Sudan, the largest country in Africa, is most vulnerable to climate variability and change with drought and flooding being the biggest climate challenges. This dated photo show displaced children fetching water following 2008 floods in Sudan. Courtesy: UN Photo/Tim McKulka

By Reem Abbas
KHARTOUM, Nov 24 2020 (IPS)

Earlier this year, when heavy rains caused massive flooding in Sudan, a three-month state of emergency was declared in September. The floods which began in July, were the worst the country experienced in the last three decades and affected some 830,000 people, including 125,000 refugees and internally displaced people.

According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, the Nile had reached a level of over 17 metres, bursting it banks and leaving thousands “homeless and in desperate need of humanitarian support”.

Sudan, the largest country in Africa, is most vulnerable to climate variability and change.

“Drought and flooding are the biggest climate challenges in Sudan and we have seen this recently,” Rehab Abdelmajeed Osman, a researcher and the National Determined Contributions (NDCs) coordinator at Sudan’s Higher Council for Environment and Natural Resources (HCENR), told IPS, referring to the recent floods.

NDCs outline the plans by countries to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change. As agreed by the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries review these plans every 5 years.

Support to submit enhanced NDCs

With support from the Climate Action Enhancement Package (CAEP), an initiative of the NDC Partnership, Sudan is one of 63 countries that have been given financial and technical assistance to submit enhanced NDCs and fast track their implementation. CAEP has brought together member countries and 40 partners that include International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the World Resources Institute, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the U.N and the Nature Conservancy. In Sudan, the support is being implemented through the HCENR.

Abdelmajeed Osman and Areeg Gafaar, the coordinator for the NDC Partnership, are rushing to finish the plan by next year.

Sudan’s NDCs prioritise mitigation and adaptation as strategies. 

“By looking at mitigation, we look at the problems we have in Sudan through this lens. Sudan is facing increasing floods and droughts and this will affect food security and also in some places, rainfall is decreasing and people have to adapt accordingly,” Gafaar told IPS.

Food security also remains among the key issues of concern for people. An assessment after the floods noted that more than 2 million hectares of farmland had been affected. 

And in August, the U.N. World Food Programme noted that 1.4 million people in Khartoum alone “are experiencing high levels of food insecurity through September due to economic decline, inflation and food price hikes exacerbated by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic”. 

“In agriculture, we have to adapt to climate vulnerabilities and in this regard, our adaptation projects are critical and they provide services such as improved seeds and working on improving our micro-forecast systems,” added Gafaar.

The environment takes a backseat to conflict

The challenges Sudan faces to develop and implement the NDCs are not only linked to external factors, such as access to funding, but also to internal ones, which include the chaotic structure in which Sudan’s environmental entities operate, as well as conflict.

“Conflict is the biggest threat to the environment because it is a result of, as well as a source of, competition over scarce resources. Peace makes sure that conflict over resources is lessened,” said Abdelmajeed Osman.

In April 2019, Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir, who had ruled for 30 years, was ousted from power after four months of sustained protests. A war between the transitional government and rebel groups from the western region of Darfur and the southern states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile, ended in October after an historic peace agreement between the transitional government and armed groups was signed.

Over the past 15 years, Sudan developed two national communications as part of its obligations to the climate convention and now a third communication is underway.

“The communication is just a communication but not a strategy. Sudan had a national action plan and it was developed as per the commitments to the convention to help countries pursue a climate friendly system. But due to political issues, Sudan couldn’t access many funding pools and as a result, a few pilot projects were implemented, but they were not mainstreamed,” said Gafaar.

Reasons for this include Sudan’s inclusion on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list for 27 years (Sudan was removed from the list this month by United States President Donald Trump) and the U.S. having imposed sanctions on the country since 1998.

Another reason is the chaotic department structure created by Sudan’s previous government.

“There were many different institutions such as the [HCENR] where we work, but also a national council for the environment as well as the national council on deforestation and the new government created a law that merged those councils and put us under the Council of Ministers,” said Abdelmajeed Osman.

Under Al-Bashir’s government, the same entities found themselves under the former presidency as well the short-lived Ministry for the Environment. The ministry essentially had the same departments as the HCENR, which resulted in a duplication of efforts and a lack of coordination that led to antagonism towards the HCENR. 

A new structure in place

“Now because we are under the Council of Minister, our budget will increase and the decisions are made quicker because of the direct channel,” said Abdelmajeed Osman.

Sudan’s constitutional declaration for the transitional period prioritises environment protection as a mandate of the government, stating the government will “work on maintaining a clean environment and biodiversity in the country and protecting and developing it in a manner that guarantees the future of generations”.

This commitment from the top-tiers of the government is essential as the NDCs are described by the higher council as a government paper that requires implementation by it.

Gafaar, who has years of experience working in this field, told IPS that some of the mitigation options that the government can focus on include renewable energy, forest management and waste management.

“This process gave us access to partners. We will have access to mitigation options by an international expert company and we will work on power and nature with IRENA,” said Gafaar.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

The Sudan Partnership Conference, which took place via teleconference, pledged $1.8 billion to support the transitional government as well as facilitating access to loans and partial or total debt relief by some countries. Courtesy: CC by 2.0/Nina R

By Reem Abbas
KHARTOUM, Jun 26 2020 (IPS)

This week, when Sudan’s Minister of Energy and Mining Adil Ibrahim addressed the country, stating that households will face power-cuts for up to seven hours a day, people had already been sitting on plastic chairs outside their homes, scouring the internet to purchase battery-operated fans. This Northeast African nation has seen temperature highs of up to 41 degrees Celsius recently.

Ibrahim attributed the power cuts to foreign engineers who had been working to build the country’s energy industry but left because of the COVID-19 crisis. However, the situation is more complicated.

“The government does not have money to buy the gasoline needed for the energy sector, the country does not have foreign currency and the reserve at the central bank of Sudan is very minimal,” an anonymous source at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning told IPS.

Sudan has barely emerged from the 30-year long dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir, who was overthrown by a revolution in April 2019. Currently, the transitional government — a civilian and military government — is too broke to finance Sudan’s transition.

The military has controlled Sudan for almost 50 years through dictatorships and it continues to have a tight grip on power.

But yesterday, Jun. 25, the Sudan Partnership Conference, which took place via teleconference, pledged $1.8 billion to support the transitional government as well as facilitating access to loans and partial or total debt relief by some countries.

The conference, hosted by Germany and supported by the Friends of Sudan, brings together the European Union (EU), the United States, the United Kingdom and several Gulf and African countries. Senior figures in the EU, the Sudanese government as well as the Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres addressed the conference.

In total, 40 countries and institutions took part in the pledge that Sudan’s Prime Minister Dr. Abdallah Hamdok called “unprecedented”. 

But Shawqi Abdelazim, a veteran journalist in Khartoum, says that the conference was not only about meeting financial targets.

“The conference had political targets and it has put Sudan back on the map and signalled its return to the international community. Many countries asked for Sudan to be removed from the state sponsors of terrorism list which is very important for economic recovery,” Shawqi Abdelazim, who works for Sudanese and German publications, told IPS.

• Sudan remains on the United States’ State Sponsor of Terrorism list.
• As a result, the country cannot access to funding from international financial institutions.

Shawqi Abdelazim added that by working with Sudan, the international community made a decision, “it is either they work with us to save the transitional period or they leave us to face our own fate; to fight off the military leaders or self-isolate in an attempt to re-build our economy with humble means”.

A recent report by the European Council on Foreign Relations states that the military generals “control a sprawling network of companies and keep the central bank and the Ministry of Finance on life support to gain political power”.

The civilian wing of the government led by Hamdok needs reassurance as it continues to solidify civilian rule to make way for democratic elections in three years as well as fight the deep state control of the former ruling party, the National Congress Party (NCP).

“The conference gave legitimacy to the civilian government, they made it clear that they are supportive,” Mayada Hassanein, an economist in Khartoum, told IPS.

But this does not mean that the financial pledges would keep the civilian government afloat for a long time.

“The amount pledged, $1.8bn is less than what is needed for cash transfers for the ministry of finance program to support families,” said Hassanien.

The Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning had been keen to secure at least $1.9 billion to support its family assistance programme, which aims to allocate $5 per family to support them with the ever-increasing living costs.

The programme was inspired by similar successful programmes in Brazil, but in the Sudanese context, it could have its flaws.

“It is fair to support vulnerable families, but this money is better spent on public services that can protect families from the volatility of the market. There is no point in having money in my pocket if I can’t find medicine or take my children to school,” Mayada Abdelazim, an economist in Khartoum, told IPS.

Sudan has serious medicine shortages and the crisis was further exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis.

Previously there were only ‘partners’ not donors

On the ground, the reality is dire. The transitional government, with all the external and internal support it garnered, was unable to fund the ambitious democratic transition the Sudanese people fought for.

• The country’s foreign debt stands at $62 billion.
• And even though the U.S. ended a 20-year trade embargo against Sudan in 2017, sanctions have not been fully removed.

Things looked promising in the first months after Hamdok was sworn in. In October, the European Union (EU) pledged €466 million in development assistance and various EU countries pledged funds for development and technical support. But this was not enough to help the government stand on its feet.

A report by the European Council on Foreign Relations explained that “international donors blame their reluctance to assist the Sudanese government on its inaction regarding subsidy reform”.

The International Crisis Group says that fuel subsides have damaged Sudan’s economy. They currently take up 40 percent of the country’s annual budget. “As part of the subsidies policy, fuel importers can buy dollars at a price far below market price, leaving room for corruption”.

Local economists paint a similar picture, but the government is cozying up to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“One reason Sudan is unable to get loans is its significant debt, however, the IMF and the World Bank are clear gateway to accessing international funds. The IMF is now in agreement with the government to send technical experts to support with the reforms, but this was not a clear promise to give Sudan money,” Mayada Abdelazim said.

The IMF’s structural adjustment programmes mandate lessening or lifting subsidies all together and in recent months, a familiar process is underway in the country.

“The government has already lifted fuel subsidies by offering commercial fuel (which is another word for unsubsidised) in addition to subsidised fuel. But currently, you can only find fuel at the gas stations that offer unsubsidised fuel, they basically lifted subsidies without entering into a direct confrontation with the public,” said Mayada Abdelazim.

Rising inflation impacts the population

During Al-Bashir’s tenure, Sudanese people endured numerous wars (some of which are only in the process of being resolved), severe economic impoverishment, and the oppression of all dissent and a total deterioration of all aspects of their welfare.

For years, 70 percent of Sudan’s budget was invested in the security and military sector leaving very little for healthcare and education, which were further destroyed through privatisation policies and incessant corruption by the ruling party.

A few weeks ago, the government increased the minimum wage by up to 700 percent to match raising inflation. However, inflation increased from 98.81 to 114.33 percent between April and May.

The new salaries have now become redundant as the prices of basic food items increased from 200 to 300 percent and the Sudanese pound (SDG) continued to plummet, reaching 145 SDG to the U.S. dollar in the black market versus 55 SDG to the dollar.

“Any money you give people will get eaten up as prices increase due to volatility. Business owners do not know how much they would have to pay for rent or stock next month, they have to push up their prices based on expectations,” said Mayada Abdelazim, who has been working on a paper on the partnership conference.

Outside Khartoum, the situation is even worse for ordinary citizens.

Hanan Hassan, a civil servant who lives in Damazin in Blue Nile state, over 500 kms from the capital, Khartoum, told IPS that businesses have taken advantage of the salary raises to increase their prices.

“Transportation costs inside the city went up by 300 percent, food items are increasing on a daily basis which makes it impossible to come up with a monthly budget. Traders are taking advantage of people because there is no monitoring by the authorities and others are arguing that they have to purchase fuel at commercial rates,” said Hassan.

In the meantime, the government has a dilemma, currently it has no money to pay salaries or to import basic food items.

“The Minister is opposed to financing from the Central Bank, but the bank has to print money to finance the remainder of the 2020 government budget,” said the source at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning.

