A group of women have issued a declaration calling for an immediate end to violence in their country, and demanded their full inclusion in peace processes meant to silence guns.
Women and children have faced the brunt of the war that broke out in 2023 in Sudan, as rape orgies and malnutrition have punctuated the scourge of violence between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
And those who survived have said the world needs to stop the war and save the vulnerable and their generations. They gathered in Kigali this week in a workshop conducted in partnership with the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) and Aegis Trust. The gathering included Sudanese survivors of the war.
They voiced concerns at the meeting convened by the United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu.
Their statement on Thursday underscored the critical importance of women's equal and effective participation across all aspects of peace negotiations and prevention initiatives, and their role in combating hate speech and preventing incitement to violence.
So far, mediation efforts in Sudan, which have all failed to lead to ceasefire, have not included women.
Instead, mediators have targeted the leaders of SAF and RSF, all men, to seek their agreement on ceasefire and reopening of humanitarian corridors. A third track of civilian movements has also tried to influence the warring factions, but it is also predominantly male-led.
The weeklong gathering in Kigali included an international conference on ethnicity and prevention, all aimed at advancing practical solutions to some of the most complex challenges in the field of genocide prevention with emphasis on immediate implementation from grassroots.
“These events represent a major milestone in our ongoing work to honour the memory of past genocides and build a more peaceful future,” said Ms Nderitu.
"By bringing together experts, survivors, and advocates from around the world, we have taken critical steps toward further developing the tools and strategies needed to prevent genocide and towards identifying solutions to make prevention a reality.”
The choice of Rwanda is of course significant because it survived a genocide in 1994, and has lived to warn every warmonger across the continent of the danger of ethnic cleansing.
Sudan’s war hasn’t reached genocide levels yet but experts from the UN have recently found credible evidence of war crimes including ethnic cleansing, forced deportations, rape, torture and murder committed by both warring factions. Such crimes often signal a warpath for worse things like genocide.
“We’ve identified practical steps forward to enhance our ability to prevent genocide by strengthening our fight against incitement; refining our tools to mediate in contexts where the risk of commission of genocide and related crimes is all too real and sharpening our policy toolkit to prevent ethnic-based violence,” she noted.
Rwanda’s Minister for National Unity and Civic Engagement Jean-Damascene Bizimana, decried the rise of genocide negation and denial as threats to truth and reconciliation.
