Racism and secularism have changed Sudan’s treatment of Syrian refugees – Middle East Monitor

Since the beginning of the Syrian crisis in 2011, around 5.6 million Syrians have been forced to leave the country. Another 6.2 million have been internally displaced due to war conditions and systematic ethnic cleansing by the regime, as well as regionally and internationally backed militias that targeted certain groups.

The refugees have mainly settled in countries in the region, including Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, and even the Gaza Strip. According to the UN Refugee Agency, Turkey is home to around 4 million refugees, including 3.6 million Syrians, while estimates suggest that Sudan is home to between 250,000 and 300,000 of them. The actual figure is unknown, because the regime of overthrown President Omar Al-Bashir did not grant them refugee status, so they did not have to register with refugee agencies.

In 2015, Sudan was the only country in the world that did not require Syrians to have an entry visa. Other countries, including Turkey, have imposed restrictions due to the use of “fake passports” by people from third countries. This month, however, Sudan has introduced visas for Syrians after a year in which they have been harassed almost routinely by authorities. Sudan is no longer a safe haven for Syrian refugees.

According to the UN Refugee Agency, the Al-Bashir regime had “accepted Syrians and Yemenis into [Sudan] based on the concept of Muslim solidarity with ‘brothers and sisters’. “Also, Syrians could apply for Sudanese nationality during Bashir’s time in office. Although the Sudanese Constitution says that a foreigner can obtain a passport after living in Sudan for 10 years or getting married to a Sudanese lady, Al- Bashir made an exception for Syrians who could obtain Sudanese passports after six months.

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Now however news from Syria reported that the current Sudanese authorities have since 2016 revoked the citizenship of 13,000 of the 18,000 foreign-born citizens. The website strongly suggested that Syrian refugees were the main target of this move.

In 2016, Sudanese spokesmen were quoted as saying that restrictions on Syrians would not be imposed “as long as the Nile flows,” reaffirming the country’s stance to maintain an open-door policy. A Sudanese merchant named by Al jazeera As Khalid said: “Syrians are guests in my country, not refugees. I hope that one day they can return. But as long as they remain here, they are like us.”

“Syrians in Sudan have access to education and health care as if they were citizens of the country, and they have the right to work and run businesses on their behalf,” wrote journalist Jenny Gustaffson last year, describing the situation for Syrians. in Sudan. “There are also no restrictions on their movement, because the community is not viewed as, nor is it granted refugee status. Instead, they tend to be called visitors or guests. No entry visa to Sudan means there are no refugee camps, no prolonged stays in precarious circumstances in inclement weather awaiting processing and entry, no long processions of people trudging through hostile territory to reach a safe haven. “

Syrian Refugees [Cartoon/Arabi21]

In late 2018, a bread and fuel crisis and rising inflation in Sudan triggered a popular revolution. Al-Bashir was overthrown the following April. The country’s economy was drained by strict economic sanctions imposed by the United States after Washington alleged that Khartoum was sponsoring terrorists. Cynics might say that the real reason was that Al-Bashir and his party were Islamists. Sudanese journalist Ammar Mohammad Adam met with the current Sudanese Foreign Minister in October and claimed that the leaders of the Communists who now share power alongside senior army officers have US passports and lobbied for sanctions. while they were in the United States and Europe.

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The expulsion of Al-Bashir was followed by a transitional government, at which point different changes in attitude towards Syrians were observed. According to Sarah Tobin, a researcher at the CHR Michelsen Institute who has been researching Syrian refugees in Sudan since 2018, this change started in October 2019.

“The transitional government shifted national refugee policy from the relatively ‘hands-off’ approach … towards mainly urban Syrian refugees,” he explained. “They started demanding a variety of permits for refugees living in the country.” Several permits are now required to legally enter Sudan, live and work there, seek education and receive medical care.

“It will stop now; they can’t do it anymore. The policies of the old regime will change,” predicted Sudanese journalist Abdulmoniem Suleiman in April 2019, referring to the free visa program. The changes also mean that Syrians will no longer be able to obtain Sudanese nationality.

It is clear that when the Sudanese transitional authorities decided to turn their backs on Islam and be swayed by Western secularism, they also turned their backs on refugees and introduced discriminatory and racist laws. In September, the Sudanese authorities announced that they had abandoned Islam as a state religion. At the same time, they said they are re-examining the cases of Syrians and other foreigners who were granted Sudanese nationality during the Al-Bashir era. The director general of the Sudanese police, Adil Mohamed Ahmed Bashayer, said a committee has been formed to review the files in order to “preserve the Sudanese identity.”

Al-Bashir may have been a dictator, but he was neither a fascist nor a racist. It is the new government that is importing these “values” from the West. Although Sudan was not involved in the preparation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (it was still a British colony at the time), Al-Bashir’s response to the problem of Syrian and Yemeni refugees demonstrated the humanitarian values ​​of his faith.

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The discrimination and racism introduced by the transitional regime in Sudan have filtered down to the grassroots. “A Syrian woman I interviewed in Khartoum in early 2020,” Tobin revealed, “expressed deep sadness that her two young children are no longer called by name at the local primary school by teachers or students, and simply they refer to them as ‘the Syrians.’

She used to be able to go to the market freely, the researcher added. “She was treated like a Sudanese. But now she is viewed with suspicion and anger. People now say to her, ‘Hello Syrian’ instead of a more respectful term. They also talk about her family’s need for permits now. Recently, many refugees in Sudan have reported such a setback.

The Sudanese authorities will no doubt deny it, but it seems that it is their secularism that has changed the country’s treatment of Syrian refugees and has introduced racism into the now very ugly equation.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.