This monologue is meant to highlight and support the inspiring social movements that exist in Sudan especially the youth-driven Neighborhood Resistance Committees that helped lead to the ouster of long-time dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019, putting an end to his 30-year rule. The Neighborhood Resistance Committees are local resistance committees comprising hundreds of neighborhood groups drawn from all socioeconomic classes and ethnic backgrounds. Members of these neighborhood committees also have taken brave risks to provide humanitarian aid to people in conflict-stricken communities caught in the middle of the Sudan's brutal civil war between between two warring generals. The bravery and inspiring examples of direct democracy by the resistance committees and other decentralized mutual aid networks, farmers unions and trade unions shouldn't be forgotten because of the man-made humanitarian emergency in the country. Sudan's civil war began in April 2023 when the Paramilitary Rapid Support Forces tried to seize power. The RSF is the reconstituted version of the notorious JanJaweed. Instead of disbanding the JanJaweed after it was complicit in government-backed crimes against humanity and possibly genocide in Darfur two decades ago, Omar al-Bashir's organized remnants of the group to safeguard his rule against any potential coups by members of the military. Bashir officially recognized the RSF as a fighting force in 2017. The fighting that broke out between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed forces in April 2023 stemmed from disagreements between RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, and the country's de facto leaders General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan about the RSF being integrated into the national army. The fighting between the two armed factions has created one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. On November 1, The United Nations office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that about 26 million people have acute hunger in Sudan with 755,000 facing catastrophic hunger conditions. Save The Children reports that the more than two million babies that have been born since the fighting started in April are at risk because of a decimated health care system and crisis levels of hunger. It reports more than 80 percent of the hospitals in the worst affected regions have closed and two out of three people don't have access to essential healthcare services. Before the fighting started, Sudan already had one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, according to the United Nations. On a positive note, OCHA reported in its report on November 14, 2024, that Sudanese authorities decided to continue to allow the delivery of aid through the Adre border crossing point from Chad to Darfur. The UN's Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Clementine Nkweta-Salami called the Adre Border crossing a critical lifeline for hundreds of thousands of Sudanese citizens. This is a welcome change from other instances when warring factions have blocked the delivery of food, medicine and other essential supplies and attacked health facilities, ambulances and health care workers.

The UAE, a U.S. ally in the Middle East, has emerged as one of the RSF's biggest supporters in its war with the SAF despite the group being a serial human rights offender guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity and possibly genocide. The UAE's support for the RSF stems from agricultural and gold interests in the African country along with a goal to expand it's influence and control in the Middle East and Africa. Progressives and other human-rights minded folks should demand the U.S. suspend military support for the UAE until it stops supporting the RSF. We should also continue to support and highlight Sudan's inspiring pro-democracy forces who offer the potential for a brighter future for the country and an impressive example of grassroots democracy from below for the world.