 Good morning, good afternoon, and welcome. My name is Susan Stigant, and I am the director of the programs at the Africa Center at the United States Institute of Peace, which was established by the US Congress in 1984 as a national, non-partisan public institution dedicated to helping prevent, mitigate, and resolve conflict abroad. It is my great pleasure to welcome you to the United States Institute of Peace for this virtual public event. Today, we will discuss the devastating crisis in Sudan with a focus on the violence in Darfur, the steps that are already being taken to monitor and document that violence, the steps to prevent and address further atrocities, and the further steps and action that needs to be taken. We are grateful to be joined today by many Sudanese friends, colleagues, and the general public, as well as those from the United States and beyond who have worked in the country in support of the revolution, of the civilian government, and the courageous struggle for peace, freedom, and justice for so many decades. Allow me to acknowledge that this is a topic that is deeply personal for many joining us today. We extend our condolences for those friends, family members, and Sudanese who have been lost in this fight. And we extend our solidarity with those who are seeking safety within or outside the country and working in the most difficult of circumstances to relieve the suffering caused by the war and to silence the guns. For more than 100 days, Sudan has been in war. More than 3 million people have been displaced at the latest count. In many ways, the deaths are uncounted, but some of the latest numbers suggest that well over 10,000 have been killed in Darfur alone. The humanitarian situation is devastating in Khartoum and across other parts of the country, in the border areas for those who are seeking to leave, as well as those who are seeking safety outside. The level, the scale, and the type of violence is in some ways unprecedented, and in other ways echo some of the worst times in Sudan's own history. Indeed, there are multiple efforts to stop the war coming from many capitals across Africa, in the near region and around the world. However, none of those has yet got traction that has succeeded in halting the violence or imagining a path back towards a more stable, peaceful, and free Sudan. Today, we will focus on some of the courageous and innovative work that is taking place to put a spotlight on the consequences of this fighting, as well as the courageous work that's taking place to respond and alleviate the suffering and to ensure that the atrocities and the violence taking place won't spread further. Allow me now to introduce Johara Kanu, who works with USIP's programming in East Africa and leads USIP's programming on nonviolent action in Sudan, to take you through the conversation and introduce our panelists for today. Johara, over to you. Thank you, Susan. Thank you for the introduction and happy to be here today amongst such a distinguished panel. Welcome in all the audience joining us from across the world. As you mentioned, Susan, the ongoing war in Sudan has just crossed its happy day mark. In this period, both the areas witnessing direct fighting and host communities in relatively safer areas have witnessed a huge struggling provision of shelter, food and health services. While it's still challenging to count the casualties, as you mentioned, according to recent stats by the IOM, the number of the displaced across Sudan has risen to more than 2.5 million people in all states, while those who have crossed the border to neighboring countries rose to more than 800,000 people. Both groups displaced in and outside Sudan are severely struggling with relocation and resettlement. Additionally, the widespread violence in Darfur brings back the horrors of the early 2000s. Reports confirm mass atrocities, ethnic-based targeting and extremely dire humanitarian conditions as some of the communities are witnessing a second or even a third round of targeted attacks and displacement. Additionally, in their 100 days of conflict report, the youth conflict observatory network has outlined that the current war has had devastating impact on the social situation in Sudan. Not only has the conflict resulted in widespread displacement, loss of lives and the destruction of homes and communities, it has also deepened social divisions and tensions as different groups are drawn into the conflict. In terms of various actors in the civic space, since the outbreak of the armed conflict between the ASAF and RSF in April 2023, at least two journalists have lost their lives and approximately 75 homes belonging to journalists have been raided and looted. Six journalists have been harassed, tortured and injured. Additionally, 12 media companies were banned from publishing as reported by the Africa Center for Justice and Peace Studies. The situation for human rights monitors and defendants weren't any better as they have been witnessing direct targeting which led to killings, torture and forced exile or disappearance. From different angles, the combating violence against women and children unit monitored 108 cases of sexual violence against women and girls in Khartoum, Niala and Jinenna. Within the first 100 days of the outbreak of the war, with actual numbers forecasted to be much more high. The past period have also witnessed many mediation and political consultation rounds, as you mentioned, Susan, from Jeddah to Addis Ababa, Cairo, Nairobi and even Lomi, leaving many citizens confused about the future of a mediated civil solution. From a different side, the Sudanese civil society on the other end have been coming up with numerous initiatives, latest of which is the declaration of principles of civil actors for ending the war and restoring democracy in Sudan, restoring democracy in Sudan, which was endorsed by 75 civil society buddies. In our discussion today, I'm hoping to engage with some of the existing monitoring and reporting mechanisms, their gaps, challenges and what actions can be taken to move closer towards preventing atrocities. And on the panel today, I'm delighted to hold three distinguished panelists who are at the core of monitoring, reporting and analyzing the ongoing events in Sudan. The first panelist, Mahasin Dahab, Sudan's program manager as the Sudanese Archive, which operates under the umbrella of mnemonic and is led by Sudanese human rights defenders, researchers, lawyers and lobbyists with a primary mission, to document, verify and raise awareness about Sudan's numerous human rights violations through powerful open source methods. My second guest would be Caitlin Hormorth from the Sudan Conflict Observatory, which was officially launched in June and is using commercial satellite imagery and open source data analysis to remote monitoring activities of the war parties. This effort is a collaboration among geographic information system companies, ISRI and PlanetScape AI, as well as the Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab. And last but not least, Koskandia Abdeshafi, a senior regional advisor at Freedom House, with over a decade of experience working on human rights, governance and peace building and atrocity monitoring preparation. Welcome you all and looking forward to a fruitful discussion. I would like to remind our audience who are joining on the both Arabic and English extremes is that it's okay to post questions in Arabic. Our team is ready to provide translation both ways. So, Mahasin, many traditional sources like TV and radio stations, newspapers and international media agencies are unable to access credible data. The Sudanese archive is