 Hello everyone. Welcome to another International Relations Capsule for the Shankar IAS Academy. I'm speaking from New York, a wonderful city just in front of me. Next to me is the United Nations Secretariat building which one can touch from this window. It's a bright day but cold. The East River is just in front of me. I'm tempted to speak about what's happening in the US but more importantly we have to deal with the tragedy in Sudan particularly from the perspective of the examination. In the US of course the news is that President Biden has announced that he'll contest again. No surprises though there were some expectation that his age might go against him but he has decided to throw his contract onto the screen and he has said that I have to finish my work in the sense that four years are not enough and therefore the second term is required. Of course President Trump is lurking everywhere fighting legal battles and so still people feel that he may be the Republican candidate. But still early to say anything about it but the expectation is that President Biden and President Trump will be the candidates next year. Coming back to the conflict in Sudan this is a real tragedy. Of course we know that the Ukraine war is a tragedy in itself but here it's a civil war. External forces may be a play but it is basically a civil war and it's tragic because the fight is inside a city the capital Kharkov where armed forces are fighting. What happened was when in 2019 the president was overthrown in a coup, Omar Bashir in a military coup and a military council was established and then there were waves of pro-democracy agitators and a civilian government was formed by Prime Minister Hamdok but peace was not acceptable to the army. Another coup took place in 2021 ousted Hamdok and the military is being challenged by a counter-military group that is the Sudan armed forces versus what was called the rapid support forces of the same army. So SAF and RAF, two branches of the Sudan army is engaged in a civil war and this is created havoc. A Khartoum is a city of about six million people including many Indians. Khartoum is, airport is shut and the port is 830 kilometers away for anyone to be evacuated. The outbreak of all-out war in Khartoum was not expected. People thought that this would be a compromise but it is clear that the armed forces whether it is the SAF or the other group, RSF, is not capable of running the country. So it's quite obvious that the civilian government has to come to being but nobody knows how it can be done. There are many many mediators. Several countries are African Union for example is involved, United Nations is involved, neighboring countries are involved but nobody seems to find a way. Though a ceasefire has been declared and supposed to be enforced, a lot of people are losing their lives and there is shortage in the city and there is total chaos. The army is supposed to have lost about 1,000 soldiers but there could be many more and you may recall that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Kerala last week. He spoke about the situation. He said that we were very concerned about the Indians in Sudan, not only the people of Sudan but also particularly Indians about 4,500 of them and he announced a Kaveri exercise, a Kaveri operation to rescue the Indians. Some have already reached Saudi Arabia and other neighboring countries and many more are still in Sudan. So he also announced that he would depute the minister of state for external affairs to personally oversee the situation and there is expectation that by and by these people will return without only one Indian has been killed so far and others will return safely to India. Strangely this happened soon after the external affairs minister Mr. Jai Shankar visited some African states. So he started a new initiative to deal with Africa, cooperate with it and also work together. We have had a long tradition of working in Africa and so this visit was expected to give a new momentum to cooperation between India and some of these African states. So soon after he returned, he was faced with the situation and so it's a challenge to deal with the Indians in Sudan, particularly Khartou. So the Indians there are not only expatriates who have gone from here but also Sudan Indians originally from Gujarat who are also settled in the country. So what India has done is to contact United States, UK, UAE and Saudi Arabia those countries which have influence in Sudan and looking for a suitable opportunity to get these Indians out of Khartou. It's not going to be easy because there is shortage of food, water, electricity, everything there and the journey to the port will be very dangerous. The temperature is less something like 45 degrees Celsius and so we are fighting a battle but there's nothing uncommon whenever there is problem anywhere in the world you will suddenly find that there are Indians there and they have to be rescued. So there's a price we pay for a diaspora empire like the British Empire some never said some the Indian diaspora empire but the price we pay is for that but there is trouble in any of these countries. We have the responsibility of either protecting them or bringing them back. This has happened on several occasions, sometimes more successfully than others. So let's hope that this will be resolved and when the Indians return. But the situation in Sudan is much more serious than what faces the Indians there because when the two military factions are fighting it's very difficult to identify civilian leader who can take over from them because this