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The United Nations has repeatedly warned that Sudan has become the world’s largest displacement crisis, with more than 10 million people uprooted across the country. But it took the horrific massacre in El-Fasher last month, to finally draw attention to a war that many have forgotten. Why has the world looked away from Sudan? And what might change, if global attention finally turned toward its people? On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with H.E. Hassan Abdelsalam Omer, Ambassador of the Republic of Sudan to Malaysia.
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00:00hello and good evening i'm melissa idris welcome to consider this this is the show where we want
00:16you to consider and then you consider what you know of the news of the day the united nations
00:21has repeatedly warned that sudan has become the world's largest displacement crisis with more
00:28than 10 million people uprooted across the country but it took the horrific massacre in al fascia last
00:35month to finally draw attention to a war that the world has forgotten why has the world looked away
00:42from sudan and what might change if global attention finally turned towards its people joining me on the
00:49show today is his excellency hassan abdulsalam umar who is the ambassador of the republic of sudan to
00:56malaysia ambassador hassan welcome to the show thank you so much for joining me today so the war
01:01in sudan has been ongoing since april 2023 so now in its third year can you maybe begin our conversation
01:09today describing the situation on the ground for the ordinary sudanese thank you very much for having me
01:18and actually the situation and i will start with the little fascia because this is the last which
01:24attract the attention of the world to the disasters unfolding in sudan which has been going on for
01:30quite uh as you said three years and right now and resulted in the widest uh displacement uh
01:36humanitarian disaster in the world but what happened in the fascia was completely different it take uh
01:44move everything to a new stage because it was uh humanitarian disasters and a catastrophe by all means crime
01:51against the citizens and uh the innocent uh children and it is a stain on the conscience of the uh world
02:02fascia has been in a siege for almost one year and a half for almost 500 days where quadramillion
02:10of uh the uh citizens of the fascia were trapped without food without medicine and without the safe message
02:18uh to flee uh the daily shelling by the rsf and bombardments and this is continue and on uh when the rsf
02:31entered the city it has the situation changed it is from a siege or besieged city into a slaughter city
02:39uh in uh one day uh there was about one thousand five hundred that has been killed in al fascia hospitals and
02:50uh one of the darkest crime was the attack on the maternity hospital of uh saudi maternity hospital
02:57where a 550 uh patient uh uh mother newborn uh uh medical workers had been killed in a cold uh blood
03:12this buttons is not new and when you ask me about what is happening in sudan in general since the war
03:18this has been uh the situation it is uh the same uh crimes have been committed in different parts
03:26of sudan but what distinguished what happened in al fascia is the scale and the scale of the atrocity
03:33and the grossing even the um they themselves are not uh shying of their crime they are boosting by
03:41taking and recording while they're killing women and children and ma and digging mass graves
03:48um so the humanitarian situation is really appalling uh right now in uh fascia even after there is um
03:55the uh there is no uh hospitals uh completely out of work uh medication uh people are the brink of
04:04starvation according to the uh world food uh program and uh rape women are raped uh family are killed while
04:14they're trying to escape the city the more safer now we have a large refugee camps in areas next uh near to
04:21the fascia like to wheeler and uh in dabba in the northern part of sudan and some areas in so no aid is
04:30able to go into these the rsf controlled areas at all that's right because at the beginning while they were
04:37besieging the city they used starvation and preventing the aid from entering the fascia and they're using
04:45uh starvation as a weapon of the war and uh sudan government had accepted the uh proposal from the
04:54united uh nation secretary general of truce for three days to enter food for the besieged fascia uh this
05:03is in june i remember and but the rsf refused to that and continue preventing uh or allowing uh unhindered
05:12assistance and at the same time looting uh this is not of uh not looting and uh uh making it difficult
05:20for uh its worker does your government um fully understand uh what happened in a fascia or are
05:27the investigations still ongoing i'm just wondering after 500 or so days of uh intense conflict of
05:34violence there what was the what triggered the horrific massacre that happened um late last month
05:43what part of it was heroic stand of the fascia people they defended the city heroically uh for
05:50almost 500 days and despite the decision of the united nations and 2736 if i remember very well of
