Thank you, Chair.
Before I begin, I just want to say that I am replacing my colleague Mutasim Ali, a world-leading authority on the conflict and on accountability for Sudan, because a close friend of his was killed yesterday in El Fasher in north Darfur. This is the reality for all members of the community. I want to dedicate this testimony to Mubarak Musa Abu Sin, in his memory.
We are discussing an atrocity situation that is affecting the same groups and survivors of genocide from 20 years ago. There is no need, really, to mention at this point the extent of the humanitarian catastrophe. It's already well known. It's just that the world is largely turning away from the largest humanitarian catastrophe on earth. More than 10 million are displaced, and 26.6 million are facing acute hunger. That is more than half the population.
It's threatening to result in 2.5 million deaths by the end of this year alone from famine. By next year, we may witness the largest amount of deaths from starvation that we've ever seen in our lifetime. Some are even estimating that it will be up to 12 million or 13 million by next year under these current conditions. We have no time to waste. As the conflict continues, more will continue to be killed every day, as I mentioned from the daily experience of the Sudanese community.
In April of this year, at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre, my colleague Mutasim and I led an inquiry into breaches of the genocide convention in Darfur. Based on our conclusions, we found that the Rapid Support Forces have committed genocide against the Massalit in west Darfur. We found reasonable grounds to believe that they are targeting other non-Arab groups with the same intention. For instance, fighters on the ground are saying things like, “We decided not to leave any of them alive, not even the children”, referring to Massalit, or mocking dead bodies that litter the streets as “speed bumps” or “dirty dogs”. Many of these incitements are worse than in early 2000, the first genocide of the 21st century.
This is more than an internal armed conflict. We know that it is being fuelled by outside actors. We identified in our report that multiple outside actors are supporting the warring parties or fighters on the ground through smuggling arms or financing or political cover. The UAE is the largest backer and the most notorious. It was just confirmed, not only by the New York Times investigation but other sources, including the UN panel of experts, Amnesty, and other investigators, that the UAE is smuggling arms through Chad, along with heavy weaponry and drones. There are even hundreds of thousands of mercenaries who have been reported as fighting alongside the RSF. These are foreign mercenaries, so this is very much funded and fuelled by outside actors as well.
What can Canada do? Canada is not powerless to act, to intervene. Canada has a long tradition of civilian protection, peacekeeping and the responsibility to protect.
One, Canada can recognize this genocide for what it is. There has been no atrocity determination yet.
Two, it can invoke the responsibility to protect and it can lead on the protection of civilians through diplomacy and through dispatching a civilian protection mechanism in the areas where there are the most civilians at most risk.
Three, we can end all military exports to the UAE, pending a demonstrable halt to their arming of the RSF, the genocidal militia in Sudan, according to our treaty obligations under the Arms Trade Treaty and the Export and Import Permits Act.
Four, Canada has sanctioned only six individuals and entities connected to Sudan. This is the least out of any of Canada's main allies. It has yet to sanction 10 of the entities based in Sudan or the UAE that the U.S. has already sanctioned and that others have sanctioned. We will submit a list to the subcommittee afterwards.
Canada is well placed to take on a case unilaterally or with allies to the International Court of Justice against the UAE for complicity in breaching the genocide convention through the smuggling of arms to the genocidal militia. We are prepared to take on this case. We have pleadings already prepared and drafted.
Canada's immigration policy must respond to this unprecedented emergency. It must speed up the processing times to save at least some of the millions of Sudanese people displaced by this conflict. Not a single Sudanese displaced person has been resettled since the financially burdensome program was introduced in February, capped at 3,250 people. By contrast, as soon as Russia's war of aggression broke out, Canada launched an emergency family reunification program for Ukraine without eligibility or financial requirements and has approved nearly one million applications under this program.
These delays are costing lives, and we're talking about the most lethal famine in decades, genocide and the largest humanitarian catastrophe. I can't imagine a situation that demands an emergency resettlement program more. Instead, Canada has effectively closed its doors on Sudanese people and turned its back on Sudan. This widely disparate response to the war in Ukraine and to Sudan is a scandal of the first order and can only be explained by a discriminatory and, frankly, racist implementation of policy towards communities fleeing conflict.
Parliament should also revive the all-party save Darfur coalition, which was chaired by our founder, Irwin Cotler, or a broader coalition to prevent genocide and atrocity crimes. Canada can also monitor the incitement to genocide from here in Canada and implement the laws we have here to criminalize those acts. We can also ramp up humanitarian aid; only 50% of the required aid has reached Sudan out of the $2.1 billion that has been pledged. This can go directly, and should go directly, to the grassroots mutual aid initiatives on the ground or to emergency response rooms, which have only received 0.2% this year of the actual international aid.
Canada can lead on all these fronts and more.
Thank you so much for your time, and I look forward to the questions.
