Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Nov. 24th, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number five of the House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the subcommittee is meeting to study the human rights situation in Sudan.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders. The committee members are participating in person in the room or remotely by using the Zoom application.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses and members. Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mic. Please mute yourself when you are not speaking. For those on Zoom, at the bottom of your screen you can select the appropriate channel for interpretation: floor, English or French. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel. This is a reminder that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

Before we welcome our witnesses, I would like to provide this trigger warning. We will be discussing experiences related to violence. This may be triggering to viewers. If any participants feel distressed or need help, please advise the clerk. For all witnesses and for all members of Parliament, it's important to recognize that these are very difficult discussions. I know that we'll all be compassionate in our conversations.

I would now like to welcome our witnesses.

Appearing as individuals, we have Madame Sadia Araa, registered pharmacy technician; Mr. Khalid Omer, former minister of cabinet affairs in the civilian transitional government of the Sudan, by video conference; and Amjad Taha, strategist, also by video conference.

From the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, we have Yonah Diamond, senior legal counsel; and Mutasim Ali, legal adviser.

From the Sudanese Canadian Community Association, we have Ranya Elfil, member of the board of directors.

Please allow me to also welcome a special guest, a great guest, Mr. Irwin Cotler, a pioneer in defending human rights.

If you will allow me, Mr. Cotler, you should not be sitting over there. You are welcome to join us at the table, please. Thank you.

For those who don't know Mr. Cotler, he was the chair of this subcommittee for a long period of time. If there is no objection, I will give him two minutes just to say hi and say a few words to the committee.

The floor is yours, Mr. Cotler.

[Irwin Cotler, Founder and International Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Very quickly, I would just say that this is one of the most compelling issues ever to come before this committee. When I was an MP, in 2003, I established the Save Darfur all-party parliamentary caucus at the time of the first genocide in Darfur. This is now, as we convene, the preventable and yet second genocide in Darfur.

You have had excellent and compelling testimony, and I think this committee, under your leadership, Mr. Chair, can undertake the necessary initiatives so that Canada can become an international leader in implementing an action plan to save the people of Darfur from this ongoing genocide.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you, Mr. Cotler.

Now I would like to invite our witnesses to give their presentations.

We would like to start with Mr. Khalid Omer.

Mr. Omer, you have the floor for five minutes, please.

[Khalid Omer, Former Minister of Cabinet Affairs, Civilian Transitional Government of Sudan, As an Individual]

Thank you very much for having me here, and thank you to the committee for holding this special hearing about Sudan.

As all of you followed last week, Sudan made headline news with the horrible atrocities that happened in El Fasher. Actually, the fact is that El Fasher was not the start, but El Fasher was an alarm for what's really happening in Sudan in the biggest humanitarian crisis in the whole world. Hopefully, what's happening in El Fasher will be the last.

To be the last, this needs quick intervention, but it also needs a deep understanding of what is really happening in Sudan. The civil war that is now devastating our country is not the first civil war for a country that has been in wars since 1955. The root cause for all these wars is the denial of the diversity in Sudan. Actually, Sudan has been ruled for more than 50 years by military rule, 30 of them by the Muslim Brotherhood fascist regime. That regime divided the country. That regime actually committed the first genocide, in Darfur, and that regime created the parallel armies and militias that are now fighting with the army, which is well penetrated by the Islamists. They are devastating the country.

This is not a war between good and evil, as some try to easily portray. This is a war between two sides that together aborted the transition and the great revolution by the Sudanese people, which happened in 2019. As a result of the denial of the rights of the Sudanese people to decide their fate, now they are devastating the country.

Sudan's prescription for stability is actually not military rule. Sudan's stability cannot come through Islamist rule. Sudan's stability can be achieved only through a true democratic civilian transition. This is the answer. This is the answer for the difficult question of Sudan.

In the last month, the Human Rights Council issued a report called “A War of Atrocities”. This report documented the horrible atrocities that have been committed by the RSF and SAF. Here, I really commend Canada for its consistent stance by punishing the two fighting parties for what they are doing to Sudan.

