“Silence is complicity, trade is betrayal”: Sudan protest demands Canadian government cut ties with UAE over war crimes in Sudan
Published in Antler River Media Co-op
(*Artwork by Incé Husain)
Free the people, free the land, we demand a free Sudan!
UAE you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!
On November 1st, Londoners gathered at Victoria Park to protest genocide, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes by state violence in Sudan. Chants, speeches, and banners educated the public about current violence in Sudan and its historical roots.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been scarred by warfare between Sudan’s national army, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). A September 2025 UN report titled A War of Atrocities states:
The RSF…committed myriad crimes against humanity, including murder, torture, enslavement, rape, sexual slavery, sexual violence, forced displacement and persecution on ethnic, gender and political grounds. The RSF and its allies used starvation as a method of warfare and deprived civilians of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, medicine and relief supplies - which may amount to the crime against humanity of extermination.
A January 2024 UN report deemed it credible that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) supplies military support to the RSF. SAF Lieutenant-General Yasir al-Atta accused the UAE of militarily aiding the RSF, and the UN report substantiated sources in Chad and Darfur that weapons and ammunition shipments arrived from cargo planes to Chad and were shipped in trucks to the RSF. In July 2024, the Guardian further reported that Emirati passports were found in Sudan, implying that the UAE was also sending soldiers to fight alongside the RSF. Sudan accused the UAE of complicity in genocide for its alliance with the RSF at the International Court of Justice in April 2025, but the Court said it “lacked jurisdiction” because the UAE opted out of Article 9 of the Genocide Convention upon signing, which allows states to submit genocide investigations about other states to the Court.
The SAF, led by military commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the RSF, led by military officer Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo “Hemedti”, were once allied. In 2019, they overthrew the thirty-year rule of Sudan’s head of state, Omar al-Bashir, in a coup d’état that rode the wave of a people’s revolution. Tensions rose as al-Burhan sought to integrate the RSF into Sudan’s national army, which Hemedti refused. In April 2023, explosions and gunfire rocked Sudan, with each group claiming the other had struck first. Since then, both groups have been violently conquering territory in Sudan to seize control. Fourteen million people have been displaced, an estimated 20,000 to 150,000 people have been killed, hospitals and schools have been destroyed, and farmlands have been devastated, pushing 24.6 million people to acute food insecurity in the world’s “most extreme hunger crisis” according to statistics from 2025. The scale of the atrocities is so severe that the massacres are visible from space as of last week, with blood and discolored pools of human bodies marking satellite images. Civilians are targeted by both RSF and SAF for perceived political alignment with the other group.
“With heavy hearts, because our beloved Sudan is bleeding and the world can no longer stay silent, the world can no longer look away,” a Sudanese community member addressed the crowd of London protesters. “For over two years, the people of Sudan have endured a nightmare… Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the Sudanese Armed Forces, and Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo ‘Hemedti’, leader of the Rapid Support Forces, pulled their guns not only on each other but on their own people…This is a war on civilians.”
The RSF grew from the Janjaweed, an Arab paramilitia group in Sudan that al-Bashir allied with to quell rebellion by non-Arab Sudanese communities in the early 2000s. The Arab Sudanese-majority government neglected African Sudanese communities, preferentially distributing wealth to Sudanese Arabs and marginalizing African identities. While quelling the African rebellion, the Janjaweed committed ethnic cleansing campaigns against Fur, Masalit, and other non-Arab communities in Darfur between 2003 and 2005. The International Criminal Court issued two arrest warrants for al-Bashir on charges of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in 2009 and 2010. Janjaweed commander Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman was convicted by the International Criminal Court earlier this month for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur two decades past. The RSF continues to target non-Arab communities in Sudan today, including the Zaghawa, Fur, Masalit, and Tunjur.
“Hemedti’s RSF, borne from the Janjaweed militias, now carry that same fire of genocide and ethnic cleansing across Sudan,” said the Sudanese speaker, describing the el-Fasher massacre that killed over 1,500 people on October 28th. “After five hundred days of siege, the RSF seized el-Fasher, the last major city to resist. What followed was a massacre. Satellite images and witnesses show bodies piled in the streets. Entire neighborhoods cleared house by house, and civilians executed because of their ethnicity or tribe. Those who survived fled to Tawila, already home to over 650,000 displaced people, now trapped by hunger and disease. In Bara, homes were looted, civilians murdered, and even Red Crescent volunteers were killed while distributing food. This is not a war. This is genocide and ethnic cleansing, a coordinated campaign to erase entire communities across Sudan.”
