part of what's causing people confusion.
They're like, I don't understand. Both
sides are saying
Allahbar. It's not considered to be a
war on between two armies. It's
considered to be a war on the on the
civilian. He was initially a warlord who
got promoted to be a general. And he
said, "Why not me? Why you?" How do you
say Allahbar Allah the creator is the
greatest? That means that you're
supposed to be living according to
Islam. But what you're telling me here,
you have innocent people's lives who are
being taken when you're talking about
millions of people facing famine and
acute hunger. Is there any end in sight?
What's the uh situation right now? I
don't want Sudan to be a military
dictatorship anymore. That experiment of
30 years was a huge
failure. How are you?
How are you doing? How you been?
Alhamdulillah. Great. How's everything?
Great. Alhamdulillah. Good to see you.
It's good to see you, too. We got a gym
session in in the morning today. Was a
good workout, huh? Alhamdulillah. We
going over some limber. We were uh
talking about food, nutrition, staying
away from sugar. Yeah. I I like you. Um
I can see like when somebody's taking
stuff in, you can see like re you kind
of read them where some people are just
like, you know, rolling their eyes or
just like, you know, not really. But you
were really into it. Yeah. You can tell,
you know, I'm sure you've had thousands
of conversations, but you can tell when
a person is responding if they're asking
interesting questions based on what you
said, right? They're not just waiting
for their turn to talk. So,
alhamdulillah, it was a great, you know,
we were with Muhammad Hoop Finesse,
basketball player, pro basketball
player. He was giving us some, at least
he was giving me some advice and I
appreciated it. Yeah. So, alhamdulillah,
maybe you can bring us up to speed. I
mean, you're from Sudan, right? Yeah.
And many people are just totally unaware
what is going on over there. There's a
war currently happening. You had an
ousting of one president and now the two
his what his security forces. Fill us
in. Yeah. So Sudan had uh a a popular
overthrow of a government who was uh was
in position of power for 30 years and
you know the people protested. The
president was forced to step down of 30
years and then it went through a
civilian transitional government for uh
a year year and a half and then uh a
general did a coup over it for the
purpose of preserving the uh preserving
the revolution and then there's a power
vacuum. So one general takes over but
then at the same time in Sudan there was
another another uh basically general who
had his own army and he had been
building it up for over 20 years. He was
initially a warlord who got promoted to
be a general and he said why not me why
you right so you can't have two armies
in the same country and that ended up
happening
uh war broke out between the Sudin armed
forces which is the traditional armed
forces of the country and this
paramilitary group which is called the
rapid support forces and they also had
thousands of soldiers and incredible
wealth what's the other one rapid
support there's the other one also
there's there's was National Army of
Sudan, basically National Army of Sudan.
And so they broke out fighting in the
capital city. You know, usually the
capital city is the last thing that you
take, right? That's what you conquer
last. But because the preceding
government had, you know, were using
this militia, they were using this uh
paramilitary group. They had actually
given them bases in the capital city for
them to operate. And so you have the
capital city with two factions armed to
the teeth. And so war broke out on April
15, 2023 in Ramadan in Kau causing
chaos. And of course it's the capital
city got 6 million people living there.
Sudan in the entire country is only
around 40 million people. And so it's
definitely the biggest city in the
country and people had to flee fled uh
everywhere. We have the most amount of
displaced people in the world is in
Sudan. over 9 million people are
displaced and then you have um further
displacement outside of the country as
well. Another eight million people in
Egypt and uh surrounding countries,
Kenya and Ethiopia and wherever people
could go of course. Are you born in
Sudan? So I lived my entire life in the
US but I lived in Sudan uh for four
years from uh fourth grade to 7th grade.
Have you been back? The last time I was
there was in 2022,
uh, 6 months before the war broke out.
Is there any end in sight? What's the,
uh, situation right now? The situation
is they're fighting until one either
there's some sort of military, uh,
victory that either side could have or
they come to a negotiation, you know,
they come to some sort of agreement. And
neither of those is in sight right now.
Neither yet neither of them is in sight.
So they're pretty much fighting for
control for power and right now Sudan is
on the brink of famine. Lots of states
in Sudan because the rapid support
forces which um I mean is for all
intents and purposes a very evil outfit.
I mean these guys are running uh
roughshed over the Sudin people. It's
not considered to be a war on between
two armies. It's considered to be a war
on the on thei the civilians. Yeah.
Families are becoming displaced. Entire
cities are becoming displaced. The
health infrastructure is attacked. The
uh farming infrastructure, the
agricultural infrastructure of the
country has been looted and robbed and
taking out taken out of Sudan are being
sold other elsewhere. So people aren't
able to people aren't able to farm and
people are facing acute hunger. Millions
of people are facing what's called acute
hunger and uh millions are also facing
famine. But you think okay this is sud
uh Sudan Muslim Muslim army Muslim rule.
