A group of women issued a statement calling for an immediate end to the violence in their country and called for their full inclusion in peace processes aimed at silencing the weapons.

Women and children have borne the brunt of the war that broke out in 2023 in Sudan, as rape orgies and malnutrition punctuated the scourge of violence between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

And those who survived said the world must stop the war and save the vulnerable and their generations. They came together in Kigali this week in a workshop held in partnership with the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Courts (IRMCT) and the Aegis Trust. The gathering included Sudanese survivors of the war.

They expressed their concern at the meeting convened by the United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu.

Their statement on Thursday emphasized the critical importance of women’s equal and effective participation in all aspects of peace negotiations and prevention initiatives, as well as their role in combating hate speech and preventing incitement to violence.

So far, Sudan’s mediation efforts, which have all failed to lead to a ceasefire, have not included women.

Instead, the mediators targeted the all-male SAF and RSF leaders to seek their agreement on a ceasefire and the reopening of humanitarian corridors. A third track of civil movements has also attempted to influence the warring factions, but is also predominantly male-led.

The week-long meeting in Kigali included an international conference on ethnicity and prevention, all aimed at promoting practical solutions to some of the most complex challenges in the field of genocide prevention, with a focus on immediate grassroots implementation.

“These events represent a major milestone in our ongoing work to honor the memory of past genocides and build a more peaceful future,” Ms Nderitu said.

“By bringing together experts, survivors and advocates from around the world, we have taken critical steps to further develop the tools and strategies needed to prevent genocide and identify solutions to make prevention a reality.”

The choice of Rwanda is of course significant because it survived a 1994 genocide and lived to warn every warmonger on the continent about the danger of ethnic cleansing.

Sudan’s war has not yet reached the level of genocide, but UN experts have recently found credible evidence of war crimes, including ethnic cleansing, forced deportations, rape, torture and murder by both warring factions. Such crimes often signal a warpath for worse things like genocide.

“We have identified practical steps forward to improve our ability to prevent genocide by strengthening the fight against incitement; refining our tools to mediate in contexts where the risk of genocide and related crimes is all too real, and sharpening our policy toolkit to prevent ethnic-based violence,” she noted.

Rwanda’s Minister of National Unity and Civic Engagement, Jean-Damascene Bizimana, has condemned the rise of genocide denial and denial as threats to truth and reconciliation.