[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                    A DIRE CRISIS IN SUDAN: A GLOBAL CALL 
                               TO ACTION

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                                OF THE

                         SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA

                               BEFORE THE

                      COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                              May 22, 2025

                               __________

                           Serial No. 119-20

                               __________

        Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
        
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Available: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov, http://docs.house.gov, 
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                                __________

                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
61-183 PDF                  WASHINGTON : 2025                  
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------     
                     
                      COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS

                    BRIAN J. MAST, Florida, Chairman
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas             GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York, 
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey         Ranking Member
JOE WILSON,, South Carolina          BRAD SHERMAN, California
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania            GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
DARRELL ISSA, California             WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts
TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee              AMI BERA, California
MARK E. GREEN, Tennessee             JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
ANDY BARR, Kentucky                  DINA TITUS, Nevada
RONNY JACKSON, Texas                 TED LIEU, California
YOUNG KIM, California                SARA JACOBS, California
MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR, Florida        SHEILA CHERFILUS-McCORMICK, 
BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan                  Florida
AUMUA AMATA COLEMAN RADEWAGEN,       GREG STANTON, Arizona
    American Samoa                   JARED MOSKOWITZ, Florida
WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio                JONATHAN L. JACKSON, Illinois
JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana              SYDNEY KAMLAGER-DOVE, California
THOMAS H. KEAN, JR, New Jersey       JIM COSTA, California
MICHAEL LAWLER, New York             GABE AMO, Rhode Island
CORY MILLS, Florida                  KWEISI MFUME, Maryland
RICHARD McCORMICK, Georgia           PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
KEITH SELF, Texas                    GEORGE LATIMER, New York
RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana               JOHNNY OLSZEWSKI Jr, Maryland
JAMES C. MOYLAN, Guam                JULIE JOHNSON, Texas
ANNA PAULINA LUNA, Florida           SARAH McBRIDE, Delaware
JEFFERSON SHREVE, Indiana            BRADLEY SCOTT SCHNEIDER, Illinois
SHERI BIGGS, South Carolina          MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL BAUMGARTNER, Washington
RYAN MACKENZIE, Pennsylvania

              James Langenderfer, Majority Staff Director
                 Sajit Gandhi, Minority Staff Director
                                 ------                                

                         SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA

               CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman
MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR, Florida        SARA JACOBS, California, Ranking 
 RONNY JACKSON, Texas                    Member 
 BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan              SHEILA CHERFILUS-McCORMICK, 
 AUMUA AMATA COLEMAN RADEWAGEN,          Florida
    American Samoa                    JONATHAN JACKSON, Illinois
 JIM BAIRD, Indiana                   PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
                                      JOHNNY OLSZEWSKI, Maryland

                 Joe Foltz, Subcommittee Staff Director
                         
                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              

                            REPRESENTATIVES

                                                                   Page
Opening Statement of Subcommittee Chairman Christopher H. Smith..     1
Opening Statement of Subcommittee Ranking Member Sara Jacobs.....     3

                               WITNESSES

Statement of Ken Isaacs, Vice President, Programs & Government 
  Relations, Samaritan's Purse...................................     6
  Prepared Statement.............................................    10
Statement of Cameron Hudson, Senior Fellow, Africa Program, 
  Center for Strategic and International Studies.................    15
  Prepared Statement.............................................    17
Statement of Kholood Khair, Founder and Director, Confluence 
  Advisory.......................................................    22
  Prepared Statement.............................................    25

                                APPENDIX

Hearing Notice...................................................    54
Hearing Minutes..................................................    56
Hearing Attendance...............................................    57

 
            A DIRE CRISIS IN SUDAN: A GLOBAL CALL TO ACTION

                              ----------                              


                         Thursday, May 22, 2025

                  House of Representatives,
                             Subcommittee on Africa
                              Committee on Foreign Affairs,
                                                    Washington, DC.

    The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:39 a.m., in 
room 2200 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher Smith 
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
    Mr. Smith. The Subcommittee on Africa will come to order. 
And the purpose of this hearing is to examine the ongoing 
conflict in Sudan, its devastating humanitarian consequences, 
including widespread displacement, violence, and external 
involvement, and to review the conflict's root causes, 
developments, and the responses from the United States and the 
international community.
    I do recognize myself at this point for an opening 
statement.

           OPENING STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

    Over the decades, as especially our distinguished panel 
knows, the people of Sudan have been subjected to unbearable 
pain, suffering, and loss of life, even slavery. Since the 
1990's, I have been a vocal advocate for human rights, 
democracy, and stability in Sudan. Soon after Republicans took 
control of the House, I chaired a hearing in 1996 on slavery in 
Sudan and Mauritania.
    Today, there's a dire crisis again in Sudan, necessitating 
a global call to action. I went to Khartoum, for example, in 
August 2005 to meet with President Omar al-Bashir and other 
government officials, a number of people from the faith 
community, to press for an end to the genocide in Darfur. The 
meeting was necessarily contentious. Bashir denied any 
wrongdoing or complicity in the killings of Darfur genocide.
    In 2009, however, I point this out, Bashir was charged by 
the International Criminal Court with committing war crimes and 
crimes against humanity. And in 2010, he was the first person 
ever charged for the crime of genocide by the ICC.
    After meetings with Bashir and other government officials, 
I visited two refugee camps--many of you have done that, many 
of my colleagues have done that. Those two camps I went to in 
Darfur were Kalma camp and I stayed overnight at another called 
Mukjar in western Darfur. An experience that profoundly 
motivated me to do more to end the mass violence. When our 
helicopter landed at the remote Mukjar camp, thousands, and I 
mean thousand, a line was formed of these wonderful people: 
women and children dancing, clapping, singing beautiful African 
traditional songs. The people of Darfur have a remarkable 
generosity and spirit, and it was awe-inspiring.
    Just about everybody I spoke with, however, especially the 
women, told me personal stories of rape, senseless beatings, 
and massacres by the Janjaweed and Sudanese militias. I was 
deeply impressed with the dedication of the African Union 
peacekeepers operating under extremely difficult circumstances 
and urged international partners, including the United States, 
to better equip them. I was shocked to learn they were getting 
a little of a dollar a day. It was absurd.
    I went to Condoleezza Rice upon my return and said, 
``Please, we've got to augment that. We've got to increase it. 
These soldiers are putting their lives on the line. They should 
not be so grossly underpaid and not getting the kind of things 
that they need in terms of munitions.''
    In November 2005, I chaired another hearing in a series on 
Sudan and was absolutely clear that the situation in Darfur was 
a genocide. At that time, over 400,000 killed and over a 
million displaced. We did stress, all of us, at that hearing 
the need for a comprehensive plan that could best contribute to 
peace and hold those who have murdered, raped, enslaved, and 
plagued the people of Sudan accountable.
    Meanwhile, Chairman Henry Hyde, Donald Payne, who was my 
ranking member from New Jersey, Frank Wolf, Tom Lantos, and a 
number of others, we pushed the Darfur Peace and Accountability 
Act that declared that the slaughter in Darfur was genocide, 
imposed sanctions on the malign actors, talked about helping 
the peacekeepers. And it was signed into law in October 2006. 
That law was built upon the Sudan Peace Act of 2001 and the 
Comprehensive Peace in Sudan Act of 2004.
    I also, and I wasn't the only one, called on the Arab 
League to leverage its influence over the Sudanese government 
by encouraging the government to end its military offensive in 
Darfur and accept the United Nations peacekeeping which was 
there under the auspices of the AU. They didn't do it. It was 
like crickets. We got almost no response at all other than 
thank for raising it. So here we are again.
    In January 2017, again on this committee, I objected to the 
Obama administration's decision to ease sanctions on Sudan. I 
know it had to have been a tough call. We're always trying to 
look when the sanctions become counterproductive, so there was 
an argument to be made. But I thought it was the wrong one 
because Khartoum's government continued pervasive human rights 
violations. And we pointed out, at the time the violent 
government actions against the Sudanese citizens in Darfur, 
Nubia, the Nuba Mountains, and Blue Nile, alongside the 
persecution of Christians nationwide.
    I was also disappointed in 2024 by the decision to allow 
Sudanese warlord Abdel Fattah al-Burhan into the country for a 
meeting with the U.N. Secretary-General. Burhan, as we all 
know, has massive amounts of blood on his hands and should 
never have been allowed into the U.S.
    Yet the Biden administration delayed and denied robust 
sanctions against both Burhan and Hemedti, delaying such 
actions until the administration's final hours. While we were 
glad when they did it, but we believe, I believe, and many of 
us believe it should've been done sooner. There will never be 
peace in Sudan until there's accountability for the atrocities 
committed by the twin butchers of Darfur.
    Over 18,000 civilian deaths have been committed since 2023, 
with estimates as high as 150,000, and more than 10 million 
people displaced. These are not just numerical estimates. But 
it's the evidence of an appalling range of harrowing human 
rights violations and international crimes. Each murder or 
displaced civilian is a person with dreams and hopes, family--a 
person whose life has been taken or irrevocably changed by 
these atrocities.
    Both the Sudanese Armed Forces, SAF, and the Rapid Support 
Forces, RSF, are guilty of arbitrary killings, detentions, 
abductions, rapes--including the rape of children--repression 
of fundamental human rights, illicit gold mining, and child 
solider recruitment.
    Illicit Sudanese gold, which the RSF struggles--smuggles, I 
should say, through the UAE is crucial to preventing the 
continued funding of Hemedti's atrocities and perpetuating this 
bloody conflict. The RSF's main international backer is widely 
reported to be the UAE, which has supplied weapons and 
financial support. Other external actors, such as Chad, have 
been accused credibly of enabling arms transfers and have been 
implicated in supporting the RSF.
    Domestically, the RSF has allied with some of non-RSF 
Janjaweed militias. It is clear that RSF is grappling with 
command and control, however, allowing its fighters to rape and 
to pillage, to target vulnerable women and children, and to 
attack civilian infrastructure. This is the opposite of capable 
government, and such behavior only confirms this to the 
Sudanese people.
    The SAF has received support from various domestic groups 
including the al-Bara Battalion--known as the Popular 
Resistance--which openly espouses a militant Islamist ideology, 
and former rebel groups including the Sudan Liberation Movement 
under Minni Minnawi and Mustafa Tambour. Externally, the SAF 
has received support from countries like Egypt, Iran, Qatar, 
and Turkey. Russia continues to pursue naval access to Port 
Sudan.
    I'd like to now welcome my distinguished colleague, Ms. 
Jacobs, for any opening comments that you have.