verifying open source monitoring data and amplifying voices from across Sudan. What stands out in the reporting in terms of violence and mass atrocities that are taking place? Thank you, Johara. Hello to everyone who are joining. So in the archive, we understand that we are not chasing rules. We are human rights fact funders. We know that the digital archive we are hosting on Sudan presents personal, cultural and emotional value. In addition, we understand that the digital archives using the digital archives contain evidence that could potentially be used to pursue in the pursuit of justice and accountability. The reporting by the Sudanese archive stands out this unique focus on verifying open source data and amplifying voices from across Sudan. The process employed by us involved meticulous verification techniques and ensures the credibility and accuracy of the information you present. This approach is crucial in the context where traditional sources often struggle to access reliable data. For us throughout the past months since the beginning of the war, we have noticed some patterns that are prevailing across Sudan. Those patterns are destruction of predicted civilian infrastructure, forced migration, GBV, forced marriage, looting and ethnocentric speech. We have also been noticing huge patterns of networks that are working specifically to distribute misinformation and misinformation on the Sudanese sideline. Thank you. Thank you, Mahasse. And Caitlin, since you also use open source and satellite imagery, and since it's launching on the 9th of June, the Sudan Conflict Observatory has published five situational reports that drive the destruction of infrastructure, mobility, fire events and population movements through open source satellite imagery. The Sudan Conflict Observatory has also recently issued the report with special focus on the region of therefore. Based on your monitoring, are there any highlights that you could share? Certainly, and thank you so much for having me today, especially with Mahasse and Aquskondi. There are a number of things that we've been working on. Usually there's so much that we're investigating behind the scenes. I hope that people understand that what we're able to publish is usually just a fraction of the material that we're gathering at any one time. I know that's also something that Mahasse also deals with with the archive, the amount of material that is present through open source versus the amount that we're able to verify and confirm is usually very disparate. What we are currently working on and I'm happy to be able to share with you all today, we're about to release a new report that will focus on the events in Khatum from the 15th forward and basically at the beginning of the current conflict on work that will parallel the report that we issued on Darfur. I think that what is important to note in these reports is that we're trying to, obviously our Sudan work is a bit distinct from the work that this team also does on Ukraine. In Ukraine, we also focus on longer-term trends and Sudan, we're trying to stay at the pace of the current conflict and at events. That's a challenging job for our team to do since they're working really around the clock in order to try and keep pace but it also speaks to the tempo of destruction and the taking of life that is happening. The sheer speed with which events are moving on the ground is really critical and something that I'm gonna come back to over the course of our discussion today because it's important for us not only to understand that there are some very specific aspects to this conflict and to how the perpetrators of it are trying to impact the lives of civilians in certain areas, certain ethnic groups and how they're trying to make sure that they're able to move the pieces as quickly as they can and shape dynamics as rapidly as possible before other actors might be able to step in. Over. Thank you, Katelyn. Can you share some of these trends and highlights that you've been referring to, that you've been witnessing throughout your work in the past two months? Certainly. So among the things that we've seen, we've looked at the, for example, the strong use of air power by Sudanese armed forces, particularly in across the two states that has been one of their primary modalities is to use the air power that they have to try and rest control back from RSF and NITSOLI forces wherever they can. There's also been some pretty compelling evidence that we've been able to demonstrate and this has been in our last report on Darfur where we showed the wholesale destruction of at least what we were able to document 26 villages and in several cases, going into cities. That, of course, just over the past week, we've been able to document multiple additional. So if we were to update that report and put out more today, we'd probably be adding somewhere between four to six additional locations with the same level of massive destruction, massive raising of villages, of homes, the wholesale destruction of means of supporting civilian life. That's the kind of thing where, especially in communities that are majority non-Arab, that's the kind of thing that is incredibly important to be keeping track of, especially given how highly concentrated those efforts are to move in a systematic and widespread manner. And I think it's important to note that we at least have found at Yale Humanitarian that this is consistent with crimes against humanity. Now, I do want to note that that is a finding that for us, our job is not to be lawyers on this. We are, our job is to find the data and to collect the evidence and present it in a manner that lawyers can use to then reach a legal determination. But it is crucial to appreciate that right now, there's a, you know, in terms of the type of action that needs to be taken, the level of attention that is due to this conflict overall, the, and especially the type of humanitarian intervention that is needed for civilian protection. We believe that the responsibility to act is clear and it's quite manifest in all of the data and all of the findings that have been put out by any number of actors, not just us. Thank you, thank you, Katelyn. And I second your point on the fact that we're all like different parts of the building blocks and hoping that this platform and others would serve as a stepping stone to next steps that are going to be taken by other people, maybe specialized in law or other domains in order to at least go back in track of achieving justice. Kuskandi, you've been a while in the scene, you've been quite active and you've been following events since the early days of the crisis in Darfur in the early 2000s. You've also worked specifically on atrocity prevention and justice related to Darfur. What are you listening for and tracking in the monitoring, reporting on stories that are the warning signs and triggers for mass atrocities? Thanks, hi, everyone. And thank you, Yohara, for the question. Thanks, audience, for turning in today. Really good to catch up on a very sensitive but also timely events that are taking place and so on. As you say, Yohara, Freedom House is being supporting civil society in different aspects, including providing them grants but supporting also through advocacy, criminalized documentation. And as a result, one of our partners, the GISA and the Sudan archival here, and this is something that we are kind of been doing in the past many years. I think with regard to question of what are the risks to the atrocities based on the information coming from our partners but also as a person from Darfur, who also personally follow this to what's happening to people so close to