Reclaiming what can be reclaimed

In November 2019, the transitional government passed a law establishing the Empowerment Elimination, Anti-Corruption, and Funds Recovery Committee, which is tasked with ridding the country of the legacy of the former regime and reclaiming Sudan’s embezzled resources.

The committee has held numerous press conferences to announce the confiscation of land, companies and financial resources from old regime. All the resources will revert to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, which is supposed to integrate them into the annual budget.

“The government expects that the confiscated land and property would bring in 77 billion SDG in profit,” said the source at the Ministry of Finance.

In May, the committee announced that it now controls $3.5 to $4 billion worth of assets from the former president. This is not yet cash. Observers believe that the government will have a hard time liquidating the assets as the cronies of the former regime are the only ones with the money to buy them back.

In the meantime, there is optimism that the international community will use this conference to make up for the lost opportunities that were pointed out in recent reports indicating that the international community have wasted time and delayed much-needed support to Sudan.

“Sudan’s revolution gave people around the world hope that change can happen, it is our responsibility to support this transitional process,” German Ambassador Ulrich Klöckner told IPS.

The Ibrahim Malik public hospital in Khartoum, Sudan. Abortion is only legal in Sudan under very specific circumstances. As a result a number of women continue to access unsafe abortions. Courtesy: Abdelgadir Bashir

By Reem Abbas
KHARTOUM, Jun 22 2020 (IPS)

Omnia Nabil*, a Sudanese doctor, who worked in one of the largest hospitals in Khartoum, the country’s capital, was devastated to witness the deaths of 50 young women who had unsafe abortions during a space of just three months.

“I would see 16 cases of failed abortions on a given day. I would insert my hand and pull out syringes or leaves, unsanitary items that were inserted by midwives to induce a miscarriage,” Nabil told IPS.

For Sudanese women, getting an abortion is often a very lonely and dangerous process because it is only allowed in very specific cases.

Article 135 of the Criminal Law of 1991 legalises “miscarriage” only to save the mother’s life, if she is a victim of rape in her first trimester or if the foetus is dead. However, in all cases, women need their husband’s consent for the procedure.

Women who do not meet these requirements generally end up going to traditional midwives. But it places the women’s lives at risk. And if caught, it is an offence punishable with imprisonment of up to six years or a fine.

• This Northeast African nation of some 41 million people was ruled for 30 years by dictator Omar al-Bashir until he was removed from power by the country’s military in April 2019 after mass pro-democracy protests.
• Under Al-Bashir’s rule the country experienced decades of war and repression resulting in the current internal displacement of 2.1 million people. 

Sudan’s transitional government, formed in August 2019, allocated 40 percent of its parliamentary seats to women. This resulted in laws restricting freedom of dress, movement and work being repealed and female genital multination being criminalised. However, there have been no changes to the law on abortion.

Abortion – a dangerous and lonely procedure

But as international organisations working on reproductive health were slowly shut down in years prior to the transitional government being formed, small groups or networks of people have been working together to ensure that women are able to access safe abortions.

Because most women can’t access hospitals or healthcare facilities because they fear arrest, they end up having the abortions alone, or with little help. Sarah Ali* was one of them.

When Ali found out about her pregnancy, she struggled to find a nurse or doctor who would help her obtain an abortion.

“I was running out of options and a midwife working at a private hospital had agreed to help me, but was unable to find the pills. I was entering my 11th week when I received the pills sent in a package by Women on Web,” Ali, who no longer lives in Sudan, told IPS.

The pills, a combination of mifepristone and misoprostol, were sent by Women on Web, a Canadian non-profit organisation that “advocates for and facilitates access to contraception and safe abortion services to protect women’s health and lives”, according to its website.

• The organisation provides women with abortion pills within the first 10 weeks of their pregnancy, after an online consultancy, which allows those who have a problem accessing a safe abortion to have a medical abortion in their homes. According to the organisation, a medical abortion in the first 10 weeks is “very low risk of complications and resemble having an early miscarriage”.

“After the procedure, I was able to go back to the midwife for a check-up and make sure I didn’t get an infection,” said Ali.

There are no recent statistics on unsafe abortions in Sudan. However, according to Women Deliver, “An estimated 25.1 million unsafe abortions take place [globally] each year. Every year, approximately, 6.9 million women in developing countries are treated for complications from unsafe abortions, and complications from unsafe abortions cause at least 22,800 deaths each year.”

Nabil watched as women who had unsafe abortions and came to the hospital for help eventually died.

“They would usually die from what we call septic abortion, which is essentially an infected abortion process and even though I was pro-choice from early on, this tragedy inspired me to start the abortion network,” said Nabil, who has since left the country.

Underground networks help women access safe abortions

With a core group of doctors, doctors-in-training and supporters, Nabil created a network to obtain misoprostol for patients and supported them if they had future complications. The network was a small and deeply-secure structure.

“The work was dangerous. At some point, we had a patient in the hospital and the doctor treating her suspected that she was unmarried, she called the police and I had to help her and her partner escape,” said Nabil.

Knowing the risks, Nabil took her precautions. She had a separate phone and always used a fake name with patients seeking abortions.

The core team worked for years without getting caught and recruited younger doctors when those in the team had moved on to other jobs.

“We tried to support girls from lower-income households and offered them the pills at reduced prices relying on our acquaintances in the field. But in the end, we were unofficial and dependent on word of mouth, so you have to know someone to make the initial contact,” said Nabil.

In the last few years, the network’s capacity was reduced as more of its members moved on to other countries seeking better economic situations. Nabil continued to help from a distance and her close friend was the last one in the network, until he also left the country.

Shrinking space for service providers 

The last statistics on the use of misoprostol dates back to 2011, when DKT International, a health charity operating in Sudan and the largest non-government provider of reproductive health products and services at the time, published a report stating that 450,000 units of Misoprostol and 16,000 kits of MVA were used/sold that year.

DKT came under attack in 2012 when radical parliamentarians clashed with the Minister of Health over family planning, abortion equipment and the distribution of condoms.

But things became worse when the government shut down another international organisation working on reproductive health.