        OPENING STATEMENT OF RANKING MEMBER SARA JACOBS

    Ms. Jacobs. Well, thank you, Chairman Smith, and thank you 
to all of our witnesses joining us today to testify and bring 
attention to the ongoing catastrophe in Sudan. Last month 
marked 2 years since the outbreak of war in Sudan. It is now 
the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. Nearly 25 million 
people--half of Sudan's population--are facing acute hunger, 
and more than half a million people are facing famine. More 
than 13 million Sudanese have been displaced from the homes 
since the conflict began, including nearly four million people 
forced to flee across Sudan's borders as refugees. And I have 
seen the suffering firsthand when I traveled to Chad and met 
with Sudanese refugees last year.
    And let's be clear: this is a war of choice. The Rapid 
Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces and allied 
militias have waged this war, committing war crimes and holding 
the Sudanese people captive for their own selfish interests. 
And their external backers, particularly the United Arab 
Emirates with their support to the RSF, in addition to Egypt, 
Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Russia, have turned this war 
into a regional proxy war by supporting and arming either side, 
risking further regional destabilization.
    But despite this, the Trump administration is nowhere to be 
found. In fact, the administration's actions have only worsened 
the suffering of the Sudanese people. The Trump 
administration's sham foreign assistance review was really just 
a pretext to end most foreign assistance--like food aid, 
disaster relief, global health programs, development and 
economic aid, and more. In Sudan, it's meant canceling millions 
of dollars in U.S.-funded life-saving aid. For instance, before 
it was illegally dismantled, USAID was supporting the heroic 
efforts of the Sudanese Emergency Response Rooms to open 
community kitchens and provide basic meals to Sudanese 
civilians throughout the country. Following the massive cuts to 
U.S. foreign assistance, which included USAID support to the 
ERRs, more than 80 percent of the roughly 1,500 community 
kitchens across Sudan have been forced to close their doors--
cutting of vulnerable Sudanese civilians from life-saving food 
assistance.
    And the administration hasn't stopped there. Yesterday, 
they announced over $87 million worth of canceled humanitarian 
programs, including $30 million for emergency nutrition, water, 
and food aid in Darfur. The SAF and the RSF continue to commit 
atrocities against the Sudanese people, and the people of 
Darfur are facing a second genocide in 20 years at the hands of 
the RSF. Yet despite the clear need for the United States to 
play an active role in negotiations to end this brutal 
conflict, the Trump administration has failed to dedicate the 
resources necessary to do so.
    More than 4 months into President Trump's term, the 
administration has still failed to nominate an Assistant 
Secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs at the State 
Department, an NSC Senior Director for Africa, or a Special 
Envoy for Sudan--a position that the administration is required 
to fill by law. And just yesterday, during Secretary Rubio's 
testimony, he actually refused to say the word genocide and 
reaffirm his previous statements that the RSF is in fact 
committing a genocide.
    These actions--or lack thereof--show that Sudan is just not 
a priority for the Trump administration. And while the 
administration ignores the conflict and its human consequences, 
it chooses instead to provide weapons to the UAE--a country 
that is arming the RSF, fueling the war, and facilitating a 
genocide in Darfur. There is widespread and credible reporting 
that the UAE continues to funnel arms to the RSF, even though 
the UAE continues to deny this publicly. But instead of 
pressuring the UAE to stop arming the RSF forces currently 
carrying out a genocide, the Trump administration has chosen to 
blow through a congressional hold by Ranking Member Meeks and 
proceed with arms sales worth more than $1 billion.
    Just as I did under the Biden administration, I believe 
that the United States needs to use its significant leverage 
with the UAE to pressure them to finally end their support to 
the RSF. That is why I, along with Ranking Member Meeks, 
introduced Joint Resolutions of Disapproval last week to block 
the administration's arms sales to the UAE. If the United 
States wanted to, we could take tangible actions and make 
sensible policy decisions that would help bring an end to the 
war in Sudan and a sustainable peace agreement that ends 
military rule, establish a civilian government, and provides a 
clear roadmap to democratic elections. Instead, this 
administration seems to be ignoring the problem and selling 
weapons that are fueling genocide, war crimes, crimes against 
humanity, and ethnic cleansing.
    The Sudanese people have suffered enough. It is time for 
the United States and the international community to step up 
and focus on bringing an end to this war so that the Sudanese 
people can finally rebuild their country. Thank you, Chairman 
Smith, and with that, I yield back.
    Mr. Smith. We are very pleased to welcome a distinguished 
panel of experts to provide insights on the ongoing crisis in 
Sudan and its far reaching consequences before us today. We 
look forward to your recommendations in terms of policy. I do 
believe the Secretary of State said both before the Senate and 
before our Committee in answer to questions that he would 
welcome a special envoy.
    We have a sense of the Congress resolution because it is 
required by law to do just that. I know that special envoys and 
the key as you mentioned a moment ago, Ken Isaacs, he has to 
have--or she--direct access to the President. It has to be. It 
can't go through a bureaucracy and it ends up on somewhere over 
in Foggy Bottom.
    We got to have that kind of access. And I'll never forget 
how well a person like Senator Danforth did who had the 
gravitas and the ability to promote peace. Of course, peace 
remains elusive, but he did an amazing job, I thought at the 
time, and as did some of the others at this job.
    So I do think that's something that is evolving and will 
happen. It should've happened yesterday. But it will happen, I 
believe.
    So let me introduce first of all Ken Isaacs who's vice 
president of Programs and Government Relations at Samaritan's 
Purse. Mr. Isaacs brings over three decades of experience 
responding some of the world's worst and most urgent 
humanitarian crises from war zones to natural disasters. He's 
also former director of USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster 
Assistance.
    So he knows how it works on the inside of our government, 
and I deeply appreciate that kind of expertise. He led relief 
efforts in response, for example, to the Indian Ocean tsunami, 
the Darfur crisis before. And I remember a whole group of us 
responded to the tsunami.
    If it wasn't for the work that was done by disaster relief, 
by our DART teams and everything else, so many more people 
who've died even though it was a quick--I mean, I never saw 
anything like it. And we had a bipartisan group who went to Sri 
Lanka and other places. So thank you for that leadership. It's 
extraordinary.
    We're going to hear from Cameron Hudson, Senior Fellow of 
the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and 
International Studies. Mr. Hudson has served at the highest 
levels of government, including as director for African affairs 
at the White House National Security Council and as Chief of 
Staff to multiple U.S. special envoys for Sudan. So what a 
perch you have in order to say what needs to be done. And thank 
you for that. He also led the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's 
Center for Prevention of Genocide.
    And then Ms. Kholood Khair, founder and director of 
Confluence Advisory. Ms. Khair is also the host and co-producer 
of Spotlight 249, Sudan's first English language political 
debate show created to engage a new generation in political 
discourse. I don't want to debate you, so thank you for being 
here.
    And please take as much time as you--there's no clock. We 
really need to hear what you've got to say. So I'd like to now 
recognize Mr. Isaacs.

                    STATEMENT OF KEN ISAACS

    Mr. Isaacs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ranking 
Member Jacobs. This hearing has been long needed, and I'm 
grateful that even in spite of a late night that it was able to 
come together today. So I've been working in Sudan for 32 
years.
    I've had the privilege to know all of its leaders and seen 
the inner workings of much of as what has happened. When I look 
at Sudan today and I just want to ask the question, is Sudan in 
a crisis? Right now, it is near collapse on all levels: 
political, security, economic, social, humanitarian, health, 
food security, and infrastructure.
    This war has been going on since 2023, and it is 
essentially between two armed groups: the Sudan Armed Forces 
and a heavily armed militia group, the Rapid Support Forces, 
which it's worth noting were previously the Janjaweed in 
Darfur. And they were reformed under security reforms that in 
the Khartoum process I think in 2015 was when they really 
started upping their game. And that came with EU funding, and a 
lot of people don't dial into that.
    But nevertheless, it is an experiment that didn't work 
well. And today, they have come to the level where they have 
now challenged the Sudan Armed Forces. And there's a horrible 
civil war going on.
    The level of human suffering is horrible. Over 13 million 
people are displaced. Four million have fled to other nations. 
The death rate, as you said, is somewhere between 28 and 
150,000 people. I think those numbers are probably an 
understatement.
    Six hundred thirty-eight thousand are in Phase 5 IPC. 
Technically, they're in famine. And we proved that through a 
detailed statistical analysis which was submitted and reviewed 
by the Famine Review Committee. There's an additional 8.1 
million in Phase 4 food insecurity. That's near famine.
    It is has been--famine has been declared in both Darfur and 
South Kordofan states. And there's 17 additional locations at 
risk of falling into famine. And the total in all of that is 
24.6 million people are highly food insecure.
    I have seen the effects of famine on individuals, 
communities, and nations. And the one point that I would point 
out about Sudan, it is totally a manmade failure. It is a 
manmade famine.
    And last year what we started seeing in March--well, 
actually it was, yes, last year--hundreds of thousands of 
people were pouring into Kordofan State. And they were coming 
into a State that had a 41 percent decrease in crop production. 
But why were they coming there? They were coming there to get 
away from the fighting that was going on in the RSF attacked 
areas.
    I know this because we had staff there. We interviewed 
them. It was a very exhaustive process. It took about 4 months. 
And those people's lives were in immediate risk. I have some 
photographs here. I don't know if it's attached to the paper. 
But this is what the famine looks like. These are photographs 
that the staff at Samaritan's Purse took, and this is rampant. 
These are just two pages of photographs. I have hundreds of 
them.
    The Janjaweed was formed around the early 2000's by 
President Bashir as a way to control insurgency in Darfur. What 
they are known for is chaos, brutality, and savagery, killing. 
They're a very brutal force.
    And that DNA has been carried over to some extent in the 
Rapid Support Forces today. Their mandate has always remained 
the same, although their geographical assignments have been 
reassigned from time to time. The current civil war has seen 
the RSF position itself against this very State that created 
it.
    I would concur with you on the command and control of the 
RSF. I think that it is so shaky that even if they entered into 
a peace agreement, it's not likely that they can enforce it, 
even with the best intentions. And as you know, tribesmen have 
come all the way across the Sahel and joined the fighting.
    And I don't see any structure for pay other than whatever 
you can get is yours. So it's a very, very chaotic situation. 
What we have noticed also over the last 2 years is that when 
you look at maps of displaced people and refugees, they flow 
out of the RSF areas and they're going to SPLM north area and 
then they'll go into SAF areas when those areas are won back.
    In September of last year, I had an idea. We identified 
this one area in western Kordofan. It's in the written 
testimony. But the malnutrition rate in households was upwards 
of 50 percent.
    And kids were dying. People were dying. They were starving 
to death. We had people that had eaten grass to the point where 
the raw grass couldn't be digested and it had ripped through 
their organs and they were dying.
    We came up with the idea of air dropping food. And it was 
that desperate of a situation. I had the opportunity to meet 
with President Salva Kiir, and I asked him if he would talk to 
General Burhan and ask for permission. He did 2 days later. 
Burhan agreed, and that led to a protracted negotiation.
    It took us about three or 4 weeks. There were trips to Port 
Sudan, trips to Juba. In the end, we had a written agreement 
for 30 days to fly planes from Juba with food and air drop that 
food in what's called Julud and Kadugli.
    It was challenging, but the program went well. At the end 
of 30 days, the parties came together and we extended it 60 
more days. And in the end, we air dropped 2,502 tons of food.
    I will have to say that humanitarian access was fully given 
by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North and by the 
Sudan Armed Forces. Everybody abided by the agreement. The 
reason that I'm making this point is that agreements can be 
made.
    They are open to humanitarian access and at the same time 
have legitimate security concerns. When I was in Port Sudan, 
the government of Sudan asked me if I would go look at El-
Gadarif which is a city over in the eastern part of Sudan. 
Gadarif was an interesting situation in that the population is 
normally 1.5 million.
    Displaced people fleeing the RSF fighting had come into the 
area and the population was three million. The obstetric 
hospital was full. We were seeing three to five patients in a 
bed.
    So we set up an emergency field hospital there. This is 
Samaritan's Purse and it was done with private money, not with 
any government money. And we treated thousands of people, and 
we were delivering a lot of babies and most of them by 
caesarian section. I think we delivered about 506, and we had 
9,149 patients and 562 babies.
    That work went very well. And I will have to say that 
government of Sudan was very supportive. And it was difficult 
getting visas and travel permit. And we're landing in Addis and 
it's electronic.
    And a lot of the frustrations that they had honestly were 
limited bandwidth. And I didn't realize that until I drove 
through Port Sudan 1 day by the Office of Immigration. There 
were over 2,000 people, I estimate, crammed into a little 
parking lot waiting to get into the building. And I realized 
they have stepped away from whatever their administrative 
infrastructure was in Khartoum when they fled that city.
    So the security and the humanitarian situation in Sudan is 
truly a crisis. And yes, an enormous amount of humanitarian 
assistance is needed. But the key issue is we cannot dig 
ourselves out of this hole or change this situation with 
humanitarian assistance. The war must stop.
    And that's going to require persistent, intentional, 
political involvement. And that is really what's needed is to 
do that. You mentioned a special envoy. I second that notion 
and I think it needs to be an envoy that has direct access to 
the President of the United States to carry any gravitas.
    Why should America be involved in Sudan? An interesting 
question, right? What's our interest there. I think that if our 
foreign policy is built around governance of democracy, human 
rights, and humanitarian assistance, we have a weak foreign 
policy.
    We need to have foreign policy that's more forward looking. 
And it needs to be transactional to the extent that we have 
some business relations. We have other relations besides 
wagging our finger and telling people what to do.
    When I met with General Burhan, he was very clear. He was 
expressly clear. He wanted American businesses to come to 
Sudan. He wanted American businesses to help on the Red Sea. He 
wanted American businesses in his petroleum and his mineral 
extraction industries. And he didn't pull any bones about it. 
He just said it directly.
    When I look at the Red Sea and I think of real eState, 
location, location, location, the Red Sea is not so wide. On 
the other side are people that we're attacking right now, 
Houthis, because they're destabilized in that whole region. I 
think the argument could easily be made that anywhere on the 
Red Sea is of strategic value.
    The Russians are setting up some kind of military base. The 
Iranians have been there. This is north of Port Sudan. I don't 
know what those details are. But if the United States isn't 
involved, then it's a vacuum.
    I think that if we find a way to be involved and I think 
that we should find a way to be involved, I think it would be 
good. I have not seen sanctions work in North Korea, in Cuba, 
in Iran. They're just not working that good.
    And I think that we need to find a new way to bring peace 
to Sudan. And that is not going to happen if we don't have 
serious diplomatic intervention. That's the end of my words.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Isaacs follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Smith. Mr. Hudson.