me personally, I think there is high risk for the atrocities and not only just mass atrocities of all different kinds in Darfur at this moment. And this is coming in from how do the conflict in Khartoum transpire in Darfur in a different ways. And I think the look in the conflict trends in Khartoum doesn't give you a deep understanding of the dynamics to place in Darfur. And this is kind of showing the risk of the mass atrocities in several key points. The risky point is the absence of the legitimate government. In Darfur, the major actor now is R.S.F. The rapid support force controls almost 90% of the region. That includes the largest cities, but also all the space between it's in Chadi and Bordei in Al-Junaina, all the way to Kass. And this shows that there is, where the state institutions have been destroyed, there is no any systemic ways to replace some sort of systems to act into the service security of the people. The most of the people in those zones are hostage to R.S.F. No communication, no transport. And this is not only direct killing, but an intentional indirect killing by mass starvation. So the targeting of the hospital, medical facilities, targeting and looting of the markets and food stores, these are kind of destroying the means of survival of the community. And what that prepares in now and coming months is mass death and starvation. The second risk of the atrocity is the history. The conflict, if you see the map of the conflict in the cities, from Al-Junaina, Zalingi, Kass, Kutum, Kababia, shows, if you see the UN Security, UN Enquiry, Commission of Enquiry reporting 2005, 2006, that referred in the Darfur case to ICC through the UN Security Council, it follows the same map, the current conflict follows the same map. The systemic targeting, as Caitlin says, from rapid support force to their victims that are defined as ethnic tribes for African origin, such as Masalit in West Darfur, Ful and the Gawas in the North. And I think the main targeting directed to this ethnic, meaning that the conflict in Khartoum doesn't have that aspect very strongly as it has in Darfur. The history of the mass atrocities that happened in 2003 and the current map that connects the same and the impunity lack of accountability and justice that have never happened in Darfur case, not even in the ICC, the case even that is still pending. So I think the risk of the impunity lack of accountability, history of the atrocities, create additional scenarios that mass atrocities that are happening in a Junaena, but also in cities like Mourney, are going to expand to other regions if actions is not taken as soon as possible. The other risk is no communication. So all of these people are hostage. So the outside world doesn't know that the initiatives that are taken by the observatory by Caitlin is very helpful and very useful. And I think it needs also a local on the ground timely information to be able to connect the dots to further create an evidence for an action. And that's why the lack of the information and the absence of the direct and immediate information create additional risks that for instance, when the things happens mostly in some of the areas, the information comes up the two weeks, which is too late to react on, which is you'd also have lack of information on what happens in that two weeks before because the routes are blocked, the communication are blocked and it's very difficult to move from place to place. So that those are very much risk and there are several triggers that can further complicate the situation. Over. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Kendi, for shedding light on the events that have been taking place in Darfur. Now, and 20 years ago, on the similarities that are somewhat striking that the same things are happening over and over again, even more this time around. Mahasin, following up on the conversation, in this dynamic of conflict, we are seeing a lot of misinformation and disinformation. How can Sudanese and Zos joining us from Washington or other places around the world distinguish between credible information and women? Thank you, Johara. So I am in the dynamic of this conflict, I think the weapon of social media has been used by both conflicting parties and also in our culture in Sudan. We do have certain patterns of studies and spreading this information across easily. So my first... I'm going to do a very brief technical of how we do it in the Sudanese archive. But also, I want to say first that we need to alter our biases, especially if you are Sudanese and you're working on Sudan. It's very easy for us as human rights defenders of humans that are working in the context to be coming in with our own biases and looking at information. So for us, what we do is that we cross-verify sources. We have a list of trusted sources. We have something that we hold a source book. Those are accounts of people, organizations, government, our Sudanese army, our staff, everyone. And we try to press-verify information from multiple resources before we think it's actually true. We check also the evidence and the data. So for us, we look for tangible evidence and verifiable data that support claims of things that are being spread around on social media. So we look for images, videos that are more likely to be trustworthy. We try to recognize bias and manipulation. We try to understand motives and patterns of behavior of people who are sharing the information, what accounts at least. That's going back into pages history, when it was funded, what are they using, what technologies are they using, how are they describing events. We also try as much as we can to consider the context. So for us, we try to understand the broader context of the conflict itself, the historical background. And we try to understand and always define the geopolitical situation. So because we understand that misinformation can thrive in complex environments where people lack comprehensive understanding of the situation. So misinformation can just thrive. One fact, one misleading information and then you have all things on social media. So we also try our best to consult with locals and our networks on the ground in Sudan. We try to engage with humanized activists, people from resistance committees or anything. We don't do close source, but we try to verify what we see by asking if this happened, have you heard of it? What are you on the ground for? It is really, really difficult right now to try to differentiate, but for us, we rely on data, we rely on the technical expertise that the Archive and Mnemonic has to distinguish between facts and misinformation. And it takes longer for us because we are very small team of three. But for everyone else in Washington and everyone who's working in Sudan, please use your mind and do not be certain on one-fourth. Double check, verify, contact, reach out to us or Caitlyn or anyone else and you will be happy to assist. Thank you, Mahasin, and indeed we all have to be aware of our own biases as people who are working in Sudan will come in from different backgrounds. Caitlyn, you've already shared a few highlights of the trends that you've been seeing over the past two months. I was wondering if you can share some of the findings of the reports that you guys have been sharing. I know the reports are available online, but I think it's also important if you can show some of these highlights and also share with us what does the conflict observatory do in order to mainstream the information that will be shared and then coordinate and monitor resources that are providing relief in the country. Absolutely, and thank you so much for that question. So one of the things