Current Affairs

Sudan’s horrific civil war has a new driving force: the methamphetamine trade


In October, a member of the Reddit community r/meth, an online hub for meth enthusiasts, It went viral For a series of posts purporting to be from an active-duty soldier in the Sudanese Civil War. In one post, he talked about looting crystal bags from the corpses of fallen enemies. in Another postIt drops imprecise barrel bombs known as “full of anything that could cause an explosion” from an old Soviet-era warplane.

This wasn’t the first time 31-year-old Adande had tried methamphetamine. Having grown up largely abroad, he was actually arrested on drug charges in Oman.

“I was taken from prison, deported, and thrown right into the middle of a war zone,” he told me. He steps foot into his homeland, where he has been killed or killed, Adande He believes It was in his interest to enlist.

Adande said he belonged to a “tribal militia called the United Front,” which is now supporting the Sudanese army in its campaign against the Rapid Support Forces, or Rapid Support Forces, a rebel military faction that broke away from the government in 2023. He sent a group of Sudanese armed forces with him. A video of himself holding his ID as proof of his claims.

“I’m not in any specific department, I’m just attached [to] “I was a militia leader, so I trained a little and became part of many aspects of the war,” he said. “I have seen and continue to see ground operations, air missions coordinated with the military, etc., but I have never been on the front lines as I mainly help with technical/financial/logistical matters and whatever else my education and experience allow…I do You have a rank but it’s kind of trivial and just based on family/tribe and more honorary than anything else I’ve been lucky with that even though I’ve never been one [living] “Here, just coming from the ‘right’ family is enough to get preferential treatment.”

Sudan, which borders Arab-dominated North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, has long relied on the use of tribal militias to suppress rebellion. One of these militias was the Janjaweed (sometimes). Translated by K “Devils on Horseback”), which was performed by A genocide Counterinsurgency in the Darfur region of western Sudan from 2003 to 2005, before that Evolve To the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces led by General Hemedti. After the overthrow of dictator Omar al-Bashir through the 2019 revolution, the RSF and official Sudanese Armed Forces stepped in to “manage” the transition of power. Then, in the 2021 coup, the SAF abandoned what remained of civilian leadership entirely to rule alongside Hemedti’s Rapid Support Forces. But the unstable power-sharing arrangements collapsed into open war by April last year.

the My ethnicity is Arab The Rapid Support Forces, backed by wealthy Middle Eastern monarchies such as the United Arab Emirates, have resumed their genocidal campaign against Black SudaneseThey allegedly stormed villages to gang-rape women in front of their families and slaughter them Every male Over the age of 10 years. Reports have been received Mass suicide Among the survivors. the Death toll The number fleeing the conflict may already be in the hundreds of thousands, although the true number is unknown, while more than 14 million people have been forced to leave their homes.

“More than half” of Sudanese soldiers use methamphetamine, “mostly so they can stay awake for four or five days straight and get more work done…and as a way to do missions that I might have won,” Adande said. “Don’t do it sober.”

Sudan is a major producer and exporter of Indian hemp (known locally as “Pango“), and for centuries this was the drug of choice until around 2019 with the arrival of stimulants, especially methamphetamine or crystal meth. The seemingly sudden rise in methamphetamine use sparked panic In Sudanese society. The junta declared a war on drugs, claiming that the number of anti-coup protesters was high, while independent media reported that the drug trade was increasing. Easy By members of the army, police, and Rapid Support Forces.

Lubna Ali, president of Pet Makli and director of the Qadir Center for Addiction Treatment, the only institution of its kind in the country still operating, told Salon that 90% of drug use disorders at her center in Port Sudan are related to methamphetamine.

“Meth is not produced in Sudan, it only comes from abroad,” Ali said. “Drugs started to spread before the war and attracted young people, because they did not have self-esteem for a long time. First the revolution, then Corona[virus] He comes and there is no school and no work for two years. Then this war. Nearly five years after young people were supposed to finish their university studies, they are stuck in the second or third year.”

Adande holds a bag of methamphetamine (Courtesy of Adande)

“They feel like they have no future,” Ali continued. “Some of them deal with stress with drugs. Some of them commit suicide. Some of them immigrate illegally to Europe, pay what they have, sell their family homes or do whatever. Maybe they sell drugs on the streets to get money so they can escape out of the country.”

Ali pointed out that methamphetamine use has spread greatly since the outbreak of war, especially among militia members. As for drug use among its ranks, Adande says it is “very common.”