                  STATEMENT OF CAMERON HUDSON

    Mr. Hudson. Thank you. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member 
Jacobs, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee on 
Africa, thank you for having me participate in today's hearing. 
It's an honor to be here, and I commend the subcommittee for 
focusing on this urgent and evolving challenge. And in 
particular, I want to thank both the chairman and the ranking 
member for you long history on this issue and for doing what 
you have done in recent months to shine a light on the drivers 
of this conflict.
    The views I express today are my own and should not be 
attributed to the Center for Strategic and International 
Studies, my employer. And I would like to request that the full 
text of my testimony be submitted for the record.
    Mr. Smith. Without objection, so ordered.
    Mr. Hudson. Thank you. As the title of today's hearing lays 
bare the ongoing crisis in Sudan is indeed dire and is 
worsening by the day. Now into its third year, we see in full 
relief the consequences of a distracted, disjointed, and anemic 
international response.
    We are faced with a conflict in which no corner of the 
country is safe for civilians where battle lines now shift by 
the hour, where every single neighboring country is playing a 
role by both bearing the costs and reaping the rewards from 
this conflict, where civilians are sacrificial pawns in a game 
between generals and ambitious regional states, and where 
horrific humanitarian conditions now threaten the lives of more 
people that the fighting itself.
    Two months ago, Sudan's army retook the Presidential palace 
in central Khartoum, signaling what many of us hoped would be a 
turning point in this war by retaking control of the capital. 
But in a war marked by momentum shifts, these army gains gave 
been no sooner eroded and the very nature of this conflict 
transformed by the introduction of more advanced weaponry. 
Sudan is today an international arms bazaar, and the war itself 
has fully transformed into a battle for influence among a host 
of local and regional actors who seek economic, geopolitical, 
and strategic gain in the context of this war.
    This fight is existential for both sides, and we are seeing 
that both sides are prepared to do whatever it takes, ally 
themselves with whomever it takes, and purchase weapons from 
wherever they must in order to emerge victorious. To illustrate 
this point, in a matter of days this month, Sudan army drones 
purchased from Turkey bombed an RSF air base in Nyala, the 
capital of South Darfur State, reportedly killing as many as 
eight Emirati military officers along with mercenaries, local 
press reports, from Colombia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and South Sudan. 
This is in addition to mercenaries that have been documented as 
fighting on the side of the RSF from Chad, Libya, Niger, 
Burkina Faso, and Mali.
    The following day, the RSF countered this attack 1,200 
kilometers--or sorry, miles away in Port Sudan using their own 
long distance and kamikaze drones, drones from China 
transferred via the UAE through a field hospital covering as a 
military base in eastern Chad. This was a sophisticated aerial 
operation requiring planning, coordination, and targeting 
between forces based hundreds of miles apart on specific 
targets inside a crowded city. These are skills that we know 
the RSF does not alone possess and demonstrates that this war 
is no longer a conventional ground campaign with predictable 
battle lines.
    As troubling as the conflict and its humanitarian 
consequences are inside the country, its suspension and 
ultimate resolution are unlikely to come from the belligerents 
themselves. The parties remain unwilling to engage each other 
directly. And for a host of reasons, there is currently no 
civilian leaders that have emerged with sufficient influence to 
govern a new transition.
    Instead, we must directly engage the regional parties who 
are supporting the two sides to advance their own political, 
economic, and strategic ambitions. There is no single country 
better placed to do this than the United States. And it isn't 
too late to add Sudan to our agenda.
    However, rather than appointing a Sudan envoy whose efforts 
are focused inside the country as some have suggested, we 
should also acknowledge where the power to end the fighting 
lies and realize that the Trump administration has already a 
fully staffed Middle East envoy team in place that is well 
positioned to take on this issue. As a first priority, the 
Trump administration must engage its allies in the United Arab 
Emirates about de-escalating and suspending their support to 
the RSF. It strains credulity for the UAE to continue to deny 
any role in this conflict.
    But make no mistake. The UAE are not alone in fueling this 
fight. And while suspending their support is necessary, it is 
not a sufficient condition for ending the war. That's why the 
Trump team should initiate an honest conversation among all of 
our allies across the region about the risks and rewards they 
face in Sudan.
    Such a discussion would reveal that the United States, the 
UAE, and other regional actors active in Sudan like Egypt, 
Saudi Arabia, and Turkey harbor many of the same concerns and 
share similar interests in Sudan. Avoiding the country becoming 
a failed State, preventing Sudan from once again becoming a 
nexus for international terrorism, arresting a further 
degradation of Red Sea security, and avoiding a return of 
Islamist leaders to a position of authority in the country. I 
believe these are all shared concerned among regional allies.
    The people of Sudan deserve to see their democratic 
aspirations supported and the promise of their popular 
revolution fulfilled. But that conversation is unlikely to 
succeed until the guns go silent and those fueling this war are 
made to understand that an absolute military victory is simply 
not possible. If Washington does not use its influence that it 
has and initiate a de-escalatory dialog with the region 
quickly, we will be left with little choice but to begin 
preparing a containment strategy for the forces that will 
surely lead to the breakup of Africa's third largest country. 
Thank you very much.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Hudson follows:]
    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Smith. Thank you so very much. Without objection, your 
full statement as you asked, and same with Mr. Isaacs and Ms. 
Khair.
    The floor is yours.

                   STATEMENT OF KHOLOOD KHAIR

    Ms. Khair. Thank you very much. Chairman Smith, Ranking 
Member Jacobs, honorable members of the African Subcommittee, 
good morning. I know you've all had a very long time, and your 
presence here this morning is a testament to your commitment to 
Sudan. And for that especially I thank you. I also like to 
thank your staff for their efforts in keeping Sudan on this 
committee's agenda.
    Congress has been a vital champion for the people of Sudan. 
Throughout decades of Islamist rule under dictator Omar al 
Bashir through the revolution and the transitional period and 
was quick to condemn the 2001 coup that derailed the path to 
democracy and put Sudan on a trajectory toward this devastating 
war. In the interest of time, I'll be summarizing the points in 
my statement already submitted to the committee and will focus 
on humanitarian situation and atrocities.
    This hearing comes at a crucial time. I think we all 
recognize that. Sudan is now the world's largest humanitarian, 
hunger, displacement, and protection crisis all at once.
    This apocalyptic situation is caused by the counter 
revolutionary war led by factions of Bashir's security regime, 
now at war with each other. As the heirs of Bashir, the 
Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces are using 
every tool in the Bashir playbook, including ethnic 
mobilization, genocide, the use of chemical weapons, and the 
policy of starvation as a weapon of war to capture the leaders 
of Bashir's lucrative security State and position themselves to 
decide the political and economic future of Sudan. They're 
currently incentivized by their ambitions, their foreign 
backers, and the domestic political constituencies, in 
particular, the broad church of Sudan's Islamists to keep the 
war going for as long as possible in the hopes of eroding the 
calls for democracy, accountability, and civilian rule.
    All the while, humanitarian needs continue to mount, and 
Sudan is potentially facing another failed agricultural season. 
Famine, announced months ago, has not had the required 
international or national response. This is in great part 
because the Sudanese Armed Forces denies there even is a famine 
and the Rapid Support Forces has systematically destroyed hard-
won harvests and looted food stocks.
    International community response has been criminally woeful 
with the UN's humanitarian response only 13 percent funded, 1-
3. To make matters worse, the UN's inexplicable decision to 
treat the Sudanese Armed Forces as a de facto authority has 
made the entire international humanitarian system complicit in 
the starvation campaign that the SAF continues to wage. The 
deference has not paid off.
    Access blocks, movement restraints, holding up of permits, 
all hallmarks of the Bashir playbook are all being used to 
devastating effect during this war with only few exceptions. 
The only bright spot has been the volunteered humanitarian 
response rooms--emergency response rooms, excuse me, and other 
mutual aid groups who are not only providing the lion's share 
of the humanitarian response in terms of providing food, 
medicine, safe spaces, and evacuations. But they're doing so 
with far fewer resources and under immense repression from both 
warring parties.
    The U.S. has been the largest humanitarian donor in Sudan, 
and the generosity of the American people has quite literally 
kept people and hope alive. With little clarity around what 
U.S. foreign assistance will look like after September in 
particular with the shuttering of USAID, there will be greater 
crisis and potential cliff edge in terms of funding. The 
lifesaving work of these responders could see clinics and 
community kitchens, a lifeline for so many, close if no new or 
alternative funding is secured.
    This war has also seen many atrocities committed by both 
sides characterize much of the violence that we're seeing. The 
RSF, an entity created by Bashir's regime to violently clear 
people of land and to commit genocide has been doing exactly 
that. In West Darfur alone, the RSF have committed acts of 
genocide not once but twice against the Masalit ethnic group.
    The RSF have also run campaigns of terror, rape, sexual 
slavery in Central Sudan. And recent testimony from the ground 
points to the systematic targeting of men and boys based on 
ethnic identity. Meanwhile, the Sudanese Armed Forces has been 
enacting systematic campaigns of indiscriminate bombings, often 
targeting civilians with reports the use barrel bombs of 
summary executions. And the U.S. Government has concluded the 
use of chemical weapons.
    Neither party has ever faced justice for doing all of this 
before and that decades long impunity continues to directly 
drive atrocities today. All of this has been facilitated by the 
steady gold for weapons pipeline that has gone into hyper drive 
since April 2023 with ever more sophisticated weapons appearing 
in Sudan. Ground reporting from Darfur, especially Nyala, 
capital of South Darfur, points to flights likely delivering 
material to the RSF often going through Uganda, Kenya, and 
Chad.
    Recent research and flight tracker information shows that 
northern Somalia and Somaliland have also become transit 
points. All flights appear to come from the United Arab 
Emirates. Both frequency and volume of these has increased.
    The UAE's patronage of the RSF has drawn in Turkey, Qatar, 
Saudi Arabia, and Egypt in support of the SAF with deepening 
rifts between these middle powers manifesting in their support 
to conflict parties in the greater Horn of Africa with huge 
destabilizing potential. As Cameron mentioned, recently we saw 
an escalation in the drone attacks on both Nyala and Port 
Sudan. For me, the most important part of this is that we have 
seen foreign actors directly fire upon each other with Turkish 
Bayraktar drone operators firing on Nyala and the UAE firing 
directly back on these Turkish Bayraktar drone operators and 
injuring some of them.
    This shows a severe and very marked escalation in Sudan 
following from last year's escalation between reportedly 
Egyptian military actors and the UAE as well. So we're seeing 
an escalation here with no signs of abating. Middle powers, in 
particular the UAE, need to be pressured to do business 
differently in Sudan as well as the border region.
    Ending this war requires political agreements in place 
across all three levels of conflict: the local, the national, 
and the regional and international. This must take place within 
a framework that guides Sudan toward civilian governance, a 
system that could finally discourage competition for power 
through the gun. It is clear that this war represents something 
of an end of an arch of history.
    Bashir's regime is consuming itself while trying to survive 
this war of succession. In the meantime, many more RSFs are 
being created. What comes next depends entirely on how this war 
is resolved with a view toward justice, reform, and civilian 
rule or more impunity and power sharing.
    What Sudan's history shows that there is no military 
victory likely, and that given the right conditions, all wars, 
even ones on this scale, end in a political agreement. So what 
can be done? I'd like to highlight two recommendations.
    The first is for Congress to continue to put pressure on 
the UAE as it continues to supply weapons to the RSF using 
their genocidal campaigns. Other U.S. allies in the region such 
as Turkey and Egypt are responsible for weapon sales to the 
Sudanese Armed Forces should also be pressured to stop flooding 
Sudan with weapons that are used in targeting civilians and 
that myriad militias can use to wage their violent campaigns. 
The U.S. must show diplomatic leadership instead of ceding 
ground to its predatory allies in the Gulf.
    This will require, amongst other things, a high level White 
House envoy to take the lead on Sudan to speak directly on 
behalf of the President with Gulf leaders. That's the only kind 
of level of envoy that they will respect, deconflicting their 
interest and working with others to institute a holistic and 
inclusive political process that can pave the way for viable 
cease-fire talks.
    Second and especially in light of the humanitarian and 
protection issues we've been discussing today, predictable and 
sustained funding for lifesaving work to mutual aid groups is 
imperative. Programming for youth groups in Sudan's war 
affected regions is also key, lest the war be the only 
industry. Supporting nonpartisan media is also critical, 
particularly in efforts to counter hate speech.
    And finally, I'd like to ask this council to continue 
championing the wishes of the civilians in Sudan who wish to 
see a Sudan free from the scourge of war and with a political 
system that stops the continuous destructive cycle of war, 
death, disease, and conquest. Thank you for the opportunity to 
brief you today. I look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Khair follows:]
    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Mr. Smith. Thank you very much for your testimony and for 
your leadership. I have a few questions, I'll yield to my 
colleague, then might have some additional questions as well.
    Mr. Cameron--Hudson I should say, Cameron Hudson--your 
point that we're now into the third year and we see the full 
relief consequences of a distracted, disjointed, and anemic 
international response. We're faced with a conflict where no 
corner of the country is safe for civilians, where battle lines 
now shift by the hour, where every single neighboring country 
is playing a role. What can be done to put a tourniquet on?
    I mean, it's been 3 years. I mean, my distinguished 
colleague, John James, who was our chairman of the committee in 
the last Congress got a very important resolution passed, H. 
Res. 1328. It was totally bipartisan.
    It condemned the RSF and SAF atrocities, called for an end 
to the war which is obvious. It urged the U.S. to take 
immediate steps at the U.N. Security Council to document the 
atrocities, support community-based organizations, and support 
tribunals to hold the RSF accountable. I'm not sure how much of 
that was done by this Biden--or now Trump is there. But he's 
only been there a few short months.
    We're hoping this hearing and the fact that our Secretary 
of State who is tasked with so many jobs and is building out 
his own bureaucracy as we meet here. He has a lot of people he 
needs to get in place. But time is of the essence.
    So it's been 3 years since you pointed out where maybe more 
could've been done. So I like when you said we need--there's a 
desperate need of reinvigoration of a policy. And I think this 
is the perfect time for all of us to do that.
    I know that when the Secretary of State testified before 
the Senate and before the house, he was very clear that they 
are talking to UAE. As a matter of fact, my senator, Senior 
Senator from New Jersey, Senator Booker pointed out that UAE is 
a vital ally to the U.S. And then he asked questions about what 
we're doing.
    And Senator Rubio said, we have expressed to UAE and other 
countries that they are turning it, Sudan, into a proxy war and 
destabilizing the region that threatens to spill over and make 
it worse. We obviously have to do more. And your very specific 
recommendations on what more we need to be doing will be very 
helpful.
    I think you've done some of it, maybe a lot of it in your 
testimoneys which we'll study very carefully, all of us. But I 
think this has to be the pivot point. If not, as you pointed 
out, by the hour more people will die. More people will be 
maimed and abused.
    And at some point, it becomes even harder to put it all 
back together again because of the trauma and the PTSD and all 
the rest that follows such atrocities. So Mr. Hudson, if you 
want to start, and then I'll go to our two distinguished 
colleagues.
    Mr. Hudson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's obviously a tall 
order what more can be done. I think where I have focused my 
attention right now is as this war has evolved over the course 
of 3 years and as I reflect back on some of the initiatives of 
the Biden administration, right, I think we had a very 
traditional approach with respect to a special envoy for Sudan 
under the Biden administration.
    We've had over a dozen special envoys in the past 25 years 
for Sudan. So this is not a new exercise for the United States. 
But I think we have to think differently about how we approach 
this diplomatically at this stage of the war.
    We saw a special envoy last year, last summer, initiate 
what looked like a kind of traditional peace process or the 
beginnings of a peace process, trying to bring the parties 
around the table, trying to support civilian voices in the 
diaspora as an alternative to military rule. And I think that's 
a formula that we have used before in Sudan. But I don't think 
that this conflict is right now ripe for that kind of 
traditional resolution.
    I think we have to focus on the drivers of this conflict 
outside of the country. There are a host of problems and a host 
of drivers inside the country that go back decades. They go 
back generations that need to be resolved around the role of 
the State, governance, ethnicity, militarism, corruption, you 
name it, right? And Kholood talked a little bit about that this 
is the last gasp of the Bashir regime that are playing out in 
this country right now.
    But I think we have to focus at least from a U.S. 
perspective because we're talking to the U.S. Congress and 
we're talking about recommendations to the U.S. Government. I 
think the U.S. Government has a unique position to influence 
the regional actors in a way that no one else does right now, 
right? And I think that focusing on all of the states in the 
region that are playing a role, they are benefiting from this.
    It is also costing them because when you look at the 
refugee situation in places like Egypt, Ethiopia, South Sudan, 
it is a burden--Chad, it is a burden on those countries. But 
elites in those countries are also benefiting from smuggling 