that we do in addition to the work that we try to coordinate publicly with our releases, which we try to put out at least one report a week, that's the tempo that we're aiming for with public releases, we're also constantly working behind the scenes to try and coordinate with different partners. And I hope to try to be able to work much more closely with both Mahasen and Fiskandi. And again, as Mahasen just said, please, anyone who is on this, is part of this conversation, please do reach out to us. We'll make sure, you know, my email at Yale, it's simply Caitlyn.howworth at Yale.edu. Please do reach out to us if you have information or want to get in touch with us and develop a relationship. We are always working with different organizations and trying to make sure that information is passing back and forth. Some of those are journalists. Some are humanitarian organizations. We have to be very careful and very respectful of those, especially those who are working with survivors and people who are eyewitnesses. There are a lot of incredibly brave people, brave Sudanese who have been getting information out of the country and uploading it as soon as they have the opportunity. Once they're in a safe place and for some of them, just because they may have crossed over a border does not necessarily mean that they are safe. So we take their security and the security of that information that they've worked so hard to protect incredibly seriously. Among the things that we do, so not everything that we necessarily collect is something that we will publish because of that. We also try to make sure that everything that we can publish is something that is going to add unique value from a civilian protection perspective and that it will not only have a military intelligence value. That's incredibly important to do when we're in the middle of an active conflict. So again, we have always more data than what we'll actually publish because we have to specifically edit out things where we have a concern that one of the armed parties would simply use it to advance their own agenda and where it doesn't have a civilian protective value. One of the things I'm showing you right now, this is an interactive map that our team at Esri helped us to put together, showing some of the 26 communities that I spoke about. This is Miserai and this shows some of the images. This is one of the before images that we have of Miserai before the raising event that really obliterates so much of this incredible place. Here, as you see it load, you'll see the devastation. To say that the town is really wiped out is putting it mildly. It's hard to appreciate. I think sometimes some folks might look at this and say, well, how do you know exactly what has happened here? When you've looked at satellite imagery for over a decade, this is very, very stark. But I hope it's clear to anyone who saw that before image, which is taken and using the same type of imagery, the same type of camera, essentially, that this is a community that has really just been devastated in its entirety. Everything has been burned. And there's really nothing left. The intent here is to wipe out the town and its people and its entirety and for there to be nothing for anyone to go back to. This is the type of data, though, that as Kaskandi said, we are constantly looking from the skies, often because there's no other alternative. And being able to access this kind of information in real time is still very difficult because we have to contend with clouds and other factors that really severely limit our access. I've been working on Sudan going back to 2011 in South Kortifan, Abiyay, and in Blunau. And I have to say that in all of that time, we actually had more access on the ground despite the fact that humanitarian organizations and others and human rights groups were extremely limited. They've been completely pushed out of those regions. But we still had better information on a day-to-day level for folks on the ground than we do now. That's how comprehensive the information blackout is. So it is deeply challenging to be able to get through and to be able to document this. And the sheer range, the geographic range of what we're trying to document also means that we have our work cut out for us every single day. Here, of course, is the list of also with the speed at which our acceptance actors are working, especially throughout Darfur, means that there's so much to try and make sure that we're keeping up with and simply trying to make sure that we're capturing every single day. And again, add so much speed. So I hesitate to say that it's not that it can't be done, it can be done, but the sheer amount of resources that it takes to do this in a comprehensive way means that I'm already leading a team that has some of the far better resources than we ever could have imagined a decade ago, and it's not enough. The scope of this effort needs so much more than what it is getting. That's part of the urgent call to action that we're part of here. Back to you, Sahara. Thank you, Katelyn, and thank you for making that last remark. So many humanitarian actors and even monetary reporting bodies have been asking people to contribute more, and hopefully on the event today we have people in some of the agencies that can actually help push these efforts forward. Thank you for the presentation. Mahasseh, we know that the Sudanese who are monitoring reporting and documenting human rights violations are as a conflict dynamics, that their work is sensitive and dangerous. What situation are human rights monitors facing at the moment particularly, and therefore, I know Katelyn have already briefly touched on the sensitivity of the issue and that even for those who live in the country it's not actually very safe. So if you can share a few comments on what you've been monitoring or following. Thank you, Laura. You also mentioned earlier in your introduction a very specific update on the situation of human rights monitors and defenders. So it's really important to know that the situation in that fall is highly complex and fluid. The challenges faced by human rights monitors can vary depending on the specific context, the timeframe and the day. Since the outbreak of the war we saw many initiatives of human rights defenders and others who worked in peace building trying to maintain the social cohesion and prevent an outbreak of war. However, things took a different turn. So maybe we understand that I can say very general things. I've met a few of my friends and a few lawyers, journalists and human rights defenders from that foreign line movie last week. What we've been hearing is that there are targeting of human rights defenders, lawyers and government officials. We all heard about that fall government murder. So the security risks of course are high. There is a distinctive access. So some of the regions of the in that fall are simply trapped. As Kostami mentioned, people are finding it difficult to share information. There are intimidation and harassment and the harassment is basically can lead to some censorship but in the case is death. And of course there is impunity for the perpetrators. There was no accountability before and now it's very difficult to actually know who are the perpetrators. So we have two common words that are used for RSF and Arab militia and no one actually can finger point housing charge in which area specifically and who are targeting human rights defenders. And yeah, this is what I can mention and also not only these challenges is that there are other mental and physical challenges that we are dealing with a lot of personal events and the human rights defenders that are working in this field especially in that war they have been working since 2003. They have their generations of generations of actual lived reality and continuance hits to their own belief systems. So the question should be more into how can we hope to as human rights defenders how can we mentally work to have the proper mental support to continue doing this work. It's to me personally I think we're often looked at as sources of information but not humans with experience with this information that are both personal, political and can actually live with us. So yeah, that's something for us to all think about is that it's not the people that bring the information is that what that information means to them personally and how can we use it, how can we make things go to a certain place that we finally see accountability work justice and we can finally see outcomes of the work that's been going on since before the complex observatories, the Sudanese archive and everyone else. Thank you. Thank you Mhassem for that thorough answer. I would also like to remind our audience to ask questions either in Arabic or English and to reach out to you or Katelyn for any verification or to just get credible sources credible information from credible sources the information that Katelyn have shared earlier about reaching out to her and then also I think the Sudanese archive is available online for people to reach out. Going back to Kaskundi there is a body of work and practicing on preventing and addressing atrocities including from their own experience. What do you see being activated at the moment from local communities to the regional and international community and what are the gaps to turn from monitoring to action? Thank you and I would say yes just taking to what my husband is saying the limited space for the civil society and for us we really think that all of this there is no gun big enough to solve Sudan problem and it is proven in a several times in history that all the problems always when there is even the toughest regime have been changed by non-violent movement and that is always led by civil society and a stronger Sudanese non-violent movement body that exists I think there is several initiatives in that for the region those initiatives are trying at the tribal level but also at different aspects to try to ease the violence and those mainly successful in some of the some of the areas like being able to stop some of the attacks in some of the cities mainly in Niala for instance then there is still some sort of a stability despite that can also be different because there is less targeted population of the atrocities in those cities I think there is a body of the movement that is hold you know the Sudan before the Sudanese doesn't know what's the war like people from Darfur from mountain from South Korea have to explain what war means to people in North and people in Khatung in this April 15 war now nobody tells nobody what war is everyone is sawing and I think this is a uniting factor for all the actors to be able to stand together and it prevents these two generals from destroying the country and I see you know even not only in Khatung but in Darfur how irresponsible for any sense for civilians either victimized by RSA or by South even South itself is not responsible they actually enjoy seeing the victim's guilt in some of the cities even in the where the city is all destroyed the South are still there in their camps and that also makes us wonder if there is actual conflict between South and RSA with regard to the destruction that's happening in Darfur so I think there is a lot of opportunity some of the most strong is the body of the movement that really need to be reignited despite the limited space the South opportunities are really not being exploited so far is the existing different international and regional frameworks with regard to humanitarian intervention and civilian protection in Darfur justice and accountability sanctioning of some of the leaders particularly in areas where there is mass atrocities like Junena and Khatung you just showed the image of McMurray and I will tell you there is other cities that I see in your map where my family is and it is exactly what happened everything you destroyed people are hold hostage they have to pay in the come and pay money I think 30,000 the next pound I just can't understand this is $2,000 to $50,000 for protection money to RSA because the state doesn't exist and total risk so I think the prevention action is really right now and I think the US itself has the new atrocity prevention approach too many tools not being very much under exploited so far with regard to what is happening in Darfur it is expanding for instance in West Kordupan the violence is expanding very fast to other Friday region and even when we see Sudan is very safe it can easily go just in a slip of finger to a violence I think it is the time to stitch what is exist and try to make very difficult for the generals either that is Burhan or Himete to make the choice of war more costly and I think currently there is a lot of incentive more incentive for the war and because of that it is very easy for generals to wait for and I think the heaviest action possible for these actors to be a very one of the useful tool and under exploited tool to be able to at least at this moment address some of the ongoing mass humanitarian disaster but also potential genocide and war crimes and crime against humanity that might happen further down this rainy season coming and we all know when it is rainy season means people already finish more of the food they had in store if there was any the new season didn't come therefore the movement itself is difficult and morbidity in Darfur particularly all the agricultural communities is high when it is rainy season malaria and other associated diseases which can create very high humanitarian disaster yes so I think there is local tools which is the strongest civil society body movement that needs to be reignited as an opportunity there is civil society and civil administration for instance in Darfur context they play a very strong role to really be able to play their role of preventative role into some of the high risk areas for instance the cities that have been destroyed most of the people from different tribes it stands together because they all have houses they need a running state in those areas to be able to work however after destruction of cities like Zalingi, like Ginena it doesn't affect Masaleed or Darfur it affects everyone who was living and I think there was a strong initiative for all of this cross ethnic, cross tribes to stand together to prevent an attack on violence inside the city I think there is a need to reignite those fabrics very strongly and be able to create at least some sort of local shield that can open a window at least before things go to danger but I think immediate humanitarian intervention because I think food and starvation and medical destruction means or all other means of survival that have been destroyed is bridging that gap as immediate as possible can also help prevent some of the violence and force of complication over Thank you Kuskan Dizad That was quite helpful and I echo your notes on the long history of Sudan on the nonviolent action movement and local peace building initiatives that have been taking place in this conflict and for a long time before we look forward to finding avenues to support such initiatives to thrive further in this context Going back to you Katelyn you've mentioned that some of the audience might know that Yale has been involved with satellite monitoring in other contexts and countries