Since the Sudanese civil war erupted in April 2023, there has been no sign of an end to conflict. This month, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) doubled down on an offensive against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Civilian deaths are mounting. War crimes are being committed with impunity. The UNHCR reports that both parties, and their respective allies, have deliberately targeted civilians, used rape as a weapon of war, and are responsible for “patterns of large-scale violations, including indiscriminate and direct attacks carried out through airstrikes and shelling against civilians, schools, hospitals, communication networks and vital water and electricity supplies.” The RSF has been accused of ethnic cleansing of the Masalit people in West Darfur.
Airstrikes on the capital have continued through October, with shelling of a market on October 12 by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) killing at least 23 people and injuring more than 40 others.
Issues with the pathways to Canada
The Canadian government has offered few options for Sudanese refugees.
Though the true death toll is difficult to establish, 20,000 people have lost their lives in the war since April 2023.
In February 2024, the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship department of Canada (IRCC) launched a family reunification program that allows asylum-seekers who are Sudanese nationals to seek admission into Canada and pursue permanent residency if they are sponsored by family members already in Canada.
This program has been criticized as financially inaccessible and, with a cap of 3,250 applications, insufficient for the scale of a conflict that has displaced nearly 11 million people.
When the IRCC opened the program, applications flooded in. But by May, the cap had been met and the program temporarily closed.
As of October 2024, there is still no government-sponsored humanitarian pathway in Canada for Sudanese refugees, as has been the case for victims of other wars not on the African continent.
The inadequacy of the IRCC’s response and the ongoing hurdles facing Sudanese refugees have brought the community together. On Sunday October 20, a demonstration by Sudanese-Québecois and the Sudanese Canadian Association of Québec (ASCQC) at Philips Square in downtown Montréal gathered around 30 people to demonstrate for humanitarian action and attention to the war in Sudan.
Amged Khalil, a Sudanese-Canadian who has rebuilt his life as a software developer in Montréal, was one of the organizers. Khalil is celebrating a year of Canadian citizenship, though he came to Montréal seven years ago as a refugee during former President Omar al-Bashir’s dictatorship.
According to Khalil, five people received approval through the re-unification program during the week of October 21, 2024, with others receiving approval the following week. No one has arrived in Canada to date.
One of the causes of delay is the federal requirement for biometric data collection in Sudan. Khalil explained that this requirement has not adapted to the reality of a war-zone.
Without a biometric centre in Sudan, refugees are unable to submit the required data to the IRCC. “We have been advised by the government that it is under negotiation,” he explained, adding that a centre may be operational by early 2025 at an International Organization for Migration (IOM) centre.
He says the Sudanese Canadian Association of Québec is also pushing for data to be collected in Canada: “We cannot afford to lose more lives.”
Québec’s exclusion from humanitarian pathway
Under Premier François Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) administration, Sudanese-Québecois are facing unique challenges from the rest of the country, as Québec had been excluded from the IRCC’s program.
In June, the Québec government halved the threshold on all family reunification programs, with a maximum of 13,000 people until June 2026.
As Khalil explained, the Sudanese Canadian Association of Québec was created at the beginning of this year to raise visibility for the humanitarian crisis and address the concerns of Sudanese-Québecois who have been excluded from the federal program.
“We were surprised that Québec was not included because this is not a normal program. This is a humanitarian program,” Khalil said of the reunification program.
Over the fall, national media reported that several people in Sudan who were sponsored through the program had lost their lives while waiting for a response.
“We are watching our families die over there and cannot do anything,” he said.
Residents of Québec may soon be included in the federal program, Khalil said, although relatives are not permitted to live in Québec. There might also be up to 800 additional spots allocated to the federal family reunification program; but these spots also include people who applied in the first round.
Where is Canadian diplomacy?
Dr. Emad Tahir is a public health resident and family doctor, who also works with refugees at the Clinique des réfugiés (Montreal Refugee Clinic). Originally from Khartoum, Tahir had worked as a medical resident in North Kordofan state, amid a huge displacement crisis across the country and influx of people fleeing war in South Sudan. Arriving in Canada in 2014, Tahir explained that it took eight years to get into the system amid bureaucratic hurdles that were not the case in other countries like the UK and Ireland. Today, he is raising a family and continuing his medical practice.
“We expected the Canadian government, and all the Western governments, to have a quicker response to this human tragedy,” Tahir said. “We are speaking about a war. They are dying because of food insecurity. They are dying because of diseases. They don’t have access to healthcare. They die from bullets and shelling. I think it’s nonsense to delay like this.”
Sudanese asylum-seekers don’t have many options in Canada or abroad.
In the U.S., a humanitarian parole program had not yet been established as the armed conflict escalated in Darfur state over the summer. Around 6,000 Sudanese people arrived in Italy in 2023 amid an increase facilitated by the decriminalization of migrant smuggling by Niger’s coup leaders last winter.
Providing shelter and assistance to Sudanese people fleeing the war has fallen primarily onto neighboring countries that are also scarred by conflict.
Within Sudan, people end up in internal displacement camps like Um Rakuba and Tunayadbah near the Ethiopian border. Up to last year, it was here that Sudan had given shelter to Ethiopian and Eritrean refugees from the Tigray war.
In North Darfur, half a million people are facing famine and unsanitary conditions in the Zamzam camp amid worsening outbreaks of cholera, malaria, dengue fever, measles and rubella.
At the border with Chad, people are shuffled between the Adré and Farchana camps, which grow daily despite being unable to provide water and healthcare. In Egypt, Sudanese refugees including journalists are being deported back into a war-zone.
Despite the dangers, many who have fled Sudan want to return. Khalil shares that his wife’s elderly parents are among those who insist on going home. They left for Egypt and were lucky to have documents, but they live every day with the stress of leaving their home behind.
Previous ceasefires with the RSF that had been negotiated by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, failed because both warring parties failed to withdraw troops out of civilian areas. Peace talks by a coalition consisting of Saudi Arabia, the US, Switzerland, the UAE, Egypt, the African Union, and the UN—continue to drag on with fighting continuing through October. Canada is not a member of the peace talk coalition.
Eighteen months into the war, the Sudanese Armed Forces launched what ACLED (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data) has called “the most significant SAF offensive in the capital, Khartoum”. The Global Protection Cluster has reported civilian deaths in eighteen villages, with chaotic displacement of civilians, assault, intimidation, humiliation, indiscriminate shooting, and the bodies of the dead left in streets. By October 26, at least 124 people were killed in an attack by the RSF on the village of Al-Sireha.
“We can go back to the root of the issue. [Canada] can play a bigger role,” Khalil said, stressing Canada’s diplomatic silence.
Simply put, people want peace.
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