battle has to be fought to the finish and both sides are fully equipped. They have arms ammunition etc. We do not know whether any arms and ammunition are coming into the country but neighbors are also some of them are involved. Egypt for example has major interest in Sudan so it will take some time for the civil war to end even though there was an agreement between the two factors factions that civilian rule will end by 2023. So we are already in 2023 but in which month we'll be able to allow these two factions will allow civilian rule. So meanwhile the fighting is very intense. It's reported that even embassies are being attacked, not specifically particular country but the embassies being attacked in order to get in search for food, water and supplies from the embassies because very often embassies are very fully stoked with essential goods. So the African Union has called for a ceasefire but unfortunately Sudan is now not a member of the African Union. They were suspended in 2021. The Arab League is coordinating with AU and made some advances but none of these have the cloud not even the United Nations. There is an Intergovernmental Authority on Development IGAD in Africa and three heads of state that is the President of Kenya, President of Djibouti and President of South Sudan. South Sudan as you know is the latest member of the United Nations and so these countries are engaged in negotiations but they do not know who to talk to because it is flawless soldiers. There's a clear distinction between the SAF and RSF. SAF is the elitist group that is the core of the main army and they come from Khartoum but RSF is operated mostly in the Darfur region. In fact they had destroyed the Darfur region in their own various battles there and so the RSF has come to Khartoum and with the strength that I've gained in Darfur they are able to put up a battle against the army itself. It looks that it is quite well balanced because nobody is winning the war. Each one is struggling to make some headway that there is no way out and the peace efforts do not seem to succeed either. In the Horn of Africa there are competing interests between the Africans and the Arabs. Egypt's President Sisi is friendly with the military and seeks support against the Ethiopians. Eritrea has been closer to RSF. UAE has closed links with Eritrea and RSF had sent soldiers to Yemen due to the long battle which has been going on which is now seems to be ending. So Egypt backing the army and UAE and Eritrea backing RSF Ethiopians are not very active so transition to civilian rule is the only solution that they can expect but the problem is at what price and how long. Sudan has had considerable problems in the past. The United Nations has been operating there as a peacekeeping force and now the effort being made is to integrate both the armed forces and give them a leadership or hand over them to a civilian government. As of 26th April when the last report came in it seems that the ceasefire is not holding and it is now an outbreak of all out war and since the armed forces are not able to come to an agreement we do not know how long this war will go on. So the two leaders you may like to remember for the sake of your examination is the commander general of the SAF Abdul Fattah al-Marsha and the rapid support forces are led by Muhammad and the Gholu also known as Hemeti. Hemeti seems to have more support and capability of war while the al-Barsham is not so strong but still what neither side is able to win the war and this rapid support forces is successful to what is called the Janjavad Janjavad. Sudanese are a military group, militia group, which was active in Darfur before peace was established. So Arasov wants a place equal to the military in any establishment of the future and therefore there is no sign of compromise anywhere but war has a particular momentum and when the destruction exceeds the tolerable levels it may automatically establish peace and that's the only hope but at the moment there's no compromise plans mediators have made no movement and the country itself is a very it's a developing country because they do not have much resources and the only way is for the world to help them is to not to assist either group and try and help them to resolve it themselves because mediators do not seem to have any clout and the UN is very paralysed because UN getting paralysed is not new these days in several conflicts unlike in the past UN was active but notably at the Ukraine war you know that since the permanent member of the Security Council itself is fighting the war there's nothing that UN or the UN Secretary General can do and surprisingly we do not see much activity on the part of the UN Secretary General there because he has to deal with a permanent member with a veto but that kind of problem is not here but here it is very much internal and it's difficult for the UN or anybody else to intervene in any manner so this is the tragedy of Sudan India's own involvement is not serious not major but that will also continue for a while causing distress back home and the inability of availability of availability of transport etc and therefore there also we have a long battle to go through so not good news just like the war in Ukraine this seems to be prolonging much to the suffering of a lot of people this is the situation in Sudan in the moment and you may familiarize yourself with the situation because this is a war which has broken out just before your preliminary examination and the examiners will be tempted to ask you questions on the subject thank you very much