Achi news desk-
Dylan Robertson –
Canada has yet to reunite a single family with relatives trying to escape conflict-ridden Sudan, while diaspora groups are demanding the federal government do more to end a year-long civil war.
The fighting that erupted last April between fighting militias in northeast Africa has forced at least 8.5 million people out in what the United Nations calls the world’s largest internal displacement crisis.
And so far, Canada hasn’t done much to stop it, said Imad Satti, director of the Canadian Sudan Communities Association in Edmonton.
“We haven’t done anything – just expressing concern, which doesn’t solve any problems,” Satti said. “There is not enough push from the international committee, including Canada, to stop this war.”
Sudan is in the midst of a “catastrophic situation” and on the brink of a man-made famine, UN relief advocate Edem Wosornu told the Security Council last month.
“There are reports of mass graves, gang violence, shocking indiscriminate attacks in densely populated areas and many more atrocities,” he said. “We fail the people of Sudan.”
Canada expressed concern about the security situation last spring, and citizens reached out. Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly visited Kenya to support neighboring countries in trying to push for peace.
But since then, Canada has avoided punishing warlords or publicly naming the countries that helped fuel the war. Satti wants Ottawa to do both – and even pressure the United Nations to intervene in the hope of restoring order.
Canada has instead focused on humanitarian aid, earmarking $165 million last summer for Sudan and neighboring countries that take in refugees.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced a family reunification program late last year designed to allow people fleeing Sudan to join relatives in Canada with the means to provide financial support.
Families say, however, that the program requires paperwork that is impossible to collect in a war zone, and requires sponsors to have $18,100 in cash plus a minimum annual income of $51,128 to sponsor a family of four .
Satti, whose organization represents Sudanese groups across Canada, said some people have cash sitting idle in a bank account while they try to help relatives with paperwork. Others, he said, send money to help relatives stay alive, depleting their savings in the process.
Ottawa has tweaked the program to allow biometric screening such as fingerprinting to take place after people’s applications are accepted, but Satti said it is still expensive and often dangerous to get to one of Sudan’s neighboring countries to visit a consulate in Canada.
The program began accepting applications on February 27, and Ottawa said it had received 680 applications as of March 25 involving about 1,500 people who meet the bar for processing.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada did not say how many applications it has received that have not yet passed “completeness checks” and added that it had not yet approved any applications.
Miller said the program, which will receive up to 3,250 applications, was designed with Sudanese diaspora groups, and is open to improvements. He also doesn’t expect any to arrive in Canada anytime soon.
“We are looking to welcome the Sudanese people who are fleeing war at the end of this year or the beginning of next year,” he said on March 27. “It is very important to talk about what has become a forgotten war for many of us.”
The New Democrats say the government is moving far too slowly in what Ottawa has already seen as a humanitarian effort to save people from crisis.
“These people should be a priority for Canada – especially in cases where there are small children who have been separated from their families,” MP Heather McPherson wrote in a letter to Liberal ministers last month.
McPherson also urged Ottawa to step up its diplomatic pressure and humanitarian response.
Ottawa’s former ambassador to Sudan, Nicholas Coghlan, has argued for months that Canada should follow its peers in the United States and Europe in punishing the economic networks that Sudan’s warlords rely on.
Canada has not appointed a senior diplomat to stay in the region and gather information on how Ottawa could best use its humanitarian and diplomatic heft, Coghlan noted in a column published by the Canadian International Council.
“Unless this omission is corrected, we are in no position to consider playing a secondary role even in ending hostilities,” he wrote.
Canada has not issued a statement on the crisis since June 2023, Coghlan added. “Signs of Canadian interest – let alone commitment – are disappointingly few.”
Global Affairs Canada officials were asked to speak to those complaints, but had not yet responded.
It’s “very disappointing” Canada still can’t get relatives out of Sudan, Satti said. He is constantly worried about his siblings, with whom he loses contact for days when skirmishes escalate and telecommunications go down.
“We are very stressed and worried,” he said. “It is not considered an emergency.”
This report was first published by The Canadian Press on April 8, 2024.
