He is a British medical professional and professor of Global Health and Humanitarian Affairs at the University of Manchester. He is a specialist in crisis and conflict management, humanitarian affairs, post-conflict and development, and HIV and AIDS. Kapila is also Special Representative for the Aegis Trust for the prevention of crimes against humanity.[4]
He was the Deputy Director of the National UK AIDS programme during the 1990s.[citation needed]
He was Head of Conflict and Humanitarian Affairs unit of the British Department for International Development from 1998 to 2002. From 2002 to 2003, he was a Special Adviser to the United Nations, first to the Special Representative of the Secretary General in Afghanistan and then to the High Commissioner for Human Rights. In 2003–2004, Kapila was the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, and the UN Development Program Resident Representative for the Sudan.
While stationed in Sudan, he was outspoken in his condemnation of the human rights abuses being committed in the western region of Darfur. His activism began after a Darfuri woman came to his office to tell him how she, her daughter and 200 other women in the village of Tawilla had been gang-raped and mostly murdered by government soldiers and paramilitaries.[5] His reports about the Darfur conflict were at the time dismissed by the Government of Sudan as "a heap of lies", though they succeeded in bringing Darfur to the attention of the world's media for the first time. Kapila was transferred out of Sudan in April 2004, only 13 months into a 24-month assignment.[6] Commenting in 2006 on this period, Kapila stated:
There is debate about whether we had genocide in Darfur or not, but certainly in my mind, and the mind of many, many people, I think there is very little doubt that what went on in Darfur in 2003 and the early part of 2004 was certainly genocide. We can argue the words, but that would be no consolation to those people who are affected. So I subsequently went on to speak about it publicly, having tried the various diplomatic routes and avenues, and I soon found myself hauled onto a plane out of Khartoum. And as I reflected back on it, I thought to myself that there I was presiding over the first genocide of the 21st century – it is a place in history you don't wish to have.[5]
He was a Director in the Department of Health Action in Crises of the World Health Organization (2004 to 2006). An employee of the Government of the United Kingdom, he was on secondment to the United Nations. He was an Adviser to the World Bank on climate change issues, has advised the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR), and the International Labour Organization. He was the chief executive of PHG Foundation in Cambridge, UK from September 2003 to August 2004.
Prior to his appointment as Special Representative for the Aegis Trust, Kapila was the Under Secretary General for National Society and Knowledge Development at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). Earlier he served as the Special Representative for HIV and AIDS,[7] and subsequently as Special Representative to the Secretary General of the IFRC. While at IFRC, Kapila has been instrumental in developing worldwide "global alliances" of the Red Cross Red Crescent such as HIV and disaster risk reduction, where successful scale-up has been achieved. He has been responsible for formulating Strategy 2020 – the International Federation's vision for the next decade.
Kapila is a Senior Member of Hughes Hall College, Cambridge University, UK. He is also an Associate Fellow at the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, The University of Manchester, UK.
Mukesh Kapila, No Stranger to Kindness, 2019, ISBN 979-8506914310[3]
Awards
In 2003, he was honoured by Queen Elizabeth II and named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his international service.[12] In 2007 he received the Dr Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award of the Institute for Global Leadership.[13]
James Jude Orbinski is a Canadian physician, humanitarian activist, author, and scholar in global health. Dr. Orbinski began his role as principal of Massey College at the University of Toronto in the 2024-2025 academic year, where he is also Full Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, and is cross-appointed to the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, as well as the Dalla Lana School of Public Health,. Previously a professor in the Faculty of Health Science at York University, Dr. Orbinski founded the Dahdaleh Institute of Global Health Research.
The War in Darfur, also nicknamed the Land Cruiser War, was a major armed conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan that began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel groups began fighting against the government of Sudan, which they accused of oppressing Darfur's non-Arab population. The government responded to attacks by carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Darfur's non-Arabs. This resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians and the indictment of Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.
The Save Darfur Coalition was an advocacy group that attempted "to raise public awareness and mobilize a massive response to the atrocities in Sudan's western region of Darfur." Headquartered in Washington, D.C., it was a coalition of more than 190 religious, political, and human rights organizations organized to campaign for a response to the atrocities of the War in Darfur, which culminated in a humanitarian crisis. By 2013, reports indicated that the conflict had claimed approximately 300,000 lives and had displaced over 2.5 million people.
This is the bibliography and reference section for the Darfur conflict series. External links to reports, news articles and other sources of information may also be found below.
While there is a consensus in the international community that ethnic groups have been targeted in Darfur and that crimes against humanity have therefore occurred, there has been debate in some quarters about whether genocide has taken place there. In May 2006, the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur organized by United Nations "concluded that the Government of the Sudan has not pursued a policy of genocide ... [though] international offences such as the crimes against humanity and war crimes that have been committed in Darfur may be more serious and heinous than genocide." Eric Reeves, a researcher and frequent commentator on Darfur, has questioned the methodology of the commission's report.
Alexander William Lowndes de Waal, is the executive director of the World Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He is an authority on famine and has worked on the Horn of Africa since the 1980s as a researcher and practitioner. He was listed among Foreign Policy’s 100 most influential international intellectuals in 2008 and Atlantic’s 29 ‘brave thinkers’ in 2009 and is the winner of the Huxley Award of the Royal Anthropological Institute in 2024.
The Aegis Trust, founded in 2000, is the British NGO which campaigns to prevent genocide worldwide. Based at the United Kingdom's Holocaust Centre, which opened in 1995, the Aegis Trust coordinates the UK Genocide Prevention All-Party Parliamentary Group, funds the Genocide Prevention Group (Canada) and is responsible for the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre in Rwanda, which commemorates the 1994 genocide and is central to education of a new generation about the dangers of ethnic division.
Ahmed Mohammed Haroun is one of five Sudanese men wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Despite international pressure on the government of Sudan to surrender him to the ICC, Haroun served as Sudan's Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs until May 2009, when he was appointed to the governorship of South Kordofan. In September 2007, he was appointed to lead an investigation into human rights violations in Darfur. In July 2013 he resigned as Governor of South Kordofan, and was reappointed by Omar al-Bashir as Governor of North Kordofan. On 1 March 2019, President Omar al-Bashir handed over the running of the country's leading political party, the National Congress, to him. He was arrested in April 2019 by local authorities in Sudan following a coup which overthrew al-Bashir.
Francis Mading Deng is a South Sudanese politician and diplomat who served as the newly independent country's first ambassador to the United Nations from 2012 to July 2016.
The United Nations Peacekeeping efforts began in 1948. Its first activity was in the Middle East to observe and maintain the ceasefire during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Since then, United Nations peacekeepers have taken part in a total of 72 missions around the globe, 12 of which continue today. The peacekeeping force as a whole received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988.
The Qatar Red Crescent Society, the Qatari branch of the Red Crescent Society, was established in 1978. In 1981, it gained international recognition from the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva and joined the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). It is also a member of the Secretariat of Arab Red Crescent Societies in Jeddah. It became the first philanthropic organization in Qatar to establish a women's branch in 1982.
Day for Darfur is an international advocacy campaign that works to bring together activists in cities around the globe in calling for action on the crisis in Darfur, western Sudan.
United Nations Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict a cross-UN initiative that unites the work of 24 United Nations entities tasked with the goal of ending sexual violence in conflict. The 24 UN entities are from sectors that include peacekeeping, political affairs, justice, human rights, humanitarian, health, gender equality and women's empowerment. The Special Representative of the Secretary-General Pramila Patten chairs the network, which represents an effort by the UN to improve its coordination and accountability, amplify advocacy, and support national efforts to prevent sexual violence and respond effectively to the needs of survivors. The UN Action Secretariat is based in the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict.
Africa Humanitarian Action (AHA) is a non-governmental organization that provides relief services to countries in Africa. It was founded by Dr. David Zawde in 1994 in response to the Rwandan genocide.
Elhadj As Sy is a Senegalese humanitarian aid expert who served as the Secretary General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) from 2014 until 2019.
Marta Ruedas is a United Nations civil servant who has worked in many countries around the world, initially with the United Nations Development Programme, including Bolivia, Kyrgyzstan, the Republic of Georgia, Nepal, Mongolia and Mexico, as well as at its headquarters in New York. The organization assists countries in reaching their targets in economic and social development. In 2015 she was the Country Director of the UNDP in Kabul, Afghanistan.
The Darfur genocide was the systematic killing of ethnic Darfuri people during the War in Darfur. The genocide, which was carried out against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups, led the International Criminal Court (ICC) to indict several people for crimes against humanity, rape, forced transfer and torture. An estimated 200,000 people were killed between 2003 and 2005.
The Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict (OSRSG-SVC) is an office of the United Nations Secretariat tasked with serving the United Nations' spokesperson and political advocate on conflict-related sexual violence, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict (SRSG-SVC). The Special Representative holds the rank of Under-Secretary-General of the UN and chairs the UN Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict. The mandate of the SRSG-SVC was established by Security Council Resolution 1888, introduced by Hillary Clinton, and the first Special Representative, Margot Wallström, took office in 2010. The current Special Representative is Pramila Patten of Mauritius, who was appointed by UN Secretary General António Guterres in 2017. The work of the SRSG-SVC is supported by the UN Team of Experts on the Rule of Law/Sexual Violence in Conflict, co-led by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPO), Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP), also established under Security Council Resolution 1888.
Princess Sarah Zeid is a Jordanian-American humanitarian and maternal and newborn health activist. Through her marriage to Prince Zeid bin Ra'ad al-Hussein, she is a Jordanian princess and a member of the House of Hashem. Her husband is the apparent heir to the pretender to the abolished throne of Iraq.
Against a Tide of Evil is a 2013 memoir by Mukesh Kapila about his time leading the United Nations in Sudan during the Darfur genocide.
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