“This organisation had provided an important device called vacuum aspirator or NVA for abortion and miscarriage cases and it was registered in Sudan until the government stopped it. It is life-saving and important and now few doctors have it and can only do it under the table,” said Salma Habib* an activist working on SRHR issues here.

In the meantime, there is one doctor in Sudan who is willing to perform medical abortions and support his patients in taking misoprostol, but he has been banned from working here since 2006.

When Dr. Abdelhadi Ibrahim, a young Ob/Gyn specialist moved to Sudan from the UK in the 1997, young women patients started asking him to perform abortions.

Ibrahim estimated that he had provided safe abortions to at least 10,000 women over a period of seven years and helped many others restore their hymens to indicate virginity.

In 2006, Ibrahim was arrested and tried in a high-profile court case and was sentenced to six years in prison and his license was revoked by the Sudan Medical Council.

“Until today, I am fighting to get back my license. I won two law suits and the council continued to stall and now after the revolution, they just made appointments in the council and a committee should be formed to look into it, I must’ve visited the council’s building hundreds of times,” Ibrahim, who he has not worked in 14 years and was forced to sell some of his property to support himself, told IPS.

Abortion pills too costly for most women

In the meantime, prices of medical abortion pills have soared.

“Today, most women can not afford a safe abortion in Sudan. The pills could cost at least $142 to $214 or even more and the quality of the pills and their expiration date could be a problem because you are buying from the black market after all,” said Habib, who added that there are fake pills on the market also.

Most Sudanese women have to use traditional midwives as they can’t access the expensive pills. It places them at risk to unsafe abortions.

The procedures performed by midwives are often dangerous, but in addition the midwives often criminalise the behaviour of their patients.

“I know a girl who was circumcised by a midwife after an abortion and was told that this is to stop her from having sex again, it is clear that midwives could punish you or take advantage of your situation,” said Ali.

But as Nabil’s abortion network closed, parallel networks sprung up. Habib supports her network by accessing pills from Women on Web and from trusted sources inside Sudan.

“There are people working now, I don’t know many of them, but one of my former clients is now leading the same efforts and helping other women,” said Nabil.

*Names changed to protect identity. 

A young Sudanese girl holding a baby near a USAID tent in the Al Salam internally displaced persons camp. The United Nations Children’s Fund estimates that 33 percent of Sudanese women aged 20 to 24 were married before the age of 18. Credit: Sven Torfinn/CC By 2.0

By Reem Abbas
KHARTOUM, Jul 10 2013 (IPS)

Lawyers and rights activists are calling for a change in Sudan’s laws which allow for the marriage of girls as young as 10.

It is time, they say, that Sudan’s laws recognise gender equality so that the country’s girls and young women can take control of their lives and leave behind the cycle of child marriage and abuse.

“(Activists) are advocating a change in the personal status laws as they discriminate against women and aim to keep them in the household,” said Khadija Al-Dowahi, from the Sudanese Organisation for Research and Development (SORD), which conducts research on child marriage.

Sudan’s 1991 Personal Status Law of Muslims does not grant women equal rights. It also promotes child marriage. Article 40 of the personal status law sets no age limit for marriage and in fact states that a 10-year-old girl can be married “with the permission of a judge”. "Before we observed more marriages of girls in agricultural communities … now it is increasing in cities because of the economic situation and the attempt by families to preserve their girls from the corruption of the city." -- human rights lawyer Amel Al-Zein

“The personal status laws basically state that girls can get married when they are old enough to be able to comprehend matters … but you could easily say that girls understand matters at the age of 10,” Al-Dowahi told IPS.

In addition, Sudan has not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

The U.N. Children’s Fund estimates that a third of Sudanese women now aged 20 to 24 were married before the age of 18. In rural areas, where the problem is more persistent, child marriage is as high as 39 percent as opposed to 22 percent in urban areas.

A visit to Khartoum Hospital shows clearly just how widespread the phenomenon of child marriage is in Sudan. Inside, there is an entire Obsetric Fistula ward – the patients there are mostly young mothers whose bodies are too underdeveloped to allow them to give birth, making them prone to developing fistula.

Amel Al-Zein, a lawyer who has researched the issue of child marriage, is very critical of the country’s personal status laws.

“Unlike other countries in the region or Islamic countries per se, it does not specify a certain age for marriage, which is the only guarantee to controlling child marriage,” Al-Zein told IPS.

Al-Zein stated that women could not go to court to get a divorce or undertake any legal procedures before the age of 18, which contradicts the fact that girls as young as 10 are married.

“When we began researching issues of gender justice, we started seeing how child marriage is interlinked to many issues facing women, the women go to courts to fight over custody and get a divorce only to discover how terrible and discriminatory the laws are,” said Al-Dowahi, whose organisation has proposed reforms to the laws.

SORD has recently established a legal aid centre for women being discriminated against by the personal status laws. So far 46 cases have arrived at the centre since its inception three months ago.

Meanwhile, the Council of Sudanese Scholars, a prestigious religious body, is  causing controversy. Last year when its secretary-general, Prof. Mohamed Osman Salah, spoke in favour of child marriage, activists became infuriated.

Salah told the press in October 2012: “Islam encourages youth to marry to save them from perversion or any dangers of being single and to make them happy and to preserve reproduction.”

Not all religious scholars share Salah’s opinion. This is mainly because child marriage in Sudan is a consequence of social and cultural traditions, not only religious values.

Sarah Mohamed*, for example, was married off at 13 years old because the nearest high school for girls was too far from her village – lack of access to education makes parents less likely to keep daughters at home.

This is not an unusual age for getting married in her small village of Karko, which lies in Southern Kordofan.

“I remember how confused I felt, I had no idea what marriage is, I was a child,” Mohamed, who turned 30 a few weeks ago and now has five children, told IPS.

She had her firstborn at 16 and today very few people can believe that she has a son in high school.

Rana Ahmed* had a different experience. She was 15 when her mother discovered that she was dating a boy in her neighbourhood, after she caught her speaking to him on the phone.