from this war. And so I think we can use our influence to focus 
on these regional actors in ways that we haven't done before. 
And I think that having worked on Sudan since the days of John 
Danforth and all the way through more recent envoys.
    I can say that 10 years ago, 20 years ago, we would not 
have been discussing the role of Egypt, of Saudi Arabia, of 
UAE. They were not a part of the conversation a decade ago, 
right? A decade ago, I traveled with President Bush to New 
York.
    He convened an international summit around the CPA and 
about the secession of South Sudan. He convened an 
international summit as did President Obama about the genocide 
in Darfur. There was a moment when the United States used its 
position on the world stage to convene the international 
community around the challenges that the world faced in Sudan.
    I think there is the opportunity for that kind of 
leadership from the United States. I don't know that it needs 
to be at the United Nations. I think that it could be within a 
group of Arab states and regional states within Africa and the 
Arab world that convene around this conversation.
    And as I said in my testimony, I think we have to 
acknowledge that all of these countries actually have 
legitimate concerns with the outcome of this war in Sudan. This 
is their region. This is their backyard.
    I think that they are, in many ways, undertaking the wrong 
set of policies to ensure that their interests are met. But I 
think that rather than, as Ken said, scolding countries for 
having these interests, I think we have to acknowledge that 
they do have these interests and acknowledge that we actually 
have shared interests in avoiding a worst case scenario in 
Sudan. Yes, there will be things about the future governance of 
the country that we don't agree on.
    But I don't think that we can allow that to presuppose how 
we end this war, right? And I think we have to think about 
ending this war in stages. And I think we can all agree that we 
want a civilian democratic government to emerge from the ashes 
of this conflict. But until we can get to the ashes of this 
conflict, until we can end the fighting and silence the guns, I 
think it is premature to put out a resolution for some kind of 
civilian governance that is, I think, at least in the medium 
term, if not in the short term.
    Mr. Smith. Ken.
    Mr. Isaacs. I agree with Cameron. I think that you're 
looking at a society that has been ruled by militants. It's 
rule by militants right now. And anybody that comes to power is 
not going to have success if they don't have the respect and 
the ability to contain the military to some extent. So what 
this may mean is that there will have to be a transition from 
the type of governance that it has now to the type of 
governance that can be seen in the future. But the No. 1 thing 
I believe everyone should keep their eye on, end the war, find 
a way to stop the war.
    I think bringing a regional confluence of people together 
to share their views, see what their interests are, and use our 
political clout, this is one of the things that I think is 
actually good about the development portfolio of USAID being 
moved into the State Department. These kind of things are 
uniquely political. And the State Department is going to be 
better prepared to handle those than outside negotiators. So 
end the war. End the war.
    Mr. Smith. Ms. Khair, before you go to that, if you could 
also speak to you obviously pointed out, as did our other 
witnesses, this is the world's worst humanitarian crisis, 
world's worst hunger crisis. And you did point out and testify 
that the suffering is not incidental and that the starvation is 
being used as a weapon of war. And this isn't the first time.
    Mengistu used it in Ethiopia with unbelievably telling 
effect. Even Aliyev with Nagorno-Karabakh used it in his 
genocide against the Armenians just recently. I convened a 
hearing right in this room where we had a prosecutor from the 
ICC say this is genocide.
    They're using food as a weapon and wiping these people off 
the map either by moving out of Nagorno-Karabakh or killing 
them. And then now we're seeing it happen again, so your 
thoughts. And again, when Mr. Isaacs, you point out that there 
are 24.6 million people that are food insecure, 8.1 million in 
IPC Phase 5, technically famine, and 638,000, they went to 5, 
8.1 million in Phase 4.
    I mean, these numbers are just atrocious, and it didn't 
happen overnight. It's been growing over the last 3 years or 
maybe longer, but at least 3 years. But if you could speak to 
food as a weapon.
    Ms. Khair. Yes, I'm happy to do that. I think one thing to 
note is that it's not the first time this has happened in Sudan 
either. Both Cameron and Mr. Isaacs will remember that this 
happened--the Sudanese Armed Forces and the government in 
Khartoum uses it very effectively in what is now South Sudan, 
in Darfur, and Blue Nile, the Nuba Mountains and other parts of 
Kordofan.
    So this is a very tried and tested policy by the 
authorities in Sudan to effectively kill as many people for as 
little amount of money as possible. But it's cost money. 
Starvation does not.
    There's another part of this which is the Sudanese Armed 
Forces in particular with their authorities in Port Sudan are 
using the limiting of aid as a way to assert a level of 
sovereignty, as a way to assert a level sort of governmentality 
in the eyes of the international community. It is by limiting 
access to different parts of the country. It is by limiting 
aid. It is by limiting visas. It is by limiting permission.
    They're able to assert the sovereignty. They're not able to 
share the sovereignty in any other way, certainly not in terms 
of responsibility. The RSF, of course, have been doing what 
they've always done which is rape, pillage, and steal.
    And so we have here in Sudan currently no entity that is 
actually wanting to keep people alive. Unfortunately, other 
than the groups I mentioned earlier, mutual aid groups and 
emergency response rooms. Now I think what is clear is that 
within the U.S. Government, actually, USAID understood this 
very well.
    USAID has had decades of engagement in Sudan where it has 
come to the position where it's able to identify who the main 
actors are, particularly in terms of not just aid provision but 
also democratic transformation and other key areas that we're 
speaking of today. My fear is that with USAID being shuttered 
that knowledge throughout the decades will be lost. And any new 
team particularly in the State Department may not have that 
level of knowledge that is frankly needed to be able to read 
the scene properly.
    I want to very quickly comment on what you said about the 
UAE and also a comment to what Cameron said. The idea that 
civilian rule is central to resolving the manifold issues in 
Sudan is not blue sky thinking. This is not about a kumbaya 
moment where we instill a civilian government for the sake of 
civilian government.
    Having a civilian government in Sudan is the most practical 
way of changing the structure of the government such that it is 
not through the gun that you compete for power but maybe 
through the ballot box. It is not by picking up guns that you 
get invited to the mediation table but by having a political 
agenda. Unless that formula is shifted very sharply, we're 
going to continue to see the proliferation of armed groups.
    Twenty, thirty years ago, Mr. Isaacs in particular will 
remember, there was only rebel movement in Sudan. But because 
of the way the peacemaking has been done, effectively rewarding 
those with the guns by asking them to come to the mediation 
table at the exclusion of civilian groups, it has created a 
negative incentive structure that allows only for the people to 
really be represented through carrying a gun and through having 
an armed movement rather than a civilian agenda. So I think we 
need to flip this on its head.
    And actually, now that this war has taken so much scope 
because it has reached every part of the country, this is the 
time to try to right that formula when it comes to--and correct 
that formula when it comes to how peacemaking is done in Sudan. 
So sequencing is going to be very important. I don't believe 
we're going to get a cease-fire that lasts in any way unless we 
figure out what the political issues are going to be, unless we 
get a political solution.
    And when it comes to the UAE but also Turkey, Saudi, Qatar, 
the UAE, these are all U.S. allies in the region. The U.S. is, 
as Cameron said earlier, uniquely positioned to engage. And I 
think unless that engagement happens, we're not going to get 
very far.
    They do agree on many things. Unfortunately, one of the 
many things they agree on is they don't want to see civilian 
government in Sudan. But I agree with Cameron. They're going 
about this the wrong way. The civilian is the sine qua non of 
peace in Sudan. Without civilian rule, you're not going to get 
any kind of lasting peace in Sudan.
    Mr. Smith. Just for the record, was the Biden 
administration as engaged in this as it should've been?
    Ms. Khair. I think the short answer is no. But at least 
what we did see was some level of engagement on the subject. 
Unfortunately, we haven't seen that under this administration. 
But I am confident that we will be able to see at least some 
movement, and this hearing is a really good indication of that.
    Mr. Smith. That's why we're having it. Thank you so very 
much. Ms. Jacobs.
    Ms. Jacobs. Thank you all so much. First of all, many of 
you know we had a very late night or early morning or whatever 
you want to call it of voting here in the House. And a couple 
of my colleagues were unable to make it here but wanted to make 
sure their statements and questions were entered in the record. 
So Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the 
record the statements of Representative Jayapal and 
Representative Olszewski.
    Mr. Smith. Without objection.
    Ms. Jacobs. Thank you. So thank you all for testifying on 
this incredibly important topic. And I commend the chairman for 
shining a light on the horrific war in Sudan that is not 
getting enough attention.
    I want to first turn to the dire humanitarian situation and 
highlight the heroic work Sudanese civilians have been doing in 
the absence of a functional government. Ms. Khair, you 
highlighted in your testimony the important work of the 
emergency response rooms. You just talked a little bit about 
them now along with other mutual aid groups who have been 
providing emergency assistance and other essential services at 
a fraction of the cost of international NGO's.
    Following Trump's draconian cuts to our foreign assistance, 
80 percent of the 1,460 emergency food kitchens have been 
forced to close. Ms. Khair, can you please explain to the 
committee why these kitchens were forced to close and the 
practical impacts of these closures?
    Ms. Khair. Thank you very much for the question. I think 
it's difficult to overState just how devastating the cuts were 
to these kitchens. And in part, it's because there hasn't been, 
unfortunately, enough of a shift internationally to 
understanding the value of these mutual aid groups.
    They're still very much sort of orthodoxy when it comes to 
delivering humanitarian aid through large INGO's or the United 
Nations, which for reasons I mentioned earlier particularly 
when they chose to make or chose to consider one of the main 
belligerent group, the de facto authorities, they are 
effectively self-limiting and unable to deliver in the ways 
that they are. The emergency response rooms and other groups 
that arose out of the pro-democracy movement are uniquely 
places because they are in communities to make these 
deliveries. But they have for three things.
    They've asked for recognition as humanitarian actors. 
They've asked for protection because they are being targeted by 
both warring parties. And they've asked for partnership when it 
comes to delivering aid.
    Now under the previous administration, there was a 
recognition of the unique role that they played. And there was 
a lot of engagement with trying to make sure that they're 
funded. But since the aid have come in sort of since February, 
we have seen an immediate closure of many kitchens in Khartoum, 
particular in other parties of the country.
    Because the way that these groups work is that they need 
little and often rather than huge sums of money as, for 
example, the U.N. might. And so when that sort of train of 
funding stops, of course it has an immediate effect. The 
difficulty now is though some of that has been switched back on 
and we have seen some aid be able to be delivered through these 
kitchens, the issue now is what happens after September.
    The issue now is when it comes to these supply lines that 
are very urgently needed, especially in relation to healthcare 
and medicine, how do you maintain that when you don't know 
what's going to happen in the next few months. We're also 
seeing the supporting structure around these emergency response 
rooms, particularly in the INGO world and the U.N. also being 
impacted. Effectively, it's an industry-wide sort of sea change 
that is happening.
    And that ecosystem is going to be massively impacted. And 
it is people on the ground who are going to feel that first and 
foremost. I'd also like to make very briefly another comment 
which is that a lot of young people in Sudan, young people make 
up the majority of Sudan.
    So a lot of the majority of Sudan are invested in these 
groups, in these structures, as a way to basically sew back the 
fabric of this war. The social fabric of this war is being 
ripped apart by this war. If you take away that work, if you 
take away these structures, not only are you going to be 
impacting the ability for people to stay alive, but these 
groups, these young people may also find alternative ways to 
engage in this war.
    And those may be, in fact, quite severe. They might be 
quite violent. They may be drawn toward other ways in which to 
engage in this war. So I think it's really imperative that 
