generalspeaking

Sudanese Child Mercenaries in Yemen

"Families know that the only way their lives will change is if their sons join the war and bring them back money."
Hager Shomo Ahmed, 16, Sudan

"The Saudis told us what to do through the telephones and devices."
"They never fought with us."
"Without us, the Houthis would take all of Saudi Arabia, including Mecca."
Mohamed Suleiman al-Fadil, 28, Bani Hussein tribe

"The allegations that there are children among the ranks of the Sudanese forces are fictitious and unfounded."
Turki al-Malki, spokesman, Saudi military coalition

Abdel-Hamid, a 14-year-old former child soldier, at a camp for displaced persons where he took shelter, in Marib, Yemen AP/ Nariman El-Mofty

During Darfur's collapse when the government in Khartoum employed its forces including helicopter gunships and Janjaweed Arab horsemen to slaughter black Darfurian farming communities, raping women and girls, killing hundreds of thousands of people, displacing millions and creating a desperate refugee situation in 2004, the world began to take notice. That's about all the world did. Out of a total Darfurian population of 6.2 million, fully 4.7 were displaced, losing everything, their farms, their livestock, while between 200,000 to 300,000 lost their lives.

Hager Shomo Ahmed's family lived in despair after raiders stole his family's cattle leaving them destitute after a 12-year civil war. An unequal war; the Darfurians had little defence capabilities while the Khartoum government had its panoply of advanced war machines while the Janjaweed mopped up what the Sudanese military left behind. So the indigent Hager family welcomed a 2016 offer to pay up to $10,000 to have their-then 14-year-old son become a mercenary in their war with Yemeni Houthis.

The war in Yemen, according to the United Nations, represents the world's worst humanitarian crisis where an intermittent blockade by the Saudis and their coalition partners has placed 12 million Yemenites in starvation, where an estimated 85,000 children have died. The Saudis on the other hand, claim to be rescuing Yemen from a hostile group of Shiite Islamist reactionaries linked to and backed by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Sadek, another 14 year-old former child soldier at a camp in Marib AP/ Nariman El-Mofty

The Saudi and Gulf oil wealth enables the coalition to buy the use of mercenaries, tens of thousands of survivors of the Darfur conflict, and many of those taking up the offer are children. For close to four years, up to 14,000 Sudanese militiamen have joined the fight in Yemen alongside the local militia supported by the Saudis. Hundreds of them will never return home, casualties in a war far from their homes.

Virtually all the Sudanese mercenaries in the Yemen war represent the impoverished, battle-scarred region of Darfur, most becoming part of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, the tribal militia known as the Janjaweed, the very same Arab militias that preyed on black Darfurians at the behest of Khartoum. They were responsible for the systematic rape of women and girls, the indiscriminate slaughter and allied war crimes during the Darfur conflict.

The veterans among them now lead the deployment of the Sudanese mercenaries in Yemen. Many among the fighters are between the ages of 14 to 17; their parents bribed militia officers to take their sons to fight, desperate for the pay promised by Saudi Arabia. Children are estimated to represent at the very least, 20 percent of the Sudanese fighting units, a number in dispute since some returning fighters claim that children represent 40 percent of the units.

Nawaf, a 15-year-old former child soldier, in Marib AP/ Nariman El-Mofty

Saudi and Emiratis officers involved in the command of the Sudanese fighters keep in contact by remote control, themselves remaining far from the battlefield, where they direct the units to attack or retreat remotely through radio headsets and GPS systems maintained by the Sudanese officers. "The Saudis would give us a phone call and then pull back", said Ahmed, 25, a member of the Awlad Zeid tribe. "They treat the Sudanese like their firewood."

According to now-16-year-old Hager, returned to Darfur in late 2017 from Yemen, his unit had lost 180 men in a period of six months of fighting. His Sudanese officers had allowed him to call his parents occasionally because he had been terrified constantly by his enforced military duty and the potential consequences. Now, both he and his parents are content; with his $10,000 pay he bought a house for his parents and ten cattle.

Labels: Conflict, Mercenaries, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen

posted by Pieface @ Friday, February 01, 2019