How can this information be used in real time to activate atrocity prevention and response and what is the uptake and degree of attention right now in Sudan There's not nearly enough attention and an uptake on Sudan right now that's the simple answer and there's so much more that can be done on atrocity response I think that it is difficult for me personally to use the word prevention when there is so much that is already happening this is to talk about warning when we are looking at atrocities that are underway and being successfully executed that's the reality that being said that does not mean that there is nothing we can do there is so much that we can do and these tools can be utilized very effectively right now and in the days ahead to do so much to protect so many so right now one of the things I think we should be doing and that the international community needs to step up and take action on we need to be utilizing these tools for daily daily monitoring and assessment on creating a series of evacuation options and contingency plans especially for areas where displaced persons are now moving too rapidly and gathering because cities like Nyala yes they because the places that people need to be able to get to to get out of the country that access is being cut off so effectively which means that other cities have become gathering points that also means they become kill boxes and I hate to use that term but that is how militaries it's how armed actors and people need to understand that that is what they are right now so the more immediately we can turn those into evacuation zones effectively and get boots on the ground to help get people safely out of there to get humanitarian corridors established for meaningful evacuation that is what I don't necessarily think that there is an alternative right now for that kind of activity but that can be supported with the tools that we have right now we need those options throughout the country too because these are sophisticated armed actors who have the capacity to pivot just like that so whenever something is working against them in one area they'll go to moving chaos and they'll work to achieve their agenda somewhere else so we need to make sure that we have eyes on the situation throughout the country in the quarterfans in Abye and of course throughout the east so that there isn't there is basically a denial of opportunity for more chaos to be for more civilians to be harmed and of course I think that there is a serious need to actually meaningfully go after those just as Kuzkanti said there is so much more that we can be doing to look for those who have evaded justice so far we know that the lack of accountability for those who were already have warrants out for their arrest who were not brought to the Hague as Freedom House and others called for that has paid dividends right now it would be helpful to try and figure out where they are but I think that the immediate needs right now to monitor all of the critical infrastructure to be able to attribute those attacks right now that's on water plants we see over what we see targeted attacks on water infrastructure it's one of the first things that has been happening which of course as you know creates much more capacity for waterborne disease to occur especially potential for cholera outbreaks there have been systematic and widespread attacks on medical infrastructure that's one of the things that you'll see documented in our coming recording cartoon which already has the vast majority of the country's medical infrastructure these are exactly the things that we have to make sure that we are that we're protecting the most fiercely as we go forward as well as the personnel who are connected to them and this is also something that we've seen called for at some very high levels I mentioned it earlier when it came to protection for those who are speaking out and who are providing some of this most critical evidence we have to make sure that we have the ability to protect eyewitnesses when they do reach a point of some safety because the reach of some of these armed actors goes beyond borders so if we don't have the meaning, if we aren't doing everything that we can to make sure that teams in refugee camps are providing everything that they can to protect these people to move them further on to further points of safety then we're not doing enough thank you, thank you Katelyn and now we turn back again to Kuskandi for one final question from our end before we head to the question shared by our audience so Kuskandi, prior to the war we were already talking about transitional justice that has not been addressed for Sudan broadly and therefore 20 years after the genocide why it's hard to imagine justice in the midst of ongoing violence what needs to happen today to ensure path towards justice in the medium term thank you again and I would, you know just before the second of the what Katelyn and Mahasin say I think for me one very important key to understand is you know that the justice and accountability doesn't wait there are several ways that I think with the situation right now in Sudan particularly either in Darfur but also in Khartoum and in other regions where you know in the strong area where the activists being targeted but in Darfur where the mass atrocities exist I think it is not a good time to say let's wait until there is kind of peace agreement everything happen and we start justice and accountability I think the most meaningful justice could be right now and I think that is using and utilizing different tools tracking all the enablers and supporters of the atrocities and those includes those who ate all of their actors that committing atrocities in Sudan within Sudan or in the regional countries sanctions but I think it is also time to utilize the ICC please start moving the case of Ahmad Haroon for that sake and at least sentence and I think that please so that I think the world is watching what we are doing there right now to the people in Mid-Marie burning down their city and killing them in numbers you know mass graves this will be found one day and I think it can be also a deterrent factor so I think one thing that it being done is really to try to increase the monitoring but also to effectively use the information we right now have you know bring more witnesses and be able to advance some cases at least for the accountability so I think one thing is yes move the cases target the actors and this doesn't include you know the big names but also the medium leaders who are currently on the ground conducting commanding all of these atrocities actors to be hold accountable so I think one of it is using the existing frameworks of tools and tools of sanctions but also you know international legal frameworks such as ICC to open some of the cases occurring but also in the previous history of the atrocity in Darfur to advance those cases for justice and accountability hold those who are accountable sometimes the one you have as ICC that could create a deterrent the second is that really with regard to justice and accountability what also plays role that if those conversations start it increases you know the community the solidarity the local resilience at least there is somebody in the world who cares about us being killed or raped in a mass and I think that resilience itself is what victims in confine it by the conflict needs even if that is you know people in Darfur people in the western conflict in the recent days by that I think those are the things that currently needs to be done at the policy level and urgent and I think it could help at least to show the world is watching what is currently