05:59lifting the uh siege still the rsf refused and they built a biram around the city and they started
06:08preventing anybody whoever tried to get out of this uh massacre they killed them and mass graves has been
06:16documented and uh uh mass killing and all this is uh has been documented uh through witnesses and by
06:25satellite imagery uh yeah we all saw the google image of blood on the ground we could see that's
06:32right yeah so the situation is really uh it's really a big heinous heinous uh crime uh what uh committed
06:40and this was happening in front of uh the uh eyes of the world the view of the world this is not
06:49something unpredictable it is not something unpreventable but it happened and was because of the inaction
06:56of the international community right so the the war in sudan has often been portrayed as a conflict
07:05between two warring i mean most news headlines frame it as a civil war how do you see it are you do you
07:15accept that that that label that description of what is happening in sudan actually that's a very
07:21simplistic uh portrayal and uh this is maybe part of why the international media really had uh ignored
07:29what is going on this one element that is it is a situation in uh the reason behind this was very complex
07:37and um some of the media outlets they want the simple lines like uh for example um has been always a
07:44question why sudan war has been ignored comparing to what's happened in uh ukraine and gaza actually
07:53the war in sudan uh broke out maybe a few months after what happened in ukraine and in in gaza but at
08:02the same that means it's to some extent that was overshadowed but another reason because
08:08sudan was not in the center of the western uh interest uh it is not there is no natu there is no european or
08:18american soldier fighting in that region and after all it is africa has always always have been in the
08:25periphery of international media and this is maybe one of the reasons so the portrayal of this uh uh what's
08:35happening in sudan as being uh struggle between two generals or it is a civil war it is just a very
08:42simplistic because it ignore what happened exactly and ignore the history of the rsf and this has been
08:50going on and it also ignore the uh regional uh agenda and international agenda in dividing uh sudan and
09:02weakening the uh the country uh to appropriate its uh resources and we always have to look in what
09:11uh happening in sudan in the wider context we have to relate it to what is happening in gaza we have to
09:18relate it to what's happening in libya we have to relate it to what's happening in yemen we have to relate
09:23it to what's happening in syria and to ask ourselves a question why this is happening
09:28what right now there is a strong there is a attempt to uh replicate the libyan uh example this is a may
09:39give you idea why the why they insistent to take over al-fasher at that time because by taking al-fasher
09:47that means it gave control to uh the rsf in the whole therefore region and that's been and now they
09:54already declared what they call it the parallel uh government and uh this has been condemned by all
10:01uh under the u.n by africa union and by all neighboring countries that is they do not want to have this
10:08but again i as i can see that everything everybody can see it this is an attempt to replicate the same
10:16libyan model of the two uh government one state no peace one uh one and two government the
10:24same thing what is happening in uh our brothers in yemen two states uh and no peace and a continuous
10:33instability in the countries this is need to be repeated in sudan and uh but we as sudanese
10:40people will stand firm again it is because what we are facing right now in sudan and what is at stake
10:45is really our uh existence our sovereignty our dignity ambassador who who stands to benefit from a
10:54divided sudan a weakened sudan that is a lot uh just look at who is benefiting from dividing libya look
11:05who's been benefiting from dividing yemen and who's benefiting from are we not naming any names
11:13right now the main backers of the rsf and which sudan repeatedly mentioned was the united arab emirates
11:20uh unfortunately and uh we uh lodged a number of complaints we had already complained about this
11:28uh in the u.n to the u.n okay and we had it uh lodged it to the uh uh international uh justice uh court of
11:36justice and we will continue our legal fight to take their perpetrators and hold them accountable but
11:45definitely uh the uh united arab emirates though they have their own agenda in sudan they're also
11:53doing it as a proxy to uh other uh interest so we need to ask ourselves who is behind the uh uh abraham
12:03project so who stands to to benefit definitely so the uae has rejected those accusations although i do
12:12know that an expert panel appointed by the u.n security council um said that they were credible uh
12:18last year that's true in the first report of the uh panel it's clearly uh documented uh evidence and
12:26also the same thing uh many others um sources credible sources whether intelligence or uh investigative
12:34journalists like what's in the wall street journal the guardian uh laumont all of them
12:41uh documented the uh uh travels and the uh cargoes that is shipped from different uh uh part of the world