What's happening? And that's what people
are, you know, that's part of what's
causing people confusion. They're like,
I don't understand. Both sides are
saying Allahbar and they're both uh
killing each other. But I mean, at the
end of the day, this is uh this is power
whether they're Muslim or not. You have
two people who are fighting over power,
two institutions that are fighting over
power. And the fate of the country is um
basically being squandered, right? The
future of the country is being
squandered. You have two, it's been two
years now. Kids haven't been going going
to school. People are displaced all over
the the country and outside of it in
Chad and in Ethiopia and other places
and millions of people are going hungry
and nobody is stopping. Who do the
people want to see win over the other?
So different people want different
things, but if you ask me my personal
opinion, I want the the army to beat the
rapid support forces because they're the
ones who are violating and committing
all of these crimes, these war crimes.
And uh eventually you want the people to
win over the the army because you don't
want at least I don't want Sudan to be a
military dictatorship anymore. That
experiment of 30 years was a huge
failure in my opinion. It caused
incredible damage to Sudan. you know,
the country every year of my life that I
would go back to Sudan, it would always
be worse. It would never be better. And
so the people revolted against that
government because they'd had enough. It
was it was too abusive. It was too
corrupt. And people wanted something
that was better. And so you don't
overthrow the army to get another
general. People overthrew the army
because they wanted the people to lead.
How do you say Allahbar Allah the
creator is the greatest? That means that
you're supposed to be living according
to Islam. But what you're telling me
here, you have innocent people's lives
who are being taken. How does that get
justified? How do you ra you rampage a
war on innocent civilians uh and you
claim people are claiming we're Muslim?
Yeah, they're Muslim. Yeah. And you
know, they think that they're doing uh
great work and one of the things that
Sudan's a big country and for a very
long time much of it has been
marginalized and they don't have
infrastructure and they don't have
education. There's been aspects of the
country that have had war. So I'm sure
you remember about Darur in 20 in 2003.
There was a genocide that happened in
Darur and it was the same general who's
now doing what he did in Darur to the
people of Dur. He's doing it now to the
the the people of Sudan. He's the leader
of the RSF. He was used by the president
al Bashir as his arm in Darur to to
punish the people of Dur and to quell
the rebellion there. And so 20 years
later, those guys have been growing up
in war that entire period. They're not
going to schools. They're not being
educated. They're not being taught
Islam. They're not any of that, right?
You've got basically ferocious
uh fighters that are coming out from
that region. Nobody's invested in them.
And so a lot of times we expect like a
basic level of Islamic education and
etiquette and stuff like that. But if no
one gave them that, then what do you
expect? You're going to expect monsters
who are going to come and do monstrous
things. Is the country pretty much
divided? Is it like 50% of it's taken by
one this side? Right now it's about
that. Yeah, it's about so it's around
you would say I don't know if it's 50/50
but it's large portions. Yeah, it's
large portions of the country. the
western side is being ruled by the RSF
up until like some of the central part
of the country including my part of the
country which is Jazzer. Uh my state is
uh occupied by the RSF and then the
northern part and eastern part of Sudan
is still under the control of the uh the
traditional government the army. Now the
uh the other side are the people also
supporting this other Yeah, the people
are supporting the army because the army
is still our national institution,
right? What about the other side? Are
they being supported for Yeah, they're
being supported by their tribes. Yeah,
they're being supported by tribes. Oh,
Sudan is all tribes. Sudan is a tribal
society and so there's particular tribes
in Western Sudan that are, you know,
supporting or some of them at least I
don't want to generalize, but many of
them are supporting the RSF. Yeah. The
support. Um what else should we know
before we conclude about this? I think
what we should know is that we should uh
know that um number one Sudan needs it's
called the forgotten war. It needs
people and I thank you Eddie for for
bringing up this topic of Sudan. We need
to talk more about it. Uh I would
encourage you as well to talk to your
Sudin friends and family and also
support. I mean when you're talking
about millions of people facing famine
and acute hunger, alhamdulillah, there
are still organizations that are working
in Sudan and the banking system in Sudan
continues to work. It hasn't collapsed,
which is great news because we can still
transfer money over there. We can still
people are still, you know, going back
and forth and and being able to buy and
sell goods for themselves, blankets in
the winter. Winter is coming and so I
would suggest a couple of organizations.
Uh, one is called the Sudin American
Physician Association. I personally have
vetted them and done work with them and
they do great. As well as Sodakhat Sodak
USA. There's also a version in Canada.
So theat is s a d a g a t usa and you'll
find that. All right. Thank you for
sharing that with us. My pleasure.
Salami. Sound.