“She became too upset and told me that she would find me a husband before I did something really bad. She said this would make me stop playing around,” Ahmed, now 24, told IPS.

Her husband, who was in his late 30s at the time, took Rana abroad, where he worked as a doctor, for five years. When they returned to Sudan, with her two young children, she felt that she wanted to live again.

“I was bored and unfulfilled in my life, I wanted to experience what girls my age experience. I wanted to have the freedom to date and go out,” said Ahmed who is now divorced.

Al-Dowahi said that Ahmed’s story is not unique – young girls are not ready for family responsibilities or for sexual experience. Some end up succeeding and going back to school, but others cannot cope and end up having affairs and living a quite different life.

As Sudan’s economic situation continues to deteriorate, activists have said that  cities are themselves becoming similar to rural areas, with child marriage becoming a pressing problem even among the educated urban communities.

“Before we observed more marriages of girls in agricultural communities … now it is increasing in cities because of the economic situation and the attempt by families to preserve their girls from the corruption of the city,” said Al-Zein.

SORD’s research showed that women in camps for internally displaced persons and in east Sudan usually face early marriage more than others.

In fact, east Sudan is home to the youngest divorcee – a young girl who was granted a divorce when she was nine. In the traditions of her community, girls are married at the age of two months, and taken to their husbands after they reach 10 years of age.

Lakshmi Sundaram, global coordinator of Girls not Brides, a global partnership to end child marriage, thinks it is a question of the value placed on the girl-child.

“We have to challenge converting a girl, even with her consent, into an economic commodity. We have to address the fundamental aspect that a girl has intrinsic value as a human being, not just a value cost,” Sundaram told IPS.

*Names changed to protect identity.

Sudanese women are not exempt from the government’s repressive tactics and are increasingly targeted for speaking out against Sudan’s government. Credit: Zeinab Mohammed Salih/IPS

By Reem Abbas
KHARTOUM, Jul 2 2013 (IPS)

More and more of Sudan’s female politicians and rights activists are being arrested and detained in the government’s clampdown on opposition political parties.

Asma Ahmed, a lawyer and member of the banned Sudan People’s Liberation Movement–North (SPLM–N), was released on Jun. 14 after a five-week detention. She believes that the Sudanese authorities are increasingly targeting women because they have become more active in the political and social arena in recent years.

“The targeting of women activists is because we are continuing to send our messages effectively. If we weren’t, we would not be detained … but detentions will not make women less keen to continue activism,” Ahmed told IPS.

The rebel SPLM–N was banned in 2011 when it took up arms against government forces in Sudan’s South Kordofan and Blue Nile states.

“My house was watched for a few days before my detention. My family was told by National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) officers that I had been summoned, and so I went to the interrogation in Khartoum north and didn’t return home that day,” Ahmed said.

According to international rights watchdog Amnesty International, Sudan’s 2010 National Security Act, “provides agents of the security services with wide powers of arrest and detention. Torture and other ill-treatment remain widespread.”

In April, Human Rights Watch said in a statement that “in recent months the Sudanese government has increased repression of political and civil society groups. The authorities shut down four civil society groups in December, accusing them of receiving foreign funds, have also closed down Nuba cultural groups, and recently re-instated restrictions on the media.”

It is unclear how many women remain in detention. The Sudanese Council for Defending Rights and Freedoms, an independent body of human rights defenders, lawyers and politicians, stated that the SPLM–N alone has 600 detainees, a significant number of whom are women.

Women are not exempt from the scare tactics used by security services. The events culminating in Entisar Al-Agali’s arrest are almost like a Hollywood action film. She was driving home from a meeting on Jan. 7 when a car belonging to the NISS began following her until she reached Africa Road in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum.

“They tried to stop my car, but I was speeding and trying to get away. They caught up with me and hit my car from the back and, because I was trying to avoid an accident, I stopped the car,” Al-Agali told IPS.

Al-Agali had returned from Kampala, Uganda where she had been taking part in the talks that led to the drafting of the New Dawn Charter, a document signed by Sudanese opposition political parties, as well as rebel groups and civil society, that deals with the methods to be used to bring down the Sudanese regime and set up a transitional government in the war-torn country.

“I spent 87 days in Omdurman Women’s Prison, 75 days of which were in solitary confinement,” said Al-Agali, who is a leading member of the opposition Socialist Unionist Nasserist Party.

Al-Agali was the only woman to be detained after the signing of the New Dawn Charter on Jan. 6, which saw a wave of arrests of political leaders. She is, however, not the only woman to spend weeks or months in detention in the past two years.

In November 2012, 34 alleged members of SPLM–N, most of whom are government employees, were detained in Kadugli, the capital of the embattled state of Southern Kordofan. On Apr. 26, 14 were released, but the 20 others continue to be held in detention in Kadugli Prison.

Khadija Mohamed Badr was one of the detainees released and she now stays with her family in Khartoum.

“She was severely hurt and broke two spinal discs as she slipped while in detention. She is now paying for treatment with her own money,” an activist who is trying to raise financial assistance for Badr, and who wished to remain anonymous for fear of his safety, told IPS.

Meanwhile, the government National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has been trying to establish itself as an advocacy body for political detainees. But Abdelmoniem Mohamed, a human rights lawyer who has monitored the NHRC’s role in other cases, told IPS that it has not been responsive to cases of political oppression, such as that of Jalila Khamis.

“The commission asked us to submit cases to them, cases of political detainees. But I am sceptical as they were slow to act on Khamis’s case,” he told IPS.

Khamis, a teacher and human rights activist, was detained in March 2012 for a video she recorded on the war in her homeland, the Nuba Mountains in Southern Kordofan. Fighting between the Sudanese army and the rebel SPLM–N has been ongoing in the region since June 2011. Khamis had faced life imprisonment but was released in January after a long trial.

“I was subjected to long interrogations, the worst time was when they told me that they would kill my son. This was when I was diagnosed with arterial hypertension,” Khamis told IPS. Although released, she continues to be monitored by state security.

While it is difficult to say how many female political activists are in prison, one activist who preferred to remain anonymous told IPS:  “When the family of a detainee in Kosti (a city south of Sudan’s capital Khartoum) visited her in detention, they were given a long list of women’s names to choose from. This means that there are many women detainees we don’t know about.”

