Sudan Calls for Urgent Action

Archbishop Desmond Tutu taught us that “if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” Today, as atrocities unfold once again in Sudan, we are called to urgently join the demands for an immediate ceasefire.

The reports emerging from Darfur and across Sudan are horrifying: mass killings, sexual violence, forced displacement, and ethnic cleansing carried out by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and their affiliates. There are also reports of significant crimes by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). Civilians are being starved and slaughtered while the world looks away. This is unacceptable. And this is not an internal conflict alone – it is a moral failure of the international community.

We are especially appalled by the growing body of evidence that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has supplied arms, logistics, and financing to the RSF; fuelling a campaign of terror that has left hundreds of thousands dead or displaced. The trade in legally and illegally mined gold is also a clear engine feeding the conflict. As the gold price surges and investors reap the benefits, it should be recognised that these gains are driving continued conflict through financing the RSF.

Archbishop Tutu warned on a number of occasions the danger of the profiteering arms trade that makes money off fuelling global conflict. Arguing for the UN Arms Treaty in 2007, the Arch emphasised that the arms trade was dangerously out of control.

It is unconscionable that states and corporations continue to profit from weapons sales while civilians bleed. The global arms trade thrives on conflict, its profits rising as human suffering deepens. This trade in death corrodes every ideal of international law and dignity.

The people of Sudan have suffered enormous violence through this protracted civil conflict. Millions displaced, hundreds of thousands killed, and systematic use of sexual violence as a tool of war. Yet much of the world has turned away disinterested – leaving the people of Sudan unsupported and unseen in their greatest hour of need.

As Tutu reminded us, “my humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.” This statement – a reflection of ubuntu – demands that we tackle all injustice, wherever it takes place. We must speak out against the genocide in Gaza, the conflict in the DRC, and this horrific violence in Sudan.

We therefore call for urgent, principled action:

1. For an immediate ceasefire by the Rapid Support Forces and Sudanese Armed Forces to end civilian suffering now.

2. For the United States, European Union, and African Union to act decisively to halt the flow of weapons and military support to all parties perpetrating atrocities in Sudan.

3. For governments to impose targeted sanctions on those – state or private – complicit in arming or financing the RSF.

4. For the United Arab Emirates to immediately cease all material and financial assistance to the RSF and to cooperate fully with investigations into violations of international humanitarian law.

5. For all signatories to the Arms Trade Treaty to enforce their obligations and end the moral hypocrisy of profiting from weapons that fuel genocide and displacement.

This is not only a crisis for Sudan. It is a mirror held up to our world: to our governments, our economies, our collective conscience. Will we continue to allow profit to triumph over principle? Will we turn away from suffering people because of who they are, or where in the world they live? Or will we reclaim the moral courage that Archbishop Tutu embodied?

The people of Sudan deserve peace, justice, and safety. Their lives – every one of them – are sacred. In the spirit of ubuntu, we call on all nations and all people of conscience to act now: to speak truth to power, to end the trade in death, and to stand with those whose humanity is under assault.

As the Arch said so powerfully:

“As much as the world has an instinct for evil and is a breeding ground for genocide, holocaust, slavery, racism, war, oppression, and injustice, the world has an even greater instinct for goodness, rebirth, mercy, beauty, truth, freedom and love.”

May we prove this true – by our courage, by our actions, and by our solidarity with the people of Sudan.

Issued by the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation

Cape Town, November 2025

ENDS

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Solange Nolan, Head of Advancement

solange@tutu.org.za