“More than half” of soldiers use it, he said, “mostly to be able to stay awake for four or five days straight and get more work done, and yes, for entertainment as well, and as a way to do tasks that you probably wouldn’t be conscious of.” Senior officers tend to “look the other way if you can control yourself and do your part, and if you tweak and go crazy, you’ll get killed in the next mission/raid/battle anyway, so that problem solves itself out.” Some officers also use methamphetamine, he said, but not as many or as clearly as regular soldiers.

Drugs and war have been a common combination throughout history. Perhaps the most famous case study was World War II, where stimulants were used on all sides to keep their troops fighting on minimal sleep. But almost every major conflict over the past two thousand years has given rise to drugs in some way. The term “Dutch courage” (to do something while drunk you would be too afraid to do sober) arises From the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 17th century, soldiers would prepare sips of jenever, a Dutch version of gin.

Dessa K said: Bergen: “The use of alcohol and other drugs during war is historically documented as early as 333 BC, with references to the use of opium poppy juice to relieve the suffering of war during Alexander the Great’s conquest of Persia.” Sekou, professor of addiction studies at Syracuse University.

In 1932-1935 Chaco War Between Bolivia and Paraguay, parcels of coca leaves were airdropped onto Bolivian soldiers. Chewing coca provides a mild, invigorating buzz, and if further processed, the leaves can be used to extract cocaine. During 1939-40 Winter War With the Soviet Union, Finnish troops took heroin doses in order to continue fighting through runny noses and the harsh northern winter. Finns consumed 25 times more heroin than anyone else in the world, at a time when this drug could be found in any pharmacy in the form of tablets or cough syrup. Finland was so enamored with heroin that the nation resisted United Nations efforts to ban it until the 1950s.

Long before insurgents in the Middle East deliberately blew themselves up, the Japanese used these weapons Suicidal Pilots in World War II, maybe The first suicide bombers. By filling their planes with explosives, the suicide bombers’ goal was to crash head-on into American warships, causing maximum damage. Methamphetamine was actually invented in 1893 by Japanese chemist Nagayoshi Nagai – before their final mission, pilots were given large doses to start a fire in case the samurai doctrine of death before dishonor was insufficient.


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The Nazis were particularly obsessed with methamphetamine. Tank drivers and fighter pilots were fed chocolate bars laced with methamphetamine, and Berlin factories went out of business 35 million ‘Energy pills’ used in the 1940 invasion of France, which partly explains the rapid German advance – they were overamping (technical term for “switch”) all the way to Paris. Meanwhile, the Allies swallowed the stimulant pills known as Benzedrine: one hundred thousand pills Purchased By Field Marshal Montgomery at the 1942 Battle of El Alamein in Egypt. only Red Army He did not quickly dose his troops, but drowned them in vodka.

Recently, Captagona weaker stimulant similar to speed, provided chemical courage to all sides during the Syrian Civil War, numbing hunger, pain, fear and the need for sleep.

During 1939-40 Winter War With the Soviet Union, Finnish troops took heroin doses to keep fighting through runny noses and the harsh northern winter.

Drug abuse and addiction are Closely related With a traumatized population shaken by weapons and grenades, it may take longer to find peace than the negotiations themselves. After World War II, the remaining methamphetamine stocks in occupied Tokyo were sold by the yakuza, capitalizing on the nationwide trauma, defeat, and humiliation. Could a post-war addiction crisis wait for Sudan?

“Yes, he definitely will,” Bergen-Sekko warned. “Drugs, including alcohol, are defense mechanisms against thoughts, emotions and physical pain. After decades of conflict, addiction rates among the population in Afghanistan are estimated at around 10%. The Ukrainian Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Defense are actively preparing to meet the traumatic stress and addiction needs of their citizens, veterans and military personnel – Knowing that everyone was affected to some extent.

As for Adande, when we last spoke he was hiring a smuggler to drive him across the desert abroad. It turns out that Sudanese intelligence officers are on Reddit as well, and they weren’t too impressed with his widespread dissemination of methamphetamine.

He told me: “They have an order to arrest or kill me. I know that from three reliable sources.” “Simply because of my history, background, and online activity, they think I’m being paid by the UAE or something, and the level of noise my posts have generated means I’m state-backed and not just an over-sharing idiot.”

For his part, Adande was pessimistic about his country’s future or the solution to the war, saying, “Sudan is just Sudan.”

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