Fatima Ghazzali, a pro-democracy activist and journalist working for the political section of Al-Jareeda newspaper said that women were at the forefront of the calls for democracy and freedom in Sudan.

“It is women who are the majority of internally displaced in this country, they bear the brunt of war. Women suffer the most under authoritarian regimes, that is why it does not surprise me to see that women are more keen to have democracy in Sudan,” Ghazzali told IPS, adding that only democracy would give women their full rights and protect them from security forces.

The escalating participation of women activists in recent protests and campaigns has even made the police take notice of women’s participation in calls for democracy, she said.

“They said that women and journalists are always there, always present at protests,” said Ghazzali, who spent time in jail in 2011 for an article she wrote on the gang rape of a female protestor in detention.

By - - and Reem Abbas
KHARTOUM, Jan 2 2012 (IPS)

The multi-billion dollar Merowe Dam on the Nile River more than doubled Sudan’s electricity supply, but its environmental impacts are still unknown to the public, and communities whose villages were flooded have not yet received compensation.

Thirty villages of the Manasir people were flooded during construction of the Merowe Dam. Credit: David Haberlah/CC BY 2.0

It will also cause at least eight percent of Sudan’s annual share in the Nile Water Agreement to evaporate and will produce carbon dioxide and methane, two harmful greenhouse gases.

“Sudanese people are unaware of the devastating environmental impact of the Merowe Dam,” said Ali Askouri, a human rights activist and the representative of the Hamdab Affected People, a group fighting for compensation and accountability for the populations affected by the dam, told IPS.

No detailed study of the Merowe Dam impact on downstream communities has been published and Askouri is worried that when the effects become clear, it will be too late to take action.

The Merowe Dam or Merowe Multi-Purpose Hydro Project is the largest contemporary hydropower project in Africa. Located in the town of Merowe in northern Sudan, its main aim is to provide electricity for Sudan’s growing population.

Ahmed Saad*, who worked on one of the projects constructed for the Merowe community by the contractors, believes that the residents of the town are torn between appreciating the new positive changes the dam has brought to their community, through the construction of a hospital and schools, new services and the renovation of the university campus, and realising the negative impact the dam has had on their livelihoods.

“People have complained that humidity from the dam’s lake has affected the production of dates, one of the important items in their diet and one of their main exports,” said Saad, who added that it rained in Merowe when he was there and rain is a very rare occurrence in that area.

The residents of Merowe even started to observe the changes during the construction of the dam. Saad, who was stationed there for a few months, noted observations on fish output as it continued to dwindle and dryness in areas that were wet or flooded before the dam – a change that affected agriculture in the area.

The dam was built on the Nile’s fourth cataract between 2003 and 2009 by Lahmeyer International, a German engineering consulting firm; two Chinese companies, China International Water and Electric Corp and Harbin Power Engineering Co; and the French energy company, Alstom. It was funded by the Sudanese government, China Export Import Bank and Arab banks and development organisations.

Lahmeyer International, one of the contracting companies, was tasked with producing the Environmental Impact Assessment Report (EIAR) and the document was produced in April 2002.

“The companies behind the Merowe Dam have never prepared a proper Environmental Impact Assessment Report, and the government has never published the shoddy study that was prepared,” stated Peter Bosshard, policy director at International Rivers Network (IRN).

The IRN, an organisation that support sustainability and aims at stopping destructive dams while promoting environmentally-conscious water and energy solutions, has written about the environmental impacts of the Merowe Dam since 2005.

In 2005, the international organisation received a copy of the confidential EIAR produced by Lahmeyer International and handed it over to EAWAG, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, to review.

The review, published in 2006, revealed that the report does not follow World Bank or World Commission on Dams Guidelines on writing EIAR for dam projects. IRN then asked the contractors to suspend the project until further inquiry into the environmental impacts could be made.

“The riverbanks are the most fertile grounds in the region, they are now flooded and new lakeshores are developing and due to the fluctuations in water levels, the lake shores are difficult to use for crop production,” Professor Bernhard Wehrli, who co-authored the EAWAG report, told IPS.

He added that productive fisheries rely on stable riverbanks and lakeshores, and that fluctuations in water levels caused by the dam will harm the reproduction of fish and the growth of juvenile fish.

The report brought up the Aswan High Dam of Egypt, also on the Nile River, as an example since it has been studied numerous times, and pointed out that the Merowe project’s EIAR did not mention the High Dam and did not look into steps taken to solve the growing environmental problems there.

“The High Dam of Egypt revealed that there are serious consequences for the population and the life-support systems in the downstream part,” said Wehrli.

The EAWAG team used their experience looking at dams in different countries, such as the High Dam, to assess the possible consequences of the Merowe Dam and suggest options to help minimise the environmental harm.

“To preserve water in reservoirs, you minimise the surface area of a lake for an effective dam design. Also, the outlet to the turbines should be variable in order to use oxygen-rich water,” said Wehrli, adding that oxygen-rich water curbs serious harm to downstream fisheries and the deterioration of water quality.

IRN calculates that the Merowe project will produce two harmful greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane, when plant matter, algae and soil decompose. The dam’s production of greenhouse gases is equivalent to a natural gas project that generates the same amount of electricity.

“African countries have a huge potential of renewable energy such as wind and solar, which in many cases is not more expensive than large dams,” Bosshard said.

He added that government officials, corporations, financiers and bureaucrats continue to favour projects like big dams. “Such projects provide huge contracts, prestige, political control and often kickbacks under the table,” he said.

Excerpt:

China, a major player in the oil industries of South Sudan and Sudan, could use its influence to stop the escalating violence between the two countries that has seen the displacement of thousands of people and a reduction in oil production, a United States State Department official says.

Oil storage facilities at Bentiu, Unity State, South Sudan. Credit: Charlton Doki/IPS

China imports more than 60 percent of Sudan’s oil and owns a 40 percent share in Petrodar and the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Co., the largest oil giants in Sudan, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Science.