There is unfinished business, which can happen only by continuing this journey, by supporting the aspirations of the civilian Sudanese who went to the streets in 2019. Any support for or legitimization of any of the fighting parties is a betrayal of Sudan. Some are trying to portray this as a war between a state and rebels or between the legitimate part and the illegitimate part. This is a war between two illegitimate parts aborting the transition of Sudan, and any support for any of them is a betrayal of the Sudanese people.

There is no military solution for this crisis happening now in Sudan. The only way out is through a negotiated solution. Now, there is an opportunity through the Quad initiative and especially the statement of September 12. There are huge pressures on the sides to accept a “humanitarian truce”. This humanitarian truce should be accepted without any reluctance. This can happen only by coordinated pressure on the two sides, but the humanitarian truce by itself is not enough. It should be a start to a negotiated solution that leads to civilian transition in Sudan and leads to accountability for all the atrocities that were committed against the people of Sudan.

The only way to prevent another horrible atrocity from happening in Kordofan, in the centre or in the east can be achieved only through stopping the war, not any other option.

Thank you very much.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

The interpreters advised us that the sound quality wasn't good enough to do their job. We let the witness give his remarks. However, we should check with the technicians to make sure that everything is working properly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Now I would like to invite Mr. Amjad Taha to take the floor for five minutes, please.

[Amjad Taha, Strategist, As an Individual]

Greetings. Thank you for having me.

I think the human rights situation in Sudan has been in a state of war since 1955, six months before its independence, in what the locals call the Anya-Nya genocide, in which the Sudanese army, the current army, burned Christians and farmers alive, ending with half a million children and women killed. Since then, the Sudanese army has had four civil wars—this is the fifth one right now—four civil wars against the Sudanese people.

In 1983, the Sudanese army officially became the armed forces of the Muslim Brotherhood, and it applied sharia law, like ISIS and al Qaeda. That ended up, of course, with two million Christians killed and four million displaced. The roots of civil wars have always been there: military coups, corruption and extremist ideology—whether it's Communism or Islamism.

Before this war—which started between the RSF and the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood-led army on April 15, 2023—there were seven million children out of school. We're speaking about seven million. That's a whole population. There were seven million children out of school right before the war. Now there are more than 19 million children out of school, with more than 12,000 schools destroyed and used as places for the army and the RSF. Mass mobilization was done by al-Burhan, the leader of the army, with children out of school who had no chance but to join the army to get food for their families.

The army, with 5,000 under-documented...became one of the reasons that the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood-led army, again, and its joint forces of jihadists rejected what? Again, the army rejected what? It rejected the UN fact-finding mission.

The Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood-led army committed grave violations—which include child soldiers, over 4,000 cases of rape and sexual violence against children, and a denial of humanitarian access for children—for which the UN Secretary-General listed it on the list of shame. Indeed, it is a shameless army.

The RSF, which was created by the Sudanese army, has inherited this kind of violation and evil conduct, which led to major violations in Sudan and its cities—such as Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, with 300 child soldiers and 1,000 cases of rape.

This is a civil war; it's nothing new in Sudan. The fact of an unelected dictatorship has prevented humanitarian aid. When allowed, there were cases of stealing the humanitarian aid, like Hamas—the Palestinian terrorists—did in Gaza. The exception, of course, is that Israel, at one point or another, allowed humanitarian aid.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Excuse me, Mr. Taha. Can you lower your mic a little bit, please?

[Amjad Taha]

How about here? Can you hear?

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Continue, please.

[Amjad Taha]

Yes, sir.

However, the Sudanese Islamist army refused and has kicked out all UN staff, especially in El Fasher. That's what happened. When the RSF got into El Fasher, there were no humanitarian staff. There were no UN staff that could document this violation. Why? It's because the army kicked out everybody.

The Port Sudan regime, the regime in Sudan, has now rejected the U.S. and the Quad's proposal, which was calling for a ceasefire and peace. Today, the leader of the army, al-Burhan, attacked President Trump's administrative representative, Massad Boulos. This is immoral, and it's wrong. Ceasefire is what Sudan needs. Ending this war and stopping the arming of all parties is what Sudan needs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Can you wrap it up in 10 more seconds, please?

[Amjad Taha]

Sure.

Sudan doesn't need Turkish drones or Iranian chemical weapons, which were used in Khartoum two times in 2024, and were reported on January 16, 2025. Sudan army authorities in Port Sudan have provided diplomatic passports to members of Hamas and Islamic terrorists. That means Africa is in danger. Chemical weapons are there. Iranians send in drones and other.... Port Sudan right now is the danger.

We should do everything to bring ceasefire and bring peace for the Sudanese people.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you.

From the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, I would like to invite Mr. Yonah Diamond, senior legal counsel, to take the floor for five minutes, please.

[Yonah Diamond, Senior Legal Counsel, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights]

I believe we'll start with my colleague, Mutasim Ali, actually, if that's all right.

[Mutasim Ali, Legal Advisor, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights]

Thank you, honourable Chair, Vice-Chairs and members of the committee.

This is a great opportunity, but I also noticed that this opportunity seems to be manipulated now by some to misrepresent the facts.

I'm a legal adviser at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and a doctoral researcher on peace and constitution-making in post-conflict states, and I'm a Sudanese from El Fasher. I come before you not as a scholar or advocate, but as a witness, as someone who has seen my homeland repeatedly subjected to mass atrocities that were neither unpredictable nor unpreventable.

Before the genocide in El Geneina in West Darfur, in June 2023, the warning signs were clear. The Masalit community faced an imminent threat, with perpetrators, the RSF and allied militia, publicly vowing to wipe out the Nawab—a slur for slaves—and launching systematic dehumanization campaigns.

These crimes committed in El Geneina were preventable. The world heard the threats and saw the violence escalate, yet did not act. El Geneina was almost emptied of its Masalit majority.

A few months later, the same machinery targeted North Darfur, beginning with the Zaghawa community. In April 2025, Zamzam IDP camp was attacked by the RSF and its allied militia.

Last month, after 18 months of siege, the RSF and allied militia captured El Fasher. Doctors were killed by the RSF. Those were not Muslim Brotherhood. Perpetrators documented their crimes themselves. They were boasting about committing genocide.

Such horrors were not spontaneous. They were financed, equipped and politically insulated. External actors, including Canada's ally, the United Arab Emirates, continue to back the perpetrators. International institutions meant to protect the vulnerable are being manipulated to shield those responsible.

What we have seen is not the end. El Fasher is part of a broader campaign. The next major community at risk is Darfur. We are still in the midst of this campaign, and it remains preventable.

History has placed before us and before you a choice. The world knows and was warned.

The question is whether the world and this committee will act. The victims of Darfur and Sudan are not asking for sympathy, but for the protection that international law promises, and for the accountability that justice demands.

Let us not stand by as another community is marked for destruction.

Thank you.

I yield the rest of my time to my colleague Yonah.

[Yonah Diamond]

The time for action for Sudan is right now, as the situation has reached an international emergency, finally garnering the political will necessary to act. You now have the opportunity. As parliamentarians, you have the power to take a host of practical measures.

One, you can move the House to formally recognize RSF atrocities as genocide, a long-overdue step toward justice, and more timely than ever in the wake of El Fasher. Anyone still calling this only a civil war either is not paying attention or is wilfully covering up, and is an apologist for, atrocities on the ground. It's genocide and it's a war on children, as we've documented in two comprehensive reports that I'd be happy to elaborate on later.

Two, end Canadian complicity in the genocide by stopping Canadian-made weapons from reaching the perpetrators and their enablers. There are Canadian-owned companies, for instance, sourcing RSF weapons without consequence today. This is simply a matter of enforcing our laws on the books.

Three, use our sanctions regime to target the key perpetrators and their enabling entities. We'll follow up again with a list of names.

Four, on the diplomatic front, push for a civilian protection mechanism, enforce the arms embargo and use every opportunity to confront the U.A.E., the United Arab Emirates, for fuelling this genocidal campaign as the main backer of the RSF.

Five, take legal action at the ICJ against implicated states.

Six, tighten legislative and regulatory scrutiny over supply chains linked to the conflict, particularly mineral processing and the gold trade.

Seven, increase emergency immigration measures and raise caps to reunite Sudanese Canadian families and end the discriminatory treatment. Expedite all pending applications.

