We strongly condemn the ongoing fighting in Sudan, which started on 15 April 2023, and ask the leaders of the army and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to sit for dialogue that leads to a civilian-led government.

As the fighting continues in Sudan, many people fled their homes to other cities, estates and countries. The situation will increase the number of people at sea fleeing the conflicts in Sudan and many others fleeing persecution, oppression and mandatory military service from other countries.

We call on the European Union countries to stand by people fleeing these conflicts, allow freedom of movement, and provide assistance to those in distress at sea to reach a safer place.

The EU is complicit in this deadly and devastating conflict, having fuelled the  militarisation of Sudan. The EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF) has contributed hundreds of millions of Euros to the Khartoum Process, a project of border externalisation and securitisation that aims at outsourcing the “dirty job” of border brutality to African countries. This money largely went into border control, a task which within the government of Sudan was assigned to the RSF, now one of the warring parties.

We call on Europe and the UK to stop criminalising asylum seekers who arrive on its shores by boat and to abolish laws that help to deport or pull them back from where they are escaping.

Together with the members of the Sudanese diaspora in Europe who undersigned the petition below: 

“We call on the EU, European lawmakers, and European civil society, including the Red Cross, to close all loopholes of support to the war in Sudan, and put their full weight behind an immediate end to the fighting. We call for the full enforcement of the provisions of the Geneva Convention, including the immediate establishment of humanitarian corridors and safe routes within and out of the fighting zones”. 

Read the full petition: ‘Urgent Call to the European Union, European civil society and policy-makers: https://www.change.org/p/urgent-call-to-the-european-union-european-civil-society-and-policy-makers

Signed by: 

– Birlikte Yaşamak İstiyoruz İnisiyatifi (We Want to Live Together Initiative)

– Border Violence Monitoring Network

– Brighton Migrant Solidarity

– Captain Support Network

– Feminist Autonomous Centre for Research

– Global Women Against Deportations

– HDK (Peoples’ Democratic Congress) Migration and Refugees Assembly

– HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party) Migrants and Refugees Commission

– Iuventa Crew

– Legal Centre Lesvos

– Louise Michel

– Maldusa

– Mediterranea Saving Humans

– Migrant Solidarity Network (Switzerland)

– Migration and Refugees Assembly

– Ragazzi Baye Fall – Palermo 

– Refugee Legal Support

– Refugees in Libya

– Sea Watch 

– Sussex Refugee and Migrant Self Support Group

– Swiss Democratic Lawyers

– Watch the Med – Alarm Phone