The Sudan Crisis
Over 150,000 dead. Over 375,000 starving. Approximately 12 million displaced. That is the scale of the civil war in Sudan. The human brain cannot physically compute and understand such a magnitude of suffering. And yet, even as the conflict continues to claim victims in such unfathomable lengths of death and destruction, it is highly likely you have not heard much about it at all.
Obviously, to even begin to understand the implications and scale of a conflict, some historical and geopolitical knowledge is needed. Sudan is no exception. In 1989, after enduring decades of war and instability due to a power vacuum left after British rule stopped in 1956, Sudan finally felt a sense of stability after military leader Omar al-Bashir took control of the young country. He would stay in power for 30 years.
During that time, he would ally with the Janjaweed, a local nomadic militia to wage war on rebels in the Darfur region of Sudan. The International Court of Justice has accused those two groups of killing over 300000 civilians in 2003. Eventually, al-Bashir was charged with crimes against humanity and genocide.
In 2019, after many protests from the people, the al-Bashir government was overthrown by an alliance of the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Janjaweed, who in the meantime rebranded themselves to the Rapid Support Forces. The whole point of the alliance was to return a sense of democracy in Sudan. It did not work. The SAF and the RSF quickly fell out and began fighting each other in yet another civil war.
In the areas they control, both the RSF and the SAF have been accused of committing ethnic cleansing and genocide. After the RSF was able to successfully siege and capture El-Fasher, the capital of the Darfur region, reports of extrajudicial killings have started to
multiply. Analyses of satellite images revealed literal clusters of red colouration on the ground, implying the presence of mass graves. These massacres are done due to ethnic tensions between the Arab-led RSF and the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa peoples.
It is to note that the UAE has been accused of supplying the RSF with weapons to advance their own geopolitical goals, notably access to Sudan’s rich presence of gold and copper. As such, it has been complicit in the genocide according to the ICJ (Sheil).
The status quo seems grim. A great share of the Sudanese population is either dead, starving, or displaced. The country is split into two de facto states, and talks of peace are limited. Even if peace is eventually achieved, the country will never be the same.
The state of the world is at the worst it has been in the 21st century. With such a multiplication of unprecedented death tolls in Ukraine, Palestine, the Congo, and Eritrