US-CIS, in response to a FOIA lawsuit by the Louise Trauma Center, released 33 pages of asylum officer training materials. This article will quote some of the material. The pages are available on the “Asylum Officer Materials” page at www.louisetrauma.weebly.com, entitled “Sudan Jan 2020.”

Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir was in power from 1996 to April 2019, when he was removed by the military. Page 7 of 33.

Several maps are in the pages, showing Darfur, where non-Arab ethnic groups live, and where regional fighting occurred.

The Darfur conflict began in 2003. There was intra-Arab fighting between camel-herders and cattle-herding groups. January 2016: fighting in Jebel Marra areas. Limited access to UN peacekeepers. Page 19.

Amnesty International report about chemical weapons (September 2016) is cited at page 20.

In 2019, villages were destroyed, peace negotiations put on hold, violence in IDP camps, and violence in Central Darfur. Many protests in 2019: by doctors, lawyers, opposition groups.

August 2019:Abdalla Hamdok was appointed as Prime Minister. Page 31.

Inside US-CIS, is the RAIO Directorate, which operates a “Research Unit” [RU]. There is a “RU Sudan Country Page.”

Comments of the author

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reported that an American diplomatic convoy was attacked in Sudan, where forces loyal to two rival generals are battling for control of the resource-rich North African nation. [April 18, 2023]

The widespread clashes are the culmination of weeks of tensions between Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the commander of the Sudanese Armed Forces, and Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, the head of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a Sudanese paramilitary group. So far, neither has shown any indication of backing down. The two men were once allies who had jointly orchestrated a military coup in 2021 that dissolved Sudan's power-sharing government and derailed its short-lived transition to democracy, following the ousting of a long-time dictator in 2019.

/abcnews.go.com/International/blinken-confirms-us-diplomatic-convoy-fired-on-sudan/story?id=98653881[April 18, 2023]

The Eighth Circuit denied all relief in Chuor v. Garland, 43 F.4th 820 (C.A.8, 2022) to a citizen of South Sudan, which became a country in 2011. The IJ found that government forces torture and kill people based on their perceived political affiliation, and discussed events in the 1990s, when the country was unified. But the BIA overruled the IJ. The Eighth Circuit affirmed.