these structures are maintained.
    Ms. Jacobs. Thank you. I agree with you, and we'll keep 
fighting to get that funding. Mr. Hudson, as you laid out in 
your testimony, there's overwhelming evidence that the UAE is 
supplying the RSF with weapons that they are using to carry 
genocide in the Darfur region. Would you agree that there is 
evidence to suggest the UAE has provided weapons to the RSF 
without the consent of the original supplier?
    Mr. Hudson. I can't comment on the relationship that the 
UAE has China or what the end user agreement is. What I can say 
is that there is a U.N. arms embargo that exists that is nearly 
20 years old on weapons transfers into Darfur. And I think it's 
safe to say that the UAE is in violation of that U.N. arms 
embargo.
    The only other country whose weapons have reportedly been 
found in the possession of the RSF are weapons from the United 
States. These are reports from the ground. They have not been 
verified because we don't have access to those weapons.
    But there are local reports and anecdotal reports of U.S. 
weapons having been found. I would encourage this Congress to 
do what it can to investigate the provenance of those weapons, 
to work with Sudanese authorities or other authorities on the 
ground to get the serial numbers so that we can trace how those 
weapons came to be in Darfur and in the possession of the RSF.
    Ms. Jacobs. Thank you. Very concerning that there might be 
U.S. weapons involved in this. Given the role that the UAE is 
actively playing in supplying weapons to an armed group 
carrying out a genocide in violation of a U.N. arms embargo on 
Darfur with the potential that U.S. weapons are themselves 
implicated, do you think it is appropriate for the U.S. to be 
selling weapons to the UAE while they continue to support the 
RSF?
    Mr. Hudson. Again, I don't--I can't speak to our overall 
policy toward the UAE. What I would say is I'd frankly 
acknowledge what Secretary Rubio said yesterday and the day 
before which is we have a very full and complicated 
relationship with the UAE. We have a very full agenda with the 
UAE.
    And I think we have seen from the Biden administration over 
the past few years a rather pugnacious approach to the UAE. It 
did not move the needle with the UAE. I don't know a 
threatening approach to the UAE frankly is even reasonable from 
this administration.
    I think Secretary Rubio made it very clear. And we saw from 
the President's trip to the UAE just 10 days ago that there is 
a robust bilateral agenda. Will this administration decide to 
hold that bilateral agenda hostage to the UAE's support to 
Sudan or to the RSF? I doubt it.
    And so that's why in my testimony I suggest, I think, a 
more realist approach. It might not be the preferred approach 
or the more optimistic approach. But it is, I think, a realist 
approach to acknowledge that all of these countries in the 
region, whatever role they are playing, they have an interest 
in what happens in Sudan.
    They have an interest in the outcome. And to lay bare the 
facts of that and to not pretend that these countries are not 
playing a role and to not pretend that their interests in Sudan 
matter less than our interests. I think we need to acknowledge 
very openly and freely what these interests are and look for a 
way forward that is not necessarily punitive, that is not 
necessarily congratulatory, but that is honest and realistic.
    Ms. Jacobs. Thank you. And I think you're being a little 
diplomatic about the robust bilateral relationship when I think 
it's clear what President Trump is worried about is the 2 
billion dollar Emirati investment in his crypto company and the 
Trump Tower that will be built in Dubai. But Ms. Khair, same 
question to you. Do you think it's appropriate for the U.S. to 
be selling weapons to the UAE while they continue to support 
the RSF?
    Ms. Khair. I think Sudanese people should not be held 
hostage to any U.S. allies in the region, and that includes the 
United Arab Emirates. I think Cameron is right. I think that we 
are very aware. We have been very aware under the Biden 
administration but certainly now that this is bigger than 
Sudan.
    For the United States, it is about Israel. It's about the 
Red Sea. It is about other corridors. And Sudan in many ways is 
a very small part of that calculation. What I would urge is 
that the United States as a government system, including 
Congress but also the administration, really look at the price 
of its current engagement with its allies in the region.
    This is not just the United Arab Emirates, although that is 
the most acute case. But it's also the case with Egypt and 
Turkey as a NATO ally who are invested in this war. War is big 
business.
    Egypt is making a lot of money from Sudan, both through the 
gold and through the gum arabic that is smuggled there. The 
United Arab Emirates, of course, is making a lot of money from 
the gold but also keeping options around Red Sea influence 
open. There are a lot of countries involved in Sudan.
    I think of it much more as a globalized war rather than a 
civil war. And unless the United States as the key ally to all 
of these countries really sort of grapples with--and I agree 
with Cameron, honestly has an honest conversation with these 
countries about what their interests are, not just in Sudan. 
But we're seeing this play out in Somalia, in South Sudan, in 
Ethiopia. Unless there's an honest conversation about what this 
looks like, I don't think we're going to get very far in terms 
of actually making life easier and better for people in Sudan 
and elsewhere.
    Ms. Jacobs. Thank you. I think one of the important first 
steps is for the U.S. to actually use the leverage that we 
have. And as the biggest weapons seller to the UAE, I think 
that is very considerable leverage.
    And so Chairman Smith and any of my colleagues who are 
watching, I'd encourage you all to join my bill, the Stand Up 
for Sudan Act. That would block arms to UAE until they stop 
arming RSF as well as the joint resolutions of disapproval that 
Ranking Member Meeks and I just introduced that would block 
over a billion dollars in arm sales to the UAE. And I have them 
here, Chairman Smith, if you'd like to take a look. Thank you, 
I yield back.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you very much. And Mr. Isaacs, you spoke 
about the emergency field hospital that at the request of the 
Sudan Ministry of Health you set up for 87 days, staffed by 93 
people, over 9,000 patients, delivered 562 babies. And you 
pointed out that's a neglected and vulnerable demographic, 
pregnant women and newborn children.
    Have there been other requests made? I mean, I think that's 
amazing that they would--not surprising, though, because they 
know that you go in--Samaritan's Purse goes in and just gets 
the job done and helps people who are most at risk, sick, 
disabled. Or in this case, the obstetric hospital you said had 
three to five women in each bed. I mean, that is overcrowding 
on--like, few of us can imagine. Yes, go ahead.
    Mr. Isaacs. So that particular hospital, the community 
population returned to normal as people started returning to 
safe areas. But I was with the president of our organization, 
Franklin Graham. We met with General Burhan.
    It was very interesting. General Burhan asked us, would we 
go to Khartoum and build a hospital? He's talking about a brick 
and mortar real hospital. And Franklin said, we would if you'd 
let it be a Christian hospital. And Burhan said, yes, that 
would be fine.
    And so internally, that is something that we're planning on 
doing. We're waiting for the security circumstance to allow it. 
But they have indicated to us that they will give us 
humanitarian access, where we need to go, where we want to go. 
And we look forward to doing more in the Sudan area.
    Mr. Smith. Let me ask you. You said in March, you met 
personally with the delegation in Sudan hosted by General 
Burhan. He made it expressly clear that he desired American 
involvement in his country.
    And I'm wondering for American business, diplomats, it's 
one thing. They eat, sleep, and breathe conflict and trying to 
mitigate conflict and problems. But businesses want to go in 
and sell the product or whatever. Was he talking about those 
kinds of opportunities too and others not realize that so long 
as there's this terrible conflict, it's almost impossible to 
have any kind of foreign investment?
    Mr. Isaacs. My perception and interpretation of what he was 
saying at that time was expressing a deeply rooted desire to 
see the American country get involved in his country, whether 
that involved business, whether that involved politics, whether 
that involved military, not from the perspective of fighting 
but military from the perspective of utilizing the port up 
north. But my sense was that he sees great advantage in 
American involvement. And he would like to see that kind of 
influence.
    In fact, we talked about when Chevron Oil left the country. 
I think it was probably around 1994, 1992. And there was some 
reflection on what would Sudan have been like today had that 
not happen.
    So I think he's very open. And specifically he said I don't 
want to buy things from the Russians and I don't want to buy 
things from Iran. I'd like to do business with America, but 
America won't do business with me.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you. How would you assess that as an 
opportunity?
    Mr. Isaacs. Say it again.
    Mr. Smith. That is an opportunity.
    Mr. Isaacs. Oh, I think it's a clear opportunity. And I 
have to tell you having worked in Sudan for so long, I entered 
in South Sudan. Many times, I have been in caves, under rocks, 
and running from bombs coming from Sudan Armed Forces.
    I told General Burhan this. I have not been a fan of Sudan 
Armed Forces. I have been a responder to the carnage that has 
come about as an act of the war. When I look at the situation 
today and what's going on, I think the country needs stability. 
It needs security.
    And I only see one entity there right now until there's a 
transitionary period where there can be a civilian led 
government. And that's what I would ultimately advocate for. 
And I just don't see the command and control in the RSF for 
that to happen. I see the command and control for SAF to 
happen.
    And another interesting point that I will share with you is 
that the animosity coming from individual Sudanese citizens 
toward the RSF is enormous. The people that have been killed, 
the way that they were killed, the things that were stolen, the 
damage that has been done, I've never quite seen that kind of 
hardness of heart. And I just find it very hard to imagine the 
RSF would be able to add a lot of value at this point after 
what's happened.
    Mr. Smith. Let me ask you how would you assess the World 
Food Programs and other U.N. major organizations on the ground 
in Sudan today?
    Mr. Isaacs. Well, that's an interesting subject. I think 
all of the humanitarian actors on the ground could do more. 
There could be improvements in anybody's organizational 
structure.
    What I do know is that when we had the situation in 
Kordofan State in South Kordofan and West Kordofan, we engaged 
directly with the parties, negotiated the air bridge. And then 
we had other agencies coming to us saying, how did you get that 
air bridge? Can we use your air bridge? How did you do that?
    And we kept it as a muffled--we didn't talk about it 
publicly. But it was highly successful. So I think in the 
future when I need access into an area, I'll probably attempt 
to negotiate it on my own.
    Mr. Smith. Did any of you assess the risks that the 
humanitarian aid workers take by operating in theater? I 
remember a couple visits with Salva Kiir in Juba when his own 
forces made life miserable for humanitarian aid workers. Not 
only did some of his private military go--and these are the 
people that guard him--go and raid humanitarian stockpiles. But 
they also put people at grave risk. How big of a problem is 
that right now, especially with all the bloodletting that is 
going on?
    Mr. Isaacs. I would say, everybody will have their 
opinions. But I would say generally speaking errant and 
unacceptable behavior frequently happens in war zones. That's 
just part of the deal.
    You hope that doesn't happen. But the days of you have a 
white flag and you're protected because you're a humanitarian 
group, those days are gone. And I think practical down to earth 
negotiations with armed actors is required to gain access.
    And then you have to have trust in there. And that trust, I 
can tell you in Sudanese society, comes from building 
relationships. So you would think as a Christian you're not 
going to make any progress in Sudan, it's the Islamic Republic 
of Sudan.
    But that's not at all what I have found. What I have found 
is that by demonstrating integrity, doing what I say I'll do, 
not surprising them, having private conversations behind doors, 
and speaking your mind has built trust. And we enjoy good 
relationships there today with people on all sides of the 
conflict.
    Mr. Smith. Any of you want to respond to this? And the 
Sudanese authorities, why haven't they handed Bashir and other 
former officials wanted by the ICC over to the court? And we 
all recall that even when Bashir was planning on going to 
Turkey, Erdogan made it very clear that he would not honor the 
request which the EU was saying get him to the Hague for 
prosecution and then he didn't go.
    China does the exact same thing in terms of inability to in 
any way enforce the indictment by bringing him to the Hague. 
But why has no one else? I mean, why? Do we know?
    Mr. Hudson. I asked this very question of General Burhan in 
December. And I can tell you what he told me which was--I 
didn't accept the answer. But his response was that they wanted 
to try General Bashir in Sudan, that they wanted local justice.
    I made the point to him, and this was in the context of a 
conversation about the return of Islamist in the country, his 
reliance to some degree on Islamist militias to aid the SAF 
