On non-partisan positioning

DAR Talks does not align with either armed party in Sudan. Both the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces have been credibly accused of war crimes against Sudanese women. Our position is anti-violence-against-women and pro-accountability — applied without favour to either side.

This is not a procedural neutrality. We do not give the two parties equal voice or treat their actions as morally equivalent on a case-by-case basis. Where the evidence implicates one party in a specific incident, we name that party — and we apply the same standard to the other party where the evidence supports it. Amnesty International's April 2025 investigation They raped all of us documented thirty-six cases of women and girls — some as young as fifteen — raped, gang-raped, or held in sexual slavery by RSF forces across four Sudanese states. The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan has concurrently documented the SAF for indiscriminate airstrikes and shelling of populated areas in Kordofan and Darfur, sexual violence, the killing of detainees, and other acts that international monitors have characterised as war crimes. Where the evidence points, we point — to both parties.

What non-partisan means here is this: we will not subordinate the question of violence against Sudanese women to any war-aim. We will not endorse a military victory by either party as the route to women's safety. We will not allow our platform, our coalitions, or our funding to be used to take sides in a war whose principal cost is being paid by women neither side has protected.

This is the position we ask coalition partners, funders, and journalists who quote us to understand. It is the position the Sudanese women we work with have asked us to hold. It does not change.

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