But ongoing conflict in Sudan and South Sudan has impacted oil production with the South Sudanese Petroleum and Mining Ministry saying that production in South Sudan has reduced from 85,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 60,000 bpd on the border states. The ministry also noted that Sudan’s production of oil in the border states reduced from 60,000 bpd to 48,000.

Southern Kordofan, a state in Sudan that borders South Sudan, has witnessed ongoing fighting since June and Blue Nile state, a state in Sudan close to the Ethiopian border, became embroiled in conflict in early September. Both conflicts are between the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), a group affiliated with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, the ruling party in South Sudan, and the Sudanese army.

Southern Kordofan, explained Sudanese political commentator Magdi El Gizouli, became the largest oil producer in Sudan after South Sudan’s independence.

In the early stages of the now full-fledged conflict in South Kordofan United States State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland pointed out, “It’s hard to have money and oil when there’s no peace,” adding that Beijing should “take this opportunity to (stop) the violence in Sudan.”

“The U.S. doesn’t have much of a (diplomatic) muscle to flex any more,” David Shinn, former United States ambassador to Ethiopia, told IPS back in June.

“The only thing it can do other than pontificate more vociferously than it has in the past is to threaten to slow down any aspects of the normalisation of relations.”

However, this method of dangling the carrot of possible debt relief and political pardons before the dictator has not had much of an impact on Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, the only sitting head of state to have been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Even though most of the oil is concentrated in the newly independent South Sudan, the pipelines, support services and the bulk of the infrastructure that supports the oil industry are in Sudan.

Since last year, the two nations have been in talks about the fees Sudan charges for use of its infrastructure. “South Sudan’s main income is derived from its oil revenues, the South will protect the oil industry despite the ongoing conflict because they can’t afford to lose oil production, even if it is temporary,” said Mohammed Adel (not his real name), an employee in Petrodar’s pipeline department. About 98 percent of South Sudan’s revenue is from oil.

When Petrodar began oil production after its 1,506 km pipeline was completed in 2006, oil production rose from 300,000 bpd to 500,000. Only 100,000 to 110,000 bpd of Sudan’s daily output was produced in North Sudan, the rest came from the oilfield in what is now South Sudan. The Petrodar pipeline runs from Melut Basin in Upper Nile state, South Sudan to Port Sudan. Upper Nile state is located between two conflict areas, Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile state.

“Recently when the Sudanese government asked for 32 dollars per barrel as the price of export, the South Sudanese government rejected the high prices,” said Adel.

Last month, the Sudanese government withheld 600,000 barrels of oil for 24 hours demanding custom duties. However, the barrels were eventually released and it is unknown if South Sudan paid the duties or not.

In an interview with the London-based Saudi Arabian newspaper, Asharq Al Awsat, al-Bashir stated that the government of South Sudan needed to decide on transit fees before the end of October.

However, the South Sudanese government wants the negotiations on oil to take place at an African Union meeting chaired by Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa.

“Many people believe that plunging oil revenues will deter the North from forging ahead with war. But I think the real question is whether Khartoum can maintain its political stranglehold over a population frustrated by severe inflation and skyrocketing food prices without a war,” Eric Reeves, a Sudan analyst and researcher at Smith College in the United States, told IPS.

Given this reality, the only actor with real diplomatic leverage over Sudan is China, whose hunger for endless oil profits – which will now depend on maintaining warm relations with al-Bashir’s foes in oil- rich South Sudan – can hopefully trump its avuncular attitude towards the North that has persisted through decades of atrocities committed by the ruling National Congress Party.

Given that China is the world’s biggest oil importer after the U.S., relying on Sudan and Libya for the bulk of its supply, the rising superpower is unlikely to sacrifice its petro-lubricated economic boom for the sake of honoring old ties with al-Bashir – especially when the latter is risking all-out war around the precious oilfields in the South.

A 2008 Wiki-leaked State Department cable from ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo stated, “China does not care what happens to Bashir and would not oppose his arrest if (oil) revenues were not interrupted.”

Hafiz Mohammed, a Sudanese political analyst agreed with this saying that the Chinese petroleum companies were only interested in oil.

“Most of the Sudanese oil is explored by Chinese petroleum companies who do not care much about human rights, they care about investment and trade,” said Mohammed.

“To some extent, oil fuels conflict by financing conflict, instead of bringing prosperity, growth and elevating society, it also polarises the political sphere since opposing opinions are bought with oil money,” he told IPS.

China has invested in Sudan while western companies are wary of investing in the country because of its human rights records and the U.S. sanctions imposed on Sudan since the 1990s for allegedly supporting terrorism and the ongoing conflict between the government and rebel groups.

“In the boom years, the Sudanese oil industry was a high risk, high profit sector. Western corporations were as involved as the Chinese, however, the latter are under no pressure from domestic lobbies to quit the business,” said El Gizouli.

In 2003, Canadian energy group Talisman, sold its 25 percent stake in the Greater Nile Oil Company after it received heavy criticism from human rights companies at home.

China has also faced criticism by international rights groups, namely in 2008 when the Olympics were nicknamed the “Genocide Olympics” because Chinese oil corporations continued to work in without attempting to use their influence to pressure the Sudanese government to resolve the conflict in Darfur.

The European Coalition on Oil in Sudan (ECOS) reports that since 1996, oil exploration and production has caused mass displacement for the indigenous populations in oil-rich areas, most notably, Unity state, where the Greater Nile oil pipeline begins.

ECOS reported that over 15,000 were known to be forcibly displaced in Melut and Maban counties in Unity state and many were arrested by the army for complaining to oil corporations about their land rights.

*Kanya D’Almeida in Washington contributed to this report.

While humanitarian organisations try to bury the corpses scattered across Southern Kordofan, aid to the thousands of people displaced by the fighting is slow as the country’s humanitarian commission has prohibited most aid organisations from working in the area.

On Jun. 5 heavy fighting broke out between forces loyal to the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) in Kadugli and other towns in the state. Kadugli is the capital of Southern Kordofan, one of Sudan’s 25 states.

