LEILA FADEL, HOST:
For more on Sudan's civil war and the atrocities being carried out right now in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, we turn to Emi Mahmoud. She's a Sudanese American poet and is the strategic director for the Internally Displaced Person Humanitarian Network in Darfur, and she joins us now. Hi. Thank you for being with us.
EMI MAHMOUD: Hi. Thank you so much, Leila. Thank you for having me.
FADEL: Emi, you are from El Fasher originally. That is your hometown. What do you know about your family right now and what's happening in the city?
MAHMOUD: What's so painful and difficult in this moment is that the past more than 24 hours have been so harrowing because we have so many people who are unaccounted for. I am recognizing family members, neighbors and friends in the videos that show the RSF gloating over the people that they have killed. So many are unaccounted for, and thousands upon thousands are - have been killed only in the first few hours of this incredibly violent escalation of the genocide.
FADEL: You call it a genocide. The U.S. has determined that this is a genocide being committed by the RSF in Darfur. Why is this moment such a pivotal moment for civilians?
MAHMOUD: This is our Srebrenica moment. Just like the siege of Sarajevo, which was happening in the view of the entire world for four years before the world finally intervened, this is the moment where if no one intervenes, there will be no one left to save. Anyone who is met by the RSF - the RSF goes house to house. And anyone that they see, they kill - men, women and children. There are entire families hanging from trees. There are ditches full of our family members' mass graves. And what's so harrowing about this is that not only is this being allowed to continue, but it's being livestreamed by the perpetrators themselves because they understand that they can act with impunity. What happens next is that El Fasher is the gateway to the rest of Sudan. So the reason that this moment is so pivotal is because this is a turning point that can throw the entire country back into war, into a greater war than we are already facing.
FADEL: This is the biggest humanitarian crisis on the planet, and yet it feels like there's been a muted international response and nothing has stopped this violence. Why?
MAHMOUD: A lot of people don't understand what's happening in Sudan. It has been misconstrued as a civil war, but I can tell you, no civilians call what's happening in Sudan a civil war. It is an escalation of the Darfur genocide, and it is a proxy war involving some of the richest countries in the world. The RSF is supported by the UAE. It's very well documented. And the SAF is mainly supported by Saudi Arabia and also Egypt, Iran, Russia and Turkey. And then the - on the RSF side, there were also Ukrainian special forces that were fighting because Russia was on the other side. And now we even have Colombian mercenaries on the ground in Sudan. If I told you that there was a proxy war that involved several of the richest nations in the world and that the most consequential of them were U.S. allies, and that the U.S. could intervene, that the U.N. could intervene, that the U.K. could say something, the AU could say something but everyone turns away, would you believe me? Would you believe that this is something that's happening in 2025? All of the people in power - our governments - understand this. But there is no political incentive to do something.
FADEL: El Fasher is a place that you remember before a time of violence. Is there anything right now that gives you hope?
MAHMOUD: The thing that gives me hope in this moment is that there are people actually saying Darfur. I see people in Gaza standing in solidarity. I see people in Ukraine telling me that this is what happened to them as well. For those of us dealing with all of these crises, none of us are free until all of us are free. A step forward for anywhere that is suffering right now is a step forward for all of humanity. And I think that if you believe that people should have three meals a day, if you believe that women and girls should be safe, if you believe that little boys can grow up, then you believe that the Darfur genocide should end and that the proxy war in Sudan should end as well. There are still people left in El Fasher that are being killed, but there are hundreds of thousands that we can save if we act now.
FADEL: Emi Mahmoud is a poet and humanitarian from Sudan's Darfur region. Thank you, Emi, for your time and for sharing with us this - in this terrible moment.
MAHMOUD: Thank you so much.
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