happening in Sudan the second thing with the justice and accountability also has the other aspects which is you know collective memorization being able to create the tools for people to document not only just for justice and accountability to document their story and be able to have those collective memory I think that is one of the healing process as well while atrocity is happening and that requires creating at least safe zones in the region where internet is provided communication is available communities are able to be able to engage some sort of solidarity mechanism about being created to be able to address the current but also the most recent atrocities that happen in the region I think that is all I could say and over to you Thank you Cuskind one more or two minutes you've mentioned the ICC a couple of times but you know that the current mandate of the ICC only extends to their forum doesn't cover other parts of Sudan despite attempts to expand it at the beginning of the war is there anything you could say to this what local, regional or international efforts can be done in this regard in order to make sure that all these atrocities that are taking place after 15th of April are also accounted for Can you say anything about universal jurisdiction as a way to like overcome the shortcomings and limitations of the current mandate of the ICC Thank you Yes, I think one factor is I am not lawyer but one thing is that the most of the commanders who are involved in the atrocities in Darfur are the one who is responsible in the atrocities outside Darfur either those through South which is you know their leader, Rohan was leading operations in Darfur or either that is RSF RSF commanders who are currently commanding the atrocities either in Al-Junaena or Al-Zalingi Ali Agoo who was one of the people who led the campaign summer campaigns in the RSF summer campaign in Marama in 2014 summer campaign in 2015 that led to mass atrocities in Jabal Mara area all the way up to the top of the mountain and I think what is needed is to kind of create a mechanism to connect to expand the investigation to do for the indictment but also to reusing the current crimes to add additional charges and I think that is what at least can help to address some of the atrocities that are happening outside Darfur and that is either that is Korduban or either that is what is happening in Khartoum. I think what is being also meeting with the other regional mechanism for instance the African Korduban peoples and human rights and other mechanisms that might be interested into intervening right now but I think the most important things with regard to justice and accountability is one, coordinated evidence collection second, also coordinated advocacy and collective action third is international support but also stronger local voices from the victims that are consistently monitoring but also following the question of justice and accountability which is currently due to the war is mostly being halted everyone is running for their safety and security most of the people who work on documentation are targeted at risk either if they are in Darfur or where RSF exists or if they are in Sudan Kut and Kut safer area where Sudan army force and national intelligence are very clearly and critically following up and that also has credibility of information if an activist is in RSF area want a report, more will say aerial bombardment is happening than other things, if in the other side is all these people that taken our home even this was in the conflict happened so I think we really that is because of the risk that you know some of the activists have to go and have to navigate to be able to obtain reports Thank you, thank you Koskendi and thank you to all the other panelists for all the information that you've provided. I will now turn to the questions that were posed by our audience, I believe some of them were in Arabic but they're not translated in English so hopefully you somewhat find your questions in the translation that they have. I've also tried to group the questions in order to have time to answer as many as possible each panelist would have three minutes to try and speak to the proposed questions so for Mahazel I think you might be best suited to answer these questions unless someone else has an addition so the first question is about ways to help individuals or people working on collecting open source data in Sudan. How can people assist you or contribute to the work that's been done and the second question is are there much safer countries or communities for Sudanese refugees to turn in to turn to or is there a mass exodus overseas. You have three minutes please. So to us at the archive we are currently on and really trying to build a Sudanese task force that works on open source investigations. We have been hosting capacity buildings and sharing our methods of research with a variety of Germanist human rights defenders etc. What we would love to hear from people and how people can help us is that we can always look for collaborations please reach out to us communicate to us if you are working on certain investigations if you need proper assistance in geolocation from education if you need advice or work done across different platforms because the Sudanese archive is not separate from Mnemonic. Mnemonic is the umbrella organization for three other archives one of them is the Ukrainian archive the Yemeni archive and the Syrian archive the organization itself has a collective memory and knowledge on using open source information for accountability all of those are lessons learned that we are happy to share and we are willing to collaborate with other people to see similar results for Sudan. As for safer places for people to detect refugees how are they very different? Personally I don't know how to answer this question to me this is my first time actually living in Sudan taking refuge somewhere else it was easier for me moving from Khartoum towards the eastern states and then passing the border to Ethiopia I think it depends on everyone's location there are people who look for different things people look for places where they don't face language barriers places where they have relatives places where they have been before but what I can say is that um it is always safer to um to make sure that your physical well-being, your physically in a place and you're still alive other than looking at other factors of language there are barriers of course but eventually it's a it's a hard circumstance so we don't know I honestly don't know how to answer that question better than this I don't have recommendations for which is safe because I don't see a place that is safer than what Sudan used to be at least for me um but I think other people can jump in on this answer thank you Mohantel and thank you for sharing your experience I believe yeah to Sudanese there is no easy answer but I would say that for us who managed to live it was a matter of privilege those of us who had resources to live those of us who were able to speak languages at neighboring countries and in some cases those of us who were able to pay for a visa online to get entry to that country at the moment there is no available results for Sudanese people to legally go to that are easier and accessible for those who are less privileged in the terms that I've just mentioned and I would say there is no travel overseas at the moment because people can't simply cross the border so yeah people are not going overseas for that matter I'll turn to Katelyn and you would also have three minutes there is a question about whether there is a way that the US government and I don't know if