Since the start of the fighting, aerial bombardments were carried out by the SAF, which according to the United Nations (U.N.), lead to the displacement of 75,000 civilians from Kadugli, Kaunda and surrounding areas with the numbers going up on a daily basis. In addition, 35,000 are expected to head to El Obeid, a town in north Kordofan.

“We have reports of ethnic Nubas being denied entrance to El Obeid. They divide the displaced based on ethnicity and the Nubas are (left) in the middle of nowhere under the scorching sun, ” said Fatima* a human rights activist. The Nubas, who are a minority in Southern Kordofan, are believed to have been targeted in the fighting.

Sudanese organisations and civil society groups are already calling for food donations and sending trucks full of supplies to aid the people of Southern Kordofan.

In an attempt to help out within their limited mandate, some humanitarian organisations are burying corpses scattered in Southern Kordofan. But the Humanitarian Affairs Commission (HAC), the body responsible for coordinating all humanitarian affairs for local and international organisations in Sudan, has prohibited the majority of local and international organisations from working there.

“We held a meeting with the HAC yesterday and we asked them to give us permission to aid the displaced and they said that they are sending an investigative mission to assess the situation. I don’t know when this will happen,” said Suhaila*, who works for a national development non-governmental organisation in Khartoum.

She said she was concerned about the availability of food in the region. “This is the time right before farming begins, families are nearly running out of stored food and many of the families living in safer towns are hosting displaced families and sharing their food with them,” said Suhaila.

Many displaced people are making public schools their homes as the summer season ends and the rainy season begins in July.

“The government does not want to establish IDP (internationally displaced persons) camps, they said they don’t want this to turn into another Darfur, but people cannot simply go back to their homes. The situation is deteriorating, ” said Fatima.

In January 10 states, which compromise the southern part of Sudan, voted in a referendum on whether they want to remain part of the north or have a separate state. Over 98 percent voted in favour of secession.

But the security situation in the state became tense after Ahmed Haroun won the governorship of Southern Kordofan in a controversial state election in May.

Haroun is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur for his involvement in instigating attacks and arming and recruiting militias to fight the insurgency. Haroun beat Abdel Aziz Al Helow, the SPLM’s candidate in the elections.

“It is fair to say that 75 percent of civilians in the state are SPLM supporters but they lean towards the National Congress Party (NCP), the ruling party, because they want to survive,” Samira*, an U.N. employee said.

She said prior to the elections the SPLM began distributing flyers through tea ladies, bakers and people in the market area that warned of dire consequences if the NCP’s candidate won the governorship.

Samira arrived at work at the United Nations offices on Jun. 5 to find that many of her colleagues known for their pro-SPLM sentiments had already fled the town.

“I started asking questions and wondering if something was going to happen. The fighting started that day and for the first time, there was a power cut in the entire city.

“Our only option was to hide under the bed or next to a wall because it was pitch black and it was hard to locate where the gunshots were coming from,” said Samira. She was evacuated and is now safe in Khartoum with her family. “I saw a large number of women and children fleeing the town and I could tell that they have been walking for a long time… I couldn’t stop crying,” recalls Samira of the day she was evacuated.

But the fighting continues and Suhaila says that based on information received from her colleagues working in Southern Kordofan, there have been a number of political assassinations.

“The SPLM launched attacks that targeted certain leaders loyal to the NCP and this sparked a retaliation from the Khartoum government. Even the citizens of Kadugli and other towns were asked to leave because the situation became characterised by political assassinations,” said Suhaila.

Suhaila added that there are snipers located in the mountains and her colleagues informed her that politically active civilians have been shot dead inside their homes. * Names have been changed to protect our sources.

Women in the Sudanese region of Darfur have been raped with impunity since the start of the conflict there in 2003. Now a campaign to reform the rape law is gaining momentum in the country, promoted by Alliance 149, a national coalition born in late 2009.

Darfuri refugee: a national coalition is seeking to reform Sudan's law governing rape to empower women to seek justice for sexual violence. Credit: HDPTCAR/Wikicommons

Under Article 149 – the portion of the Sudanese Criminal Code of 1991 which pertains to rape – the crime is defined as “zina”, intercourse between a man and a woman who are not married to one another, without consent.

The legislation states that a woman needs four male witnesses to prove that this act was “without consent”. If she reports a rape and cannot obtain such evidence, she will be charged with adultery and punished with 100 lashes, if unmarried, or with death by stoning, if married.

“The reformed law will be a success to all Sudanese women as adultery and rape will be separated and the criminal will receive a long sentence,” said Amro Kamal, a lawyer volunteering for the Sudan Human Rights Monitor and an Alliance 149 board member.

The Sudanese Criminal Code “is supposedly based on shariah laws, but the fact that Article 149 doesn’t distinguish between zina and rape is problematic and un-Islamic,” he said.

The western region of Darfur deserves a different approach. The ongoing conflict between non-Arab rebels, the Sudanese military and Arab Janjaweed militias has resulted in 300,000 civilian deaths and more than two million people internally displaced.

The Alliance suggests the adoption of international humanitarian laws to better suit the needs of victims of sexual violence in Darfur.

Women living there continue to face the risk of rape and forced displacement daily. Many have left their homes and live in government-established camps – some remain in these camps for years.

“It is not easy for a woman who has been raped in our community, especially when a baby is born from the rape. The community will not accept this baby,” said Mahbouba Abdur Rahman Ali, of the Women Empowerment Organisation

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended a 21-year conflict between the Arab Muslim north and the Christian black south in 2005 requires legal reform to comply with international human rights standards, according to the Alliance.

“Sudan is not a signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW),” a source from the Family and Child Unit told TerraViva. “This makes it difficult to reform current laws related to women because there is nobody responsible for women’s affairs.”

Alliance 149 is slowly gaining the attention of legislators. When it launched its campaign, in January, it attracted officials from the Ministry of Interior Affairs, the police forces, parliamentarians and representatives from political parties.

“It was great to see women’s groups and representatives from the government and the judiciary working together for such a great cause,” said Fahima Hashim, an Alliance board member and director of Salmmah Women’s Resource Centre.