Nidal Mohamed, a Sudanese youth living in London, said the past few days were some of the scariest for her family.
“We’re terrified that our relatives in Darfur could be next. Showing up felt like the bare minimum we could do for those who have lost their lives in the most horrific ways imaginable. There are so many global issues right now, and Sudan is one of them — but it’s not getting the attention it deserves. We’re losing generations of culture, traditions, and history. Most of all, we’re losing what makes Sudan Sudan — the 1,500 and counting men, women, and children who have been killed.”
Canadian weaponry was used by the RSF in el-Fasher. CJPME reports that Canada’s millions of dollars worth of arms exports to the UAE may be diverted to the RSF, despite the Canadian government stating that it would respect military sanctions related to Sudan. Canadian weaponry may also be reaching the RSF through the US, which can ship Canadian weapons to the UAE. Two days after the el-Fasher massacre, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand refrained from commenting directly on Canadian weapons in Sudan. She merely stated that violations of Canada’s arms export controls are “closely monitored and enforced.”
“Canada cannot pretend innocence. If Canadian weapons or exports reach the UAE knowing that those arms are being re-exported to Sudan, then Canada is complicit. We demand immediate suspension of all Canadian military exports to the UAE,” said the Sudanese speaker. “For transparency and accountability, Canada must publish all export records and investigate any Canadian-made equipment found in Sudan. Canada cannot claim to stand for human rights while arming those who destroy them. Silence is complicity, trade is betrayal.”
Sudan’s abundance in gold is also fuelling the war. In 2024, Sudan produced a record 64 tonnes of gold, with the SAF and the RSF competing for control of the mines and using its exports to fund their warfare. Most of Sudan’s gold reaches the UAE, smuggled by the RSF. The SAF has pursued gold exports to Egypt, Qatar, Türkiye, and offered Russia and China opportunities to invest in Sudanese gold. The UAE and Russia co-manage the Kush mine, the largest gold producer in Sudan. In 2021, Canadian mining company Orca Gold made plans to construct a gold mine to the north of Khartoum.
“If you’re not angry about what you’re seeing in the world right now, you’re simply not paying attention,” said Mohamed. “And if you see it and still don’t care — or don’t see how it affects you — then maybe your biggest problem isn’t what you’re eating for dinner later today.”
An April 2025 report by Amnesty International detailed accounts and impacts of gang rape, sexual slavery, and sexual assaults by the RSF and the SAF. One survivor said: “I don’t want to see RSF ever in my life. I am scared of their brutality; they are heartless and have humiliated me enough. I am not planning to return to Sudan again.”
Another spoke to the gender-based nature of violence in Sudan. “Women are not leading or participating in this war, but it is women who are suffering the most. I want the whole world to know about the suffering of Sudanese women and girls and ensure that all the bad men who raped us are punished.”
“Their bodies were turned into battlefields to break them and silence their resistance,” the Sudanese speaker spoke of the sexual violence. “To every survivor — we see you, we hear you, your pain will not be hidden, your stories will not be buried. Justice must come for Hemedti, to every hand that has armed and funded his forces.”
The protesters held Sudanese flags and posters filled with statistics:
In 48 hours, 2,000 killed; 1,650 hospital murders; 28,000 displaced; 166,000 besieged; This is ETHNIC CLEANSING.
Two years of war in Sudan: The largest humanitarian, hunger, displacement, and education crises globally.
UAE: Masterminds of genocide in Sudan
Many protesters wore keffiyehs, echoing the chants that connected Sudan to Palestine:
From Gaza to Darfur, stop the killing, stop the war!
From Sudan to Palestine, occupation is a crime!
As passing cars along the street honked in support of the rally, protesters handed out information leaflets titled Sudan: A War on Civilians that provided an overview of Sudan’s conflict, human rights crisis, current news, and calls to demand an end to Canadian complicity. They also shared an el-Fasher emergency appeal donation page raising funds for food, shelter, and clean water to Sudan.
“This is not a distant war, this is a test of humanity, and we will not fail it, we will not be silent, we will not be complicit,” said the Sudanese speaker. “We will not stop until justice comes to Sudan, until every displaced family finds safety, until every child can dream again, until Sudan lives again.” ♦
A Sudanese community member was consulted about the terminology used in this article prior to its publication to ensure respectful coverage.
A version of this article appeared in The Antler River Media Co-op on November 7th, 2025: