EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP) was launched on 29 December 2010, with a mission to deter a return to full-scale civil war between northern and southern Sudan. From January 2011 to June 2012, in 28 reports, SSP documented acts, by both the Government of Sudan and the Republic of South Sudan-aligned forces, that can constitute violations of international humanitarian law and the laws of war. In one of its earliest reports, SSP showed evidence that both Government of Sudan and Republic of South Sudan-aligned forces violated the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement by deploying unauthorized forces inside the Abyei region.
SSP’s achievements include the successful prediction of the Government of Sudan’s May 2011 invasion of the Abyei region nearly two months before it occurred. SSP also identified multiple alleged mass grave sites in the city of Kadugli, the former capital of South Kordofan, Sudan, and collected visual evidence of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity used by the International Criminal Court in investigative documents obtained by TIME magazine.
The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) designed SSP’s methodology for managing and analyzing satellite imagery and reports on events in Sudan. SSP operations team based at HHI produced each of SSP’s 28 reports released between January 2011 and April 2012. With the end of the pilot phase of SSP on 1 June 2012, HHI concluded its participation in SSP and the operations staff transitioned into the recently launched Signal Program on Human Security and Technology at HHI.
The Enough Project, a project of the Center for American Progress to end genocide and crimes against humanity, provided valuable context for SSP products through ground reports and policy analysis, driving SSP’s communications strategy. Enough and Not On Our Watch’s ability to align and mobilize artists, activists and cultural leaders generated unprecedented media coverage of the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Sudan, creating a platform for near real-time policy recommendations associated with SSP’s reports. As of 1 June, the Enough Project, in partnership with DigitalGlobe, assumed responsibility for day-to-day operations of SSP following HHI’s departure from the initiative. Since January 2011, DigitalGlobe has been the sole satellite imagery provider of SSP. DigitalGlobe provided SSP with in-kind contributions of over 300,000 square kilometers of priority tasked satellite imagery. Additionally, the DigitalGlobe Analysis Center provided crucial training, analytic support, and supervision of SSP’s imagery analysis.
SSP’s work has been cited in over 8,000 articles in leading domestic and international publications, including The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, NPR, Al Jazeera, and the BBC. Reports prepared by HHI for SSP have been directly presented to the President of the United States, the Secretary of State, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, the US National Security Council, the UN Security Council, and have been cited by over 60 Members of Congress, the bipartisan leadership of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the United Kingdom’s House of Lords.
Faculty Director of HHI, Dr. Michael VanRooyen, MD, MPH, said, “The Satellite Sentinel Project is a clear example of how technology transforms the way we think about and prepare for crises. In the hands of well-trained and experienced analysts guided by humanitarian principles, satellite technology provides a potent new way of ensuring that the world witnesses threats to civilians.”