against the RSF and the concerning trend that I saw at the time 
and continue to see today that Islamists associated with the 
former regime would like to see their own return to power 
eventually and see it as a way back to power, kind of 
piggybacking on the army and becoming a useful instrument of 
the army. And so my demonstration--my request to him was to 
say, if you truly want to distance yourself from the former 
regime, if you truly want to demonstrate to the international 
community as you have said privately and publicly that you 
don't want to see the former regime return to power and that 
you want to put distance between the Army and those elements 
that the best way to do that to demonstrate to the world would 
be to turn President Bashir over to the ICC.
    And that would send a very clear signal. And his response 
was, well, we would prefer to try him at home. And I think 
reading between the lines, my interpretation of that was that 
General Burhan is in a very, very difficult position trying to 
consolidate his own power in the country, the power of the army 
in the country.
    And to a degree, he is responsive to and in need of support 
from those former regime elements. They are a distinct group, 
minority group but a distinct and powerful group in the 
country. And if he alienates them right now, then he risks 
seeing the fracturing of his own army. And so he is in a very 
difficult position, I think, with respect to Islamists. And 
that's why he has chosen not to kind of poke the bear and turn 
President Bashir over to the ICC.
    Mr. Smith. Yes, please. Of course.
    Ms. Khair. Thank you. I think the obvious answer is 
precedent. Burhan does not want to set a precedent as a head of 
State which is he says that's what he is, would be sent to the 
ICC less that same thing happen to him in due course.
    The other thing is that there was an opportunity for Burhan 
under the transitional period of 2019 to 2021 to try President 
Bashir. There was a sort of kangaroo court. I think they sort 
of had him indicted on financial charges rather than genocide 
and all the other serious charges which is basically the same 
as getting Al Capone on tax evasion.
    And what we're seeing here is there's no serious commitment 
to justice and accountability in Sudan in all levels, including 
from Burhan. The reliance on jihad groups, the reliance on the 
Islamist groups means that the decisions are not always resting 
solely with Burhan. And so I would push back a bit against what 
Mr. Isaacs is saying which is that Burhan will tell any 
interlocutor he faces what they want to hear to a great deal of 
extent.
    It's good to see that he's giving access to Samaritan's 
Purse. It's good to see that he's making these rhetorical 
commitments to supporting the work of Samaritan's Purse. And he 
says that he wants to get American businesses into the country, 
et cetera.
    I am sure that he's probably saying the same thing to the 
Russians. I am sure he's probably saying the same thing to the 
Iranians. This is how he keeps himself alive.
    President Bashir at the time did exactly the same thing. 
This is the same playbook playing out. I wouldn't put that much 
stock in it. But also the binary is not helpful, this binary 
between SAF and the RSF.
    We have to remember where these came from, Burhan and 
Hemeti. Twenty years ago, we're fighting hand in fisted glove 
against the people of Darfur. They were committing genocide 
together.
    This is not a case of two entirely distinct groups. There 
is a difference here without much distinction. And I think it 
would be very remiss of us not to bear that in mind. The RSF is 
today's enemy for the Sudanese Armed Forces.
    In the meantime, they are creating many RSFs through, for 
example, the Al-Bara' ibn Malik Brigade, the Jihadist Brigade, 
through, for example, the Sudan Shield group which is becoming 
stronger. They recently announced that they've grown in number. 
They have access to sophisticated weaponry.
    We're seeing the same thing that happened with the RSF play 
out there, in essence an ethnic militia as well. So there is an 
incentive here for Sudan Armed Forces to keep this playbook 
going because it allows them to justify military rule which is 
in the end their main objective. They want to stay in power.
    If there is peace in Sudan, why would you need a military 
government. So of course, you keep a war going. You couldn't 
justify your presence in government. WFP very quickly because I 
do want to make sure I speak about this.
    WFP has been very slow to evolve to the conditions on the 
ground. I'm very glad that Samaritan's Purse has been able to 
negotiate this access. I would love to see that sort of 
engagement being made available to other international actors.
    It would be great to see Samaritan's Purse, for example, 
work with WFP which is one of the few organizations despite 
their many failures to be able to buildup the scale that is 
required to respond to the humanitarian situation. So I think 
here we need to see less competition between different 
humanitarian deliverers and actually a lot more cooperation. 
Thank you.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you. Throw out a few other questions and 
then any other questions that Ms. Jacobs might have. When you 
talk, Mr. Hudson, about the issue of doing a local court, ICC 
does not have a stellar track record of getting its man, even 
thought Bashir was in the crosshairs and probably will never go 
to the Hague.
    But we know from hybrid court in Rwanda, especially the 
court for Sierra Leone and Yugoslavia, Charles Taylor never 
thought that he's get 50 years for--and we've had David Crane 
testify several times and Alan White as well who are so 
instrumental in that and for others who committed these 
horrific crimes. Is that something that we should be talking 
about, a tribunal for--I mean, if you leave it to the local, 
just let their own justice system handle it. Good luck with 
that.
    I wouldn't want to be a juror on that frankly because it 
would be very dangerous to your health. So that's one question. 
Then if any of you would like to speak as to the relationship 
to Iran and China. What is China doing?
    Russia probably is more preoccupied with Ukraine sadly. But 
Russia, I'm sure, does have some interest, like, getting access 
to the port more. But China we know is ubiquitous in the 
exploitation throughout Africa.
    They're everywhere, and they're exploiting Africa 
everywhere. So how are they moving in on this? And finally, on 
gold, we had a hearing. And as a matter of fact, a former 
staffer for our subcommittee, I hired him, Thierry Dongala, has 
done amazing work on proving the relationship and fighting 
against the precious metal of gold and how it funds the 
procurement of weapons and all the other things that kill 
people.
    And so it's an area where we need to step up. We also 
focused on at that hearing how all of the--frankly, all of 
the--what do you call it--cobalt for EVs is coming out of the 
DR Congo through child labor and slave labor, 200,000 adults, 
upwards of 40,000, some say 25 to 40,000 children, all goes to 
Xinjiang in China. Then it ends up into EVs.
    And 25 percent of all the vehicles in the EU now that are 
EVs are coming from China on the backs of these little 
children. So I mean, it's so lucrative for China to be here. 
But when you throw in the gold part, maybe you can speak to 
that.
    And I do have one other one, and that's on the refuge 
flows. Chad has nearly a million refugees. I mean, it's a 
refugee--it's just horrible what has happened. There's so many 
people are either IDPs or refugees.
    And that does not help the countries that are trying to 
help these people. It has an negative impact there. If you want 
to just speak to--I mean, all the more reasons why there needs 
to be an absolute concerted effort, as you said, Mr. Isaacs, 
end this war, end the war, but also step up the humanitarian 
side of it as well.
    Mr. Isaacs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So I'll come back to 
what I said. The war needs to be ended. War--excuse me. The 
gold mining is very lucrative. And I think the RSF after they 
were sort of officially enshrined, they had a gold mine.
    They sold it to the government. I believe that they got 
that back. But the smuggling of gold that is going out of the 
country I believe is enormous. I think that the Russians are 
deeply involved in it.
    I think that the RSF is deeply involved in it. And I 
understand that's the basis of the business empire that Hemeti 
has built is really around the gold. And my contacts tell me 
that gold is going through Dubai.
    The issue of China and what they're exploiting, they're 
very ubiquitous everywhere. And I had the opportunity in 2006 
to go to Shanghai and Beijing with CSIS for a 2-week--and we 
just wanted to know what is China's African development policy. 
What we found is they don't have one.
    What they have are Chinese national interest. But there was 
one comment that was made at the last day in Shanghai by a very 
senior diplomat. He said, we have 800 million people with your 
equivalent of a high school education and they make less than 
one dollar a day. We're going to send them out all over the 
world.
    So when you go into a place, it doesn't matter where you go 
in China. You go up to Port Sudan--or not China but anywhere. 
There's Chinese people doing trade on the sidewalk. There's 
Chinese people going into the petroleum offices.
    So China has a way to assert soft power through 
transactional processes that gives them enormous diplomatic 
influence. And I don't think that the U.S. has a way--that's 
not a level playing field for us. We can't do that for whatever 
reasons.
    And I think that that needs to be explored. I'm not a 
proponent for exploitative transactional diplomacy. But 
transactions and diplomacies I think have to go hand in hand 
with us. And I think that we would be better positioned to 
effect change and bring the war about to an end. And so that's 
probably enough that I'll say about that right now.
    Mr. Smith. Mr. Hudson or Ms. Khair.
    Mr. Hudson. So there are a lot of questions there. So let 
me just sort of hopscotch over a few of them. With respect to 
courts, I mean, I think we're in the situation we are in Sudan 
right now to some degree because justice has never been 
delivered for any of the crimes that have been visited upon the 
people of Sudan.
    We've been talking about justice in Sudan for decades. I 
fear that the air that you refer back to of international 
tribunals to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in 
U.S. and U.N. assessed dues, I fear that day is behind us in 
the United States. I fear it also because we have lost our 
Office of Global Criminal Justice at the State Department that 
was spearheading these kinds of initiatives and shining a light 
on these kinds of institutions.
    And I think that the State institutions of Sudan have 
broken down. There are no courts in Sudan right now. So it's 
not realistic to think that anytime some there will be any kind 
of justice delivered either internationally or locally.
    With respect to Iran, I want to underscore we don't, I 
think, understand the full extent of the relationship with Iran 
and Sudan right now. And I think that both the army and the 
Iranians take advantage of this idea that--or seek advantage 
from this idea that neither of them are isolated 
diplomatically. So there is value in having that relationship 
just to say that we have this relationship.
    The Iranians take value in having a relationship in the Red 
Sea and the potential on the horizon for potentially having a 
base there. I've heard in candid moments from senior leadership 
in Sudan that they don't get anything for free from the 
Iranians. And they don't get a friends and family discount on 
weapons from the Iranians, that the Iranians play up their role 
in Sudan to be greater than it is for their own domestic 
political purposes and international geostrategic interests.
    So I think to some degree both sides are overstating the 
degree that Iran is a factor. I'm not saying it is not a 
factor. But I don't know that it is playing a determinative 
role in this conflict.
    It's certainly a factor. I think China we have seen much 
more of a factor in terms of the weapons that are being used on 
both sides of the conflict are largely Chinese weapons. The 
Chinese have a diplomatic presence in Port Sudan.
    There are only a handful of countries that have a permanent 
diplomatic presence in Port Sudan. China is one. So they have 
been able to play a diplomatic role. They have protected 
Sudanese interests at the United Nations. And they are 
benefiting--they're profiting from the arm sales that they have 
engaged in.
    Mr. Smith. Mr. Hudson, do you know what kinds of weapons, 
AK-47s?
    Mr. Hudson. There have been a whole host of light arms, 
more heavy material, and now more recently Chinese drones that 
have been active in the conflict primarily on the side of the 
RSF, the Chinese drones. With respect to the gold trade, I 
think there's been a lot of reporting on this, public reporting 
on the extent of the gold trade. I think the only fact that I 
think is needed is to say that Sudan produced more gold last 
year in 2024 than it did before the war started, right?
    So we have seen almost a doubling of Sudan's official gold 
exports since the war began, right? This is what is being 
reported officially, right? Those numbers are in the range of 3 
billion dollars a year.
    We know that the RSF controls its own gold mines in South 
Darfur, in North Darfur. We know that in the eastern part of 
the country, the army is controlling gold mines there. They are 
doing business in those gold mines with Russia and with the 
UAE.
    The UAE is profiting on both sides of this conflict because 
all gold in the country is funneling, as Ken said, back to 
Dubai which is, again, I think, why I'm also skeptical of 
simply turning off the spigot from the UAE. The RSF is gaining 
and earning enough money that if it did not have privileged 
access to Emirati largesse, it could go onto the black market. 