you can speak for the government but it's more technical that companies such as Google to provide satellite imaging in areas where it's difficult to report atrocities and also if you can jump in on this one, how can the US and the international community engage more with the government of Sudan in order to mitigate the effects of conflict and prevent potential spillover if you can answer any of these then that's great otherwise I think USIP would be interested in having longer conversations regarding international community involvement so I'll definitely start by saying I certainly do not speak for the US government on this I can only speak in my capacity from Yale I'm certain that there's a fair amount of outreach and constant dialogue that's going on but that's not something that I'm privy to between State Department and Government of Sudan and of course the sheer amount of complications right now in terms of who is representing what and who is considered a credible representative for which ministries and so forth all of that is incredibly complicated at the moment what I can speak to is I think on the issue of the tech companies and who's capable of providing what that is something where there is a fair amount of facilitation and companies are doing everything that they can as far as I'm aware to image as much as possible we are working as rapidly as we can and serve with our own contacts internally at those companies to advocate for more tasking which is the process of getting as much imagery taken every single day to be, for that to be collected and disseminated as broadly as possible for those that are doing this critical humanitarian work so not just for us to access but for all of those who are doing this to be able to access Thank you, thank you Katelyn and then Kuskandi there are a few questions that I think you've already answered about the worry of recurrence of genocide in the foreign so on however I wish you can take some of these like there is this question about whether Sudan is worried about recolonization when conflicts arise and outside resources are utilized to set as a complex it can be brought to recolonization and not brought to more freedom and autonomy so the question is whether you know you see such trends of recolonization and then the other question is what is your perception of dealing with the violations of the RSF you partially answered that and do you see any effective means other than supporting SAF to counter RSF according to the person who asked the question and you have three minutes as well Okay, thank you I would say with regard to to colonization or recolonization I you know the most dangerous colonization is when you are in a state and you depend 100% on people to give you 8 to survive and currently we have a country with over 40 million and we are almost 80% or 90% need 8 to survive meaning that we accepted or not we are totally dependent and I think that is where we become a burden to everyone I think with that regard I just want to say that we have to have two we have also as a local level to have some of the policies but I think for the Sudanese people they can be they can be very very much learn from the history of the experience on how people are resilient how the state building will be coming and that the future relies on us kind of sticking together and finding some solutions from ourselves and those shouldn't be a military solution the second thing on the RSF I think there is this April 15 war the false dichotomy the false dichotomy is that there is nothing else there is RSF there itself no, there is a lot in the middle and there is a body of movement that actually remove it RSF itself going together with Bashir and put them outside the pole and that's the body of Sudanese movement and I think creating these two ideals itself or RSF is not as Sudanese democratic transition question but I think with regard to Darfur and the RSF violence for innocent is more concentration because currently the sub doesn't have just doesn't have power doesn't have any interest to protect Sudanese in Darfur they actually enjoy in some of the cities actually self get out of their barracks and come and go to with the RSF friends do whatever and commit the crimes so it doesn't make any sense just because RSF is the main actors committing the crime they criticizing that because all of these are commanders under the command of the RSF criticizing that doesn't necessarily mean supporting ourselves and I think that is one thing to be clear because if you ethnically target people and kill them and burn their houses down and you can't create democracy that just doesn't make sense and that is very naive to believe but I think one additional thing that I want to add is with regard to these two dynamics in 1985 Sudanese our great grandfather they stormed Khartoum they cut the head of the the one of the strongest military force in the world at that time what happens after few years the Royal forces came back stormed Khartoum and ruled Sudan for over 90 years in 1964 we removed a boot we have in 1985 the Sudanese have the Gaffer Numeri one of the strongest dictators in the continent we have SPLM with more than 15 or 17 thousand military fighting Numeri who removed Numeri as the civil society a nonviolent movement the same with the Bashir 30 years we have more than five army movements in Darfur South Kurdufan Blue Nile with forces combined over 100,000 active military forces fighting who removed Bashir the nonviolent movement the big arms that exist in Khartoum and Al-Fashir is not solution to Sudanese problem they only promote the greedy division of those who hold the arm and I think it's the time for Sudanese to reunite their voices even how limited the space is the gun have never solved with our problem and it will never solve Sudan problem and everyone is a political party or resistance committee thinking I will cheer this one to help me carry out the freedom no, it just help you to carry you to its own a new jail and a new prison and also reverse the country's future and I think it is the time for all the civic actors to reunite their voices it's time for solidarity healing it's time for collective actions to be taken and there is a very big vacuum of the voices that have been silenced silenced after April 15 because now those people with the big guns are the one we see on the TV we see them on the video we cheer them but every time you cheer them you actually sending a signal of anti-democratic signal and I think this is something that everyone and all Sudanese need to learn the way out is not big arms from Russia it's not big arms from Egypt it's not big arms from Emera the way out is the loudest voices on the street we need democracy and nonviolent movement and that's all my remark and over to you about it thank you Kuskendi for reminding us of the strengths of the Sudanese nonviolent movement across the years Mahasen and Caitlyn for taking time of your busy work schedules to be here on this platform today and answering all the questions that were mentioned as I mentioned earlier USIP would be interested in having similar platforms where more issues are being discussed there were questions on civilian platforms there were questions about international communities engagement and so on we would be interested in taking these conversations further and I know we can spend hours and hours talking about the current issues in Sudan our time has come to an end thank you to our audience across the world to our interpreters who made sure that we include as many people as possible and to the team that has been supporting bringing this to life until another time thank you thank you