Eight, scale up humanitarian aid to meet the staggering needs.

Nine, use your platforms to issue urgent statements to bring attention to Darfuri communities facing destruction right now and mobilize colleagues to support these measures.

Finally, we're proud to launch, today and tomorrow, a historic all-party coalition for Sudan, a revival of the Save Darfur coalition mentioned by our founder, the Honourable Irwin Cotler. We invite each of you to join and bring colleagues on board.

We're committed to working with Parliament and civil society to implement this action plan to ensure that Canadians no longer remain bystanders to mass killing, starvation, genocide and the world's largest humanitarian catastrophe, which is shamefully being ignored.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you, Mr. Diamond.

I will now invite Madame Ranya Elfil, a member of the board of directors of the Sudanese Canadian Community Association, to take the floor.

You have five minutes.

[Ranya Elfil, Member of the Board of Directors, Sudanese Canadian Community Association]

Hello.

I have to say, based on the recent people who were invited to the committee and how it's been going, to be honest, I will improvise a little. I just ask for your forgiveness.

My name is Ranya Elfil. I'm an engineering graduate and a technology transformation professional. I'm a member of the board of the Sudanese Canadian Community Association.

Since the start of the war in Sudan, in April 2023, I've been a key member of the Government of Canada relations committee and its IRCC subcommittee, and have been closely involved in the advocacy effort on immigration pathways, humanitarian efforts and Canada's response to the war, starting with improving its evacuation efforts in Sudan. I and my SCCA colleagues are in this space because we are passionate about serving our Sudanese Canadian community coast to coast and ensuring our voice is heard. What I'm hoping for today, to be honest, is that the voice of Sudanese Canadians is heard.

Part of my personal pain around this war is that I lost my father-in-law, who was like a father to me, during the time of his wait, as we were sponsoring him to come to Canada but he never made it here.

I will focus on what we want Canada to do. Based on some conversations that we had in the past with the Canadian government, where we said, “Engage in bringing peace in Sudan. Engage in humanitarian efforts. Engage in creating immigration pathways”, they made it very clear that bringing peace in Sudan was not part of Canada playing a strong role, which was a bit disappointing. Humanitarian efforts and immigration pathways could be the way forward where Canada can actually lead, and it has led in the past.

It is still important to focus on what.... People are trying to portray it as an internal conflict—and it is. It is a power grab between two generals, but it's a war on civilians. One thing we have to highlight is that this war would not have been prolonged and taken to this scale if it weren't for the backing by external players. This is something that's very important to take into account: namely, the U.A.E. and its backing of the RSF militia. It's very important that we acknowledge that and that we do something about Canadian arms ending up in the hands of the RSF militia.

We were concerned when we saw Prime Minister Carney in the U.A.E. with the last trade deal. We want to make sure that when we put forward a trade deal, we are still grounded in our principles, and our principles are based on human rights, especially with the very credible allegations on how the U.A.E. is meddling and arming the RSF. Canada should also hold Canadian weapons manufacturers accountable for their role in enabling the conflict, and adopt Bill C-233, which would close the loophole that allows those Canadian-made arms to end up in the hands of the genocidal RSF militia. It has been heartbreaking for us to see our loved ones getting killed by Canadian-made weapons.

It was also heartbreaking for us to see how Canada led the humanitarian response and created immigration pathways for many impacted communities, but when it came to the immigration pathway for those impacted by the war in Sudan, it always fell short. We've been working, since May 2023, on the creation of an immigration pathway for those impacted by the war in Sudan. It took 10 months for the policy to come out, and then just face continuous delays, from bringing everyone, from the beginning of 2025 to mid-summer 2025, to what we see right now—expected timelines of 99 months. That's eight years. There will be no one to bring at that point, because I don't think anyone will survive, whether in displacement or in Sudan, given what's happening in Sudan right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Can you wrap up? Your time is up. I'll give you a few seconds to finish.

[Ranya Elfil]

Thank you.

