights Law at SOAS, University of London, concluded that “the Khartoum Process’ partnership model, whereby the EU provides funding, services and other benefits in return for African countries’ management of migration, is asymmetrical and largely driven by European interests and demands”. It also concluded that this model is part of a broader trend of migrant and refugee “off-shoring” — whereby states pay another state to host asylum seekers or refugees.
For its part, Deutsche Welle noted in a report published on 22 July 2019 that the EU-financed intelligence centre known as the Regional Operational Centre in Khartoum (ROCK), was only suspended in June 2019, seven months after the start of the revolution, and only following the June 3rd massacre. According to this report, the centre had brought together the security forces of nine countries in the Horn of Africa to “share intelligence about human trafficking and people smuggling networks”. The same report notes that a project led by the German development agency GIZ, which provides training and equipment to Sudanese border guards and police, was only “halted” in mid-March 2019, three months after the revolution started, when hundreds had already been killed, injured and arrested by the regime. At the time, the EU made no announcement that it halted the programme, possibly, in order not to draw attention to the fact that the programme had been in operation in the first place.
According to the Sudanese Media Center, cooperation between the al-Bashir regime and the German government included at least one visit to Berlin, in 2016, by a delegation of the Sudanese Ministry of Interior, the same ministry that worked closely with the notorious National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS). And as far as a report published this year (2020) by the Chr. Michelsen Institute is concerned, “much of the EU-funded training and equipment given to the Sudanese has been used for dual-purposes. The equipment that enables identification and registration of migrants has been used for surveillance and human rights violations against Sudanese citizens.”
The effect of this EU policy, spearheaded by Germany, on the RSF’s power, has been catastrophic. As human rights activist Suliman Baldo noted in his April 2017 report “Sudan’s strategy for stopping migrant flows on behalf of Europe involves a ruthless crackdown by the RSF on migrants within Sudan”. Later in the report, he adds that “starting in 2015 and 2016, and convinced of the RSF’s effectiveness as a counterinsurgency force, the regime designated the RSF as Sudan’s primary force tasked with patrolling Sudanese borders to interdict migrants’ movement. The Sudanese government made this designation within the framework of its partnership with the EU for the control of migration. As such, the RSF is positioned to receive EU funds for reducing the flows of migrants from Sudan to Europe. The Sudanese government enacted a law in January 2017 that integrated the RSF into the Sudan Armed Forces … The 2017 law (conflictingly) made the RSF autonomous, integrated into the army, and under the command of President Omar al-Bashir”.
Baldo is further quoted in a New York Times article on the subject, published in April 2018, as saying: “There is no direct money exchanging hands. But the E.U. basically legitimizes an abusive force.” The same article mentions ROCK- the “joint-coordination” centre set-up in Sudan and funded by the EU to exchange intelligence on migration flows and trafficking. “European officials have direct contact only with the Sudanese immigration police, and not with the R.S.F., or the security forces …known as N.I.S.S. But their operations are not that far removed.”
Furthermore, an investigative report published in The New Humanitarian (formerly IRIN NEWS) on 30 January 2018, less than a year before the revolution started in Sudan, notes that “the pattern of corruption and rights violations uncovered feeds into broader concerns over whether the EU’s migration policies are making a difficult situation worse…. Sudan’s previously porous northern border with Libya has become increasingly dangerous to cross after Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir deployed the former Janjaweed — a paramilitary group implicated in war crimes during the Darfur conflict — in 2015 as border guards. This militia, re-named the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and integrated into Sudan’s army in January 2017, arrests asylum seekers and hands them over to the police, who detain, fine, and deport them for illegal entry — regardless of whether returning them to their countries will result in torture or imprisonment.”
Since the fall of the al-Bashir regime due to the peaceful, mass uprising in Sudan of 2018-2019, the German government and the EU have presented their interests in Sudan as purely altruistic. In fact, one of the biggest threats to the transition in Sudan is European policy itself. The RSF, led by Hemedti, was helped indirectly by EU policy to continue the violent and oppressive security measures that the Sudanese have suffered from for decades.
As the leader of the RSF, Hemedti’s power has only grown under the “externalized borders” policy of the EU, so much so that during the revolution, when the RSF was constantly deployed to commit violence against protestors, a political deal could not be reached without him. The constitutional declaration signed in August 2019, in a potentially disasterous move, legitimizes the RSF as a parallel force to the army. Not only is Hemedti now the deputy head of the Transitional Sovereign Council, as mentioned at the beginning of this report, but he and his militia have increasingly come to represent not only one of the biggest obstacles in the way of Sudan’s transition to a fully civilian and democratic state, but in achieving justice- a core demand of the revolution for those in war-affected regions, for women and for the murdered, raped and injured protestors around the country.
The repression of migrants and refugees as a matter of German and EU policy of course does not begin and end in Sudan, but extends to those on European soil. On 3 February 2020, the Ministry of Interior of the German state of Lower Saxony made the decision (here in German) to deport Sudanese refugees. The decision was based on information from the Federal Foreign Office at a German Ministers of Interior meeting (Innenministerkonferenz, IMK) which took place from 12 to 14 June 2019. Since February, this decision has come into force in different cities in Germany, including Braunschweig, Göttingen, Hannover, Lüneburg, Oldenburg, Osnabrücke and Stade.
What is the situation today?
Cooperation with the Sudanese state on migration control in the region continues, and in fact, there is disturbing evidence that Sudan, as a major source and transit country and one that is desperate for western aid and support, is becoming a hub for such activities. The Khartoum Star reported on the 27 October 2019, weeks after the new transitional government assumed power, that Khartoum will now permanently host the African Union’s Center for Illegal Migration. The article points out that a statement by the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted that “the center is the first of its kind in the African continent, where it will provide services to all African countries” and that “the European Union supports the center technically and financially”.
Hiding behind the discourse of “combatting human trafficking”, and perhaps, increasingly behind regional bodies such as the African Union, the EU, Germany, is escaping accountability. But as AbdelMageed Yaha points out in a recent brief “a new public discourse labels irregular migration as human trafficking. The new discourse has been shaped by emerging globalized migration patterns and the increased securitization of Europe’s borders”.
It is time that the EU’s border securitization agenda and the devastating impact it has on human rights in Sudan and elsewhere is exposed. The #endjanjaweed is part of these efforts. It aims to end the EU’s migration control policies in Sudan and by extension, its complicity in the power of the RSF militia.
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