12:49to uh uh airport in chad and uh the activities and the involvement of the uh united arab emirates even
13:00in recruiting uh missionary from all over the world from colombia the uh president of colombia he himself
13:07came out and apologized for sudanese people for the involvement and promise of investigation
13:14ambassador how does that complicate the conflict if there is indeed um foreign intervention or foreign
13:22interference into um the the war in sudan how does it complicate matters in achieving maybe peace because
13:31i understand there was a ceasefire that was agreed to uh last week by um the rsf and it was a proposal
13:39by the u.s and some um arab partners so does that does it complicate matters how do we think this through
13:49if in fact there is foreign involvement yet they are the one saying calling for a ceasefire or negotiating a
13:55ceasefire talk to me about the dynamics at playa thank you very much for this uh question i think it
14:02is very important because it gives me the chance to uh express and uh explain the sudan position as far
14:10as the quad yeah i think you are referring to the quad which is uh the united states uh egypt
14:17saudi arab arab america and united uh arab emirates actually uh sudan has been always open for uh mediations
14:26and for reaching a lasting uh base that's in end this uh ugly war uh in sudan but uh definitely we have a
14:36number of uh reservations and we are reluctant to accept the current uh or this um um uh proposal of truth
14:46in its current uh form uh for a number of reasons first of all the we believe that is the uh involvement
14:53of the united arab emirate or being a member of the quad uh compromise in the process because it is uh
15:01partial and it is well known supporters and backers of the rsf so we believe uh the uh united arab emirate
15:10it is a part of the problem and cannot be part of the solution uh secondly um we already accepted we
15:20have a long history since jeddah declaration accepted truth during uh more than six times
15:28accepted the proposed truth in within the framework of jeddah declaration and jeddah forum
15:34um but always has been violated by the rsf so there is no uh trust with no trust that is the rsf will uh
15:44honor any uh agreements such that like that especially if there is no mechanisms uh clearly uh put in the
15:52ground to monitor and to make sure that is there will be no violation uh to uh this secondly uh sudan
16:00government clearly stated that is any truth must include the uh withdrawal of the rsf uh from uh civil
16:11objects civil uh sites uh evacuate uh civilian homes and uh without that it's not gonna be uh a real truth
16:24on on on the opposite uh we are really worried that is any agreement especially right now after the
16:31takeover of the fasher uh is going to entrench the division of the country and will give the rsf uh
16:41legitimize their occupations and will give them a break to uh refuel and rebuild and regroup and to
16:49restart again uh their attacks uh we believe that is this is not acceptable at all um any uh truth it
16:57has to be uh conditional it has to uh address the aspiration of uh the sudanese people uh in uh
17:06their uh in transformation and continuing the democratic transformation and it has to be based on
17:13uh on the uh political map that is uh proposed by sudan government which include uh comprehensive uh
17:21dialogue national dialogue that includes all uh sudanese political party to decide the futures
17:29of the country for sudanese after all these crimes and atrocities they need any peace it has to hold
17:39the uh rsf accountable for their uh crime uh without that without justice i think this is not gonna we're
17:47not gonna reach to uh uh final and a lasting uh peace this generally in in brief uh what we our reservation
17:58as far as the timing is lee is really uh something that is we need to consider because we propose and we
18:06accepted many uh humanitarian truths but it has been uh rejected reviews and now after the rsf took
18:15uh fashion okay so you think the timing is suspect very very it is it has to be looked at uh very cautiously
18:24okay so um where do we go from here is there a path forward for peace ambassador that um recently the
18:33malaysian government said that it was considering calls for malaysia to play a mediating role um in
18:40peace deficit peace efforts in sudan i'm just wondering whether you think malaysia could realistically
18:46help and um many people are wondering why would malaysia step in but um apparently malaysia has
18:53significant investments um and interests in your country so it has become somewhat of a national interest
19:00for us as well um what is sudan's view of malaysia's potential role in this actually uh as i said and
19:08in my answer about the uh how the involvement of uh united arab emirate in the peace mediation is
19:16compromising the situation the answer in that uh part because we believe malaysia has no ulterior motives
19:25in sudan and it is neutral uh just like as we will come to qatar as we will come turkey as uh we definitely
19:33welcome uh malaysia to be part of any uh principled uh peace uh mediation in sudan and uh we believe that
19:45is like we have um actually let me say that's like what is happening right now in sudan is really uh