I would like to wrap up with our asks to make sure we restore the prioritization of the immigration pathways for Sudan by making it a separate initiative that is urgent and taking it out of the slow-moving bucket that it is in. Something has to be done about the arms embargo that has to happen in the U.A.E. so that our arms do not end up in the hands of the militia, as well as ramping up our humanitarian response to what's happening in Sudan. We have to make sure that the largest humanitarian crisis—the famine, the starvation, and the hunger—gets attention from Canada and that we do more about it.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you, Madame Elfil.

I would now like to invite Madame Sadia Araa to take the floor for five minutes, please.

The floor is yours.

[Sadia Araa, Registered Pharmacy Technician, As an Individual]

Thank you so much. Thank you for bringing us here to tell our story to the world.

My name is Sadia Araa. I'm a registered pharmacy technician. I was born and raised in El Fasher. El Fasher used to be a city full of life where children could run, and you could hear kids' voices before you saw them. The El Fasher we always knew, anyone from El Fasher would say El Fasher in the nighttime is Paris, and in the daytime it's rough ridges. Families in El Fasher greet each other by name. This community is so close to each other. Women were the roots holding every community together.

This is not a start...El Fasher on the 25th, when the RSF went to the city and erased it from the earth. I feel it. There are so many people who lost their lives there. The number is not a problem for me. One person is a lot for me, one person. When you see a child or women holding their own kids and crying, that's enough.

Inside the Saudi Teaching Maternal Hospital, which is one of the few remaining hospitals and it's already broken and there are barely doctors and nurses there trying to save lives, more than 460 people were massacred in that hospital. Patients went there thinking it was a safe place and they could get care for their wounds, but instead the wounded were targeted. Patients were executed. Blood filled the hallways. The hospital that once brought life became a place of death. You can see bodies from the satellite image. You can see blood from the satellite image.

Families have been tied to trees, and entire homes burned down with people still inside.

This is not something that happened overnight. This is something that everyone—every international community, humanitarian aid group, UN body—was talking about. They were saying, please do not let RSF get into El Fasher, because it's going to be a massacre.

They let them in, in the Zamzam camp, which holds 1.5 million people, and the government and the international community haven't done anything. That means it's a green light for RSF and for the people who support them, like the U.A.E., who were providing everything so they could come just to kill, a killing machine, and everything those people did is documented by their own phones.

I witnessed the genocide back in 2005. I was there in El Fasher and I saw how many tears there were, how many people were crying. Those people who lost their lives in El Fasher...it's all I see with my family. I lost my own brother. I lost my cousin. You can see if you google it, the youngest parliamentarian in Sudan's history. They killed her. She never left El Fasher. She stayed there. She helped in a community kitchen. They call it a takaaya. That is something like a community kitchen to help the people who are stranded there. They killed her, that woman, and they told her dead body, get up if you can.

So those people, the U.A.E. or whoever, were not talking about it and let the massacre of Sudanese people happen. We are in 2025 and we're talking about something that happened back in 2023.

If only those people had told them, “You cannot do this massacre just by killing the people,” and had held everyone accountable—a government, a militia, whoever—for killing innocent people.... Those warlords are not going to the top, because no one at the top lost their cousins, sisters, brothers, mothers or fathers. It's only civilians who lost those people. Everyone in Darfur right now has teary eyes. Everyone has cried. It's not one or two.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Excuse me, but your time is over. You got almost one extra minute, but keep going. I cannot stop you, so go.

[Sadia Araa]

It's not once that they shed a tear or twice that they shed a tear. It's every single day.

You see mothers who see their children's limbs being amputated. The wives see their husbands being killed in front of them. The young kids.... Everything has happened in front of them. I don't know how those kids are going to survive. Even if they survive the war, I don't know how they're going to go forward. The massacre that these young kids have seen.... If I'm an adult and a mother, I cannot make myself watch those videos; it's so horrific, but the young kids saw it with their naked eyes.

What do we need from Canada? We need Canada to stand with its allies. Canada has done this before.

On one day that they killed people in El Fasher, The Guardian said that it was more horrific than what happened in Rwanda back in 1996. It was just one day of killing in El Fasher.

If we say, enough genocide, we should keep our word, and we should do whatever we can just to bring whoever is responsible to justice. There's nothing we need more than justice. You guys saw the videos. We need to bring the people who did that to justice. There is no closure in El Fasher unless we see all these people behind bars.

Thank you so much.