Genocidal Violence in Darfur: Internal and International Factors

The Darfur conflict, which erupted in 2003, remains one of the most devastating humanitarian crises of the 21st century. It has revealed the limited effectiveness of the United Nations and regional organizations in preventing or mitigating genocide in Darfur.

This roundtable discussion will examine the genocidal violence in Darfur by analysing both internal and international factors that contributed to its outbreak and persistence. Internally, the event will focus on ethnic and political tensions, competition over natural resources, and the militarization of local conflicts in Sudan. Externally, it will demonstrate that genocidal violence in Darfur is not merely a domestic tragedy but also a failure of the international system to protect civilian populations and fulfil the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). Factors such as geopolitical interests, delayed humanitarian intervention, and conflicting foreign agendas will be assessed to better understand the consequences of global inaction.

The discussion participants will try to explain why large-scale ethnic cleansing and genocidal violence have re-emerged in Darfur. Political and economic interests of external actors, such as the United States, UAE, China, and Russia have shaped international inaction.

Keynote speaker – Dr. Safa Suliman (University of Bath): ‘The Darfur Crisis: From Local Conflict to National Civil War’

Speaker 2 – Dr. Osman Mohamed Ali (University of Leicester; Ahfad University for Women): ‘Darfur: A Failure from Within and Without’

Speaker 3 – Dr. Yunus Turhan (Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli University, Turkiye): ‘Instrumentalized or Impotent? Deconstructing the Role of International NGOs in the Sudan Conflict’ (online)

Speaker 4 – Dr. Vadim Atnash (University of Exeter): ‘The Crisis of R2P and the ‘Blood Gold’ Factor in Sudan’

Speaker 5 – Osman Eltayib (Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter): ‘Regional Power and the Violence in Darfur: The UAE’s Role in Sudan’s Fragmentation’

Dr Safa Suliman – Visiting Fellow at the Department of Social & Policy Sciences, University of Bath. Dr Safa Suliman is a lecturer and researcher specializing in the intersection of social sciences and data sciences, with a particular focus on conflict studies and the impact of technology on societies. She is engaged in groundbreaking research on conflict prediction, text analysis, exploring the effects of Sudan ongoing conflicts and famine on communities. With over eight years of experience in academia, Dr. Suliman has delivered engaging courses in software engineering and database management. Her work aims to leverage data analysis to predict food prices, anticipate humanitarian crises, and forecast famine conditions, ultimately assisting governments and humanitarian agencies in conflict prevention efforts. Her current research investigates how ongoing conflicts in Sudan affects community practices, particularly the disruption of burial traditions and other cultural practices. She is also interested in documenting how Sudanese people cope with food scarcity, and how this impacts their understandings of life and death. This work draws on a mixture of methods including ongoing qualitative research in Sudan.

Dr Osman Mohamed Ali – Visiting Fellow at the School of Business, University of Leicester; Assistant  Professor at Ahfad University for Women, Sudan. Dr Ali is an internationally experienced educator and researcher specializing in operations and supply chain management. His journey has taken him from engineering roles in Sudan’s oil industry to advanced academic research in China, and now to collaborative teaching and research in the UK. With a PhD in Corporate Management and a Master’s in Control Engineering (focused on machine learning and data mining) from South China University of Technology, he brings both technical depth and management perspective to the table. His research focuses on areas like service modularity, knowledge sharing, and innovation in supply chains — work that’s been published in top-tier journals and presented at major international conferences.

Dr Yunus Turhan – Associate Professor in International Relations, Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli University, Turkiye. Dr Turhan is an Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations at Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli University, where he also formerly served as the Director of the African Civilization Research and Application Center. In 2019 he was a visiting research fellow at Oxford University Department of International Development.  In 2024-2025, Dr. Turhan held a postdoctoral research fellowship at Harvard University within the Department of African and African American Studies with a TUBİTAK scholarship. His distinguished academic trajectory includes international study and research residencies in South Africa and Lithuania, as well as contributions to humanitarian projects across Sub-Saharan Africa. His research expertise spans a broad spectrum of fields, including Turkey-Africa relations, non-state actors in politics, development studies, foreign aid politics, faith-based and secular NGOs, and peace and conflict studies.

Dr Vadim Atnash – Research Fellow at the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, University of Exeter. Dr Vadim Atnash he is currently affiliated with Exeter Law School and the Department of Political Social and Political Sciences, Philosophy, and Anthropology. Dr. Atnash has a PhD in Asian studies and obtained a title of Associate Professor in International law, European law in 2014. He formerly served as an Associate Professor in International Law at the Northwest Institute of Management and at St. Petersburg State University. In 2023 he was a Fulbright visiting scholar at Clark University in the USA. He has published roughly 100 articles, book chapters, and textbooks, and actively participated in international research projects supported by EACEA (Jean Monnet programs). His scholarly work encompasses diverse areas of study, with primary interests in Southeast Asian studies, international human rights law, international relations, ethnopolitical conflicts, genocide and indigenous studies.

Osman Eltayib– PhD student at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter. Osman’s work examines the intersections of political economy, ethics, and environmental degradation in Islamic and comparative thought, with a particular interest in how patterns of regional power shape conflict in Sudan. His broader research looks at questions of moral responsibility, state fragility, and the lived consequences of geopolitical intervention.

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