19:52uh uh it's carrying many uh messages and it is a test to our shared value as a muslim umma as a
20:06world for all those peace loving uh nation and individual around the world it it tests our
20:14uh our um shared value as far as compassion as far as justice as far as peace uh our humanity and uh
20:24may really uh we look to malaysia as a partner we are not looking for a pity really uh even from our
20:32uh brothers here in malaysia we are looking for partnership for solidarity as being part of uh one uh human uh
20:39uh uh society and at the same time as part of the islamic umma so solidarity and uh is very important
20:48we look for you guys to help us rebuilding our country we want uh malaysia to help us uh uh build
20:55our hospital we want our hezbo from malaysia to uh learn from uh the malaysia model of uh tolerance of
21:04living together as three uh almost uh nations uh living in one country in one piece and uh in harmony
21:14oh that's what we learn we already have uh i need to mention this we have 5 500 students we want you
21:21to train our students we want them because this is a human resource that is we are looking for them to
21:28rebuild the country when things back get back to normal so you mentioned wanting solidarity with the
21:36world do you does does sudan feel that the international community has abandoned it well i can tell you we
21:45are standing alone and we get used to this this is uh not uh something new um uh this is a moral
21:56failure and you can see it in the pledge of the international community the need for relief
22:05maybe like last time it was about almost like uh four trillion or something like that what has been
22:10subscribed or pledge uh was less less far less than what is uh needed um the you mentioned already the
22:20media coverage there is no uh coverage to what is happening in sudan if uh i mean like it is not just
22:30because uh it is happening in africa that is make it less or uh the child killed in uh in uh kiev or in gaza
22:41is different from a child killed in uh al fasher but this is our reality we need some time really to look
22:50uh for uh for uh for ourself for our community for people who share the same values uh look for their
22:58support uh still we are counting on the international community to wake up and to see what is going on
23:05so in the minute or two that i have left ambassador thank you for the people who do not understand the
23:12scale of this war and its impact what would you like our audience tonight to know about sudan and
23:19what is at stake if we don't pay attention uh let us start by what is at stake for us as the sudanese
23:29what is for uh stake uh for us as sudanese is the very existence of a nation uh very existence of a
23:38country and it is sovereignty and it is integrity and integrity integral uh integrity of this tutorial
23:46sudan used to be one of the largest country in africa it's a long history from koshite to nubian
23:53to the modern history we had played a large and big role uh in our continent the sixth in the war
24:01against israel sudanese contributed a lot they are open their uh airport for and we become an extension
24:08strategic extension to our brothers in egypt we uh khartoum was famous of it is uh three no's no compromise
24:17no uh uh reconcile and no agreement that's right uh we supported uh the uh the struggle of our brother
24:26in south africa against apartheid i can say a long list of what is sudanese and it is really painful
24:36to find that we are fighting right now our fight alone um what is a mistake for the whole world it
24:44is uh the threat to peace what is happening in sudan is definitely is gonna as uh its impact on the whole
24:52region it's gonna impact uh sudan is surrounded by almost uh six seven um countries and uh definitely
25:00uh this is gonna spell over uh to our neighboring country and already flamed like if you look at
25:07central africa chad uh ethiopia uh all this region and libya uh all this region has already inflamed
25:17and uh what's happening in sudan is definitely if not contained it's gonna affect the whole uh region
25:23and definitely the international peace it's gonna affect international trade and the red sea
25:28there is a very important uh seaway for the international trade and um definitely it is part
25:35of the reason why even uh some other countries they have their interest in and greed in what is sudan
25:44so there is a lot in the stick it is there is a mistake uh for us as um sudanese and malaysian who
25:50uh peace loving and it is the same value that is malaysia uh fought for supporting other people to
25:59achieve peace in their country lastly recently what is uh malaysia did as far as uh brokering the
26:06peace in cambodia and thailand we want this this is what we know malaysian and this is what malaysian
26:13stands for ambassador thank you for your time thank you for coming on the show and telling us more about
26:20what's happening back home thank you very much for shedding a light and on what is happening in
26:25sudan and uh thank you for having me that's all the time we have for you on this episode of consider
26:32this i'm melissa idris signing off for the evening thank you so much for watching and good night
26:50thank you
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