With 2 billion dollars, it can go and buy any weapons that it 
needs to sustain this war.
    So we have to think, I think, really holistically about not 
just the kind of the drivers and the political support that the 
RSF is getting from outside. But we also have to think about 
turning off the funding that is coming from not just gold but 
from gum arabic, from smuggling, from all of the rest, all in 
there.
    Ms. Khair. Thank you. I think a lot has been covered. So 
let me briefly just underscore a few points. In terms of local 
costs, there's currently not sort of government functionality 
at any level in Sudan. That's become very clear.
    And so expecting there to be any kind of fully fledged 
justice mechanism, especially because that's always been 
deferred, particularly at a moment like this without 
infrastructure as I think it's impossible really. It's not just 
Bashir. There are other ICC indictees like Ahamd Harun who has 
recently been made the head of one faction of Bashir's former 
party, the National Congress Party.
    So these characters are very much alive. They're very much 
engaged in the politics in Sudan. They're being protected by 
the Sudanese Armed Forces. And wherever they are in the 
country, we hear reports of them being moved around, et cetera.
    But there is no desire. There's no sort of will here, I 
think, on the Sudanese Armed Forces to see any of these 
characters face justice. They are too valuable currently for 
them in terms of, one, the constituency with the Islamists, and 
two, the connections that some of them have, two international 
actors, for example, the Iranians and Chinese and Malaysians 
and Turks and others.
    Just very briefly on the gold. A lot of the gold, it's 
exactly as you describe, Chairman Smith, what is happening in 
DRC. Most of the gold in Sudan is mined artisanally. That is on 
the ground mostly by very vulnerable people.
    It is mined and then taken to the United Arab Emirates, 
chiefly where the world's gold markets are and sold for large 
amounts of money. And so there are sort of many injustices that 
are happening here, not just because this gold is used then to 
buy weapons, to bomb these very people, these very vulnerable 
people that are mining it in the first place because the 
working conditions for these people are horrendous. And the 
fact that the gold has gone up only indicates that the working 
conditions have become worse for these people.
    And longer the war continues, the more the economy will be 
entrenched and the more the conditions for these people will 
become more desperate. So absolutely something that requires 
attention. There have been calls, for example, to set up sort 
of a fund very much like what the Europeans have Ukraine where 
a lot of the money that is being made out of gold enters into a 
trust fund that is then used to potentially rehabilitate and 
reconstruct Sudan later on.
    A lot more thinking needs to be done about how to do that. 
If some of these flows of money can be arrested and put into 
this fund for later use, that would be very, very useful. In 
terms of the refugee flows, I want to make sure we discuss 
this.
    The displacement has been--the world's largest displacement 
crisis is in Sudan, not just internally where there are 11 
million internally displaced but also, of course, externally in 
Egypt, in Chad, in South Sudan. Effectively, countries around 
Sudan that are themselves quite vulnerable and facing a lot of 
economic shocks. We're not seeing any kind of sort of 
humanitarian support to these groups that is very sufficient.
    So for example, in Ethiopia, we're not seeing UNHCR, the 
UN's humanitarian--sorry, refugee organization really respond 
to the refugees there. We're not seeing the same by UNHCR in 
Egypt. And the reason for that is the governments of Ethiopia 
and Egypt.
    They're not granting the United Nations and UNHCR the 
ability to adequately respond to the refugee crisis. Egypt is 
making a lot of money from Sudanese people who re in Egypt, 
spending, of course, a lot of money on rent, on food, et 
cetera. And you've seen Egypt sort of send them back to Sudan 
particularly as Sudanese armed forces has been making gains 
very much against international recognized refugee norms of 
non-reform.
    So we need to see a lot more protections for refugees in 
the region. In Chad in particular, we're seeing that the U.N. 
has not been able to fully support people there. And those 
people in particular are fleeing genocide. They're not just 
fleeing the war as people in other countries are. So I think an 
extra focus on this from the United States is absolutely 
required. Thank you.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you. Ms. Jacobs.
    Ms. Jacobs. Thank you. And I actually want to build on the 
line of questioning Chairman Smith was asking. I am very 
focused on the UAE's role here because I think that it is 
large.
    But of course, the UAE is not the only outside actor that 
is supporting belligerence in this conflict in order to advance 
their own objectives. You all have talked about some already, 
right? We've got Chad serving as a staging area for weapons and 
shipments from the UAE.
    We've got Kenya hosting meetings of RSF leaders during 
which they've declared the establishment of a parallel 
government in Sudan. Obviously, we have Russia siding with SAF. 
We've got Egypt continuing to provide military assistance to 
SAF.
    Reports suggest that RSF smuggles gold from Darfur through 
South Sudan, Uganda, and Kenya to help finance its operations. 
We've talked about the role of Iran, the role of China, just a 
small sample. Ms. Khair, can you describe how the influence of 
outside actors has prolonged the conflict in Sudan and 
exacerbated its consequences for the Sudanese people?
    Ms. Khair. Thank you for the question. I think it's 
impossible to believe that this war would've gotten to the 
State that it has, the level of destruction and devastation, if 
not for the role of outside actors. Sudan has been extremely 
vulnerable to the predations of not just its neighbors but also 
Gulf countries because it has never been able to set up a 
political system internally that is able to protect Sudan 
against this vulnerability.
    And so we're going to see unfortunately these countries 
pick at the carcass that is Sudan at the moment. And even as 
things get worse, they're not motivated by the humanitarian 
situation. They're not motivated by the risks of atrocities, 
genocide, et cetera.
    And so there's actually no sort of potential end. There's 
no turning point potentially at which these countries pull back 
from the support that they're giving. And they're giving very 
high tech weapons, what started off as very sort of reasonably 
low tech war has suddenly become with the use of drone warfare 
from many of these countries, Turkey, China, Iran, and of 
course the transit countries that facilitate this.
    This is becoming very quickly a very technologically 
advanced war which means that we're going to see sort of the 
impact on civilians go through the roof. For example, 
previously a lot of civilians were fleeing war at the front 
lines of the battlefield. Today, RSF drones hitting key 
infrastructure, civilian infrastructure, for example, water 
stations, power plants, ports, et cetera, means that actually 
just any sort of normalcy and sort of human normalcy and normal 
life that is able to exist is going to be impacted which means, 
A, no place is geographically safe, and B, that actually it's 
going to be very difficult to eke out any kind of normalcy, any 
kind of normal existence for a lot of people.
    So the scale of this war would not be what it was or what 
it is without, I think, the engagement of these countries. But 
what we have to understand is that war is--we all know this 
very well. War is big business. And so all of these countries 
that you have mentioned are very much economically invested in 
this war. And so unless the formula has changed, unless this 
war becomes actually more of a liability than it is a source of 
revenue, we're not, I think, going to see any of these 
countries, as I say, motivated by the humanitarian situations 
enough to pull back.
    Ms. Jacobs. Thank you. Thank you all again for testifying 
and for everything you're doing for the people of Sudan. Mr. 
Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Ms. Jacobs. We're just 
about finished, but I do want thank you so very much for your 
just expert testimony. It gives us all the guidance on both 
sides of the aisle as to what we need to be doing.
    We want to play a role, hopefully a very constructive one. 
So thank you. I can't thank you enough. Just let me ask you if 
I could, Ms. Khair, is Ethiopia penalizing Sudanese refugees 
because of the territorial dispute over Al-Fashaga?
    Ms. Khair. So I think it is broader than that. The 
Ethiopian authorities or the Ethiopian government has been, as 
you say, in dispute over the Al-Fashaga territory. This has 
been going on for decades.
    There was something of a gentleman's agreement between 
Meles Zenawi and Omar al-Bashir in the past that meant that Al-
Fashaga was sort of left unaddressed for the most part. That 
came to a head when there were changes in government in both 
Sudan and Ethiopia. Those tensions seem to have eased somewhat.
    But I think the issue is still on the table. But Sudan 
doesn't have these territorial disputes just with Ethiopia. It 
has them with South Sudan and the Abyei region. It has them, of 
course, with Egypt as well and Halayeb-Shalateen.
    There needs to be a formula for how to address these 
issues, particularly for countries around Sudan who get 
militarily involved in Sudan's conflict, including, of course, 
South Sudan to a great degree and also Egypt. So we need to--
the resolution to Sudan's war is not just going to be about 
engaging internal actors but also Sudan's neighbors. I think 
fortunately we have seen a de-escalation in tensions between 
particularly the Sudanese Armed Forces and the government in 
Ethiopia.
    But depending on how things go between Ethiopia and Eritrea 
and tensions there and the likelihood as we're seeing of a 
ratcheting up of tensions in potentially armed conflict, 
Ethiopia and Eritrea may be the first countries to be sort of 
pulled into the war in Sudan and vice versa, that Sudanese 
communities, particularly those on the border regions, will be 
pulled into the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea. In fact, 
we're already seeing this during the Tigray conflict. We 
already saw lots of assistance, shall we say, from the Sudanese 
authorities in that war.
    Likewise, we're seeing a lot of Eritrean and Ethiopian 
engagement in the war in Sudan currently, particularly by the 
Eritreans. Recently, we saw their trained navy dock in Port 
Sudan. So what we're seeing here is the overspill that many of 
us, including Cameron and I, have been warning about since the 
beginning of the war is already happening. It's already 
unfolding. And unless these issues around contested territory 
but also regional interest of neighboring countries are dealt 
with, I don't think we're going to be able to sort of have a 
comprehensive resolution to this war.
    Mr. Smith. Just a little bit of understanding about why the 
refugees in Egypt, why Egypt would not want the UNHCR. Is it 
because they're welcoming them? I mean, Karen Bass who used to 
be my ranking member, when she chair, I was her ranking member, 
we made a trip and we met with President Museveni.
    And we went to a refugee camp that it was extraordinary how 
the local Ugandan people were welcoming the South Sudanese 
people with such concern and love. And he had it too. It was 
just amazing.
    And both of us were like our eyes were wide open about this 
is a good neighborly policy. Is that what Egypt is doing? Or is 
it something else?
    Ms. Khair. That's not my understanding, no. Egypt and Sudan 
have a very contentious relationship, mostly because Egypt sees 
Sudan----
    Mr. Smith. The people too? I mean, not just----
    Ms. Khair. Yes, so Egypt sees Sudan as an extension of its 
southern border, believes that it should be very much involved 
in deciding what the government in Sudan looks like. This is 
why they continue to support the Sudanese Armed Forces. They 
have done, let's say, for almost 70 years.
    There are issues with racism. The Sudanese people, a face 
in Egypt particularly previously that the South Sudanese when 
they were Cairo, particularly in large numbers during the 
north-south conflict 20 years ago. Darfur is as well who have 
been displaced to Egypt have faced severe racism, but so have 
Sudanese of all types.
    There's also rhetoric within Egypt similar to what we saw 
with the Syrians that the economic issues that Egypt is facing 
is in large part due to the hosting of refugee communities, 
including the Sudanese communities. That said, a lot of 
Sudanese people, particularly from the center and north of the 
country, have a lot of familial ties with Egypt. There's, of 
course, a shared language and in many ways a shared history and 
culture that has meant a lot of people who believe that Egypt 
is still the place to go without the kind of refugee 
protections that you saw firsthand in Uganda which I think are 
sort of an aberration.
    They're an exception. Without those protections, people in 
Sudan--Sudanese people in Egypt will be very vulnerable. 
Recently, the Egyptians came up with some legislation that has 
made it actually more difficult for people in Sudan to be able 
to register with UNHCR and therefore get the requisite support 
there.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you so very much. Anything else? Deeply 
appreciate it. And we will followup.
    Ms. Khair. Thank you.
    Mr. Smith. And if we have some additional questions, we 
will get them to you, particularly for some of the members who 
are not here but wanted to be. And without any further ado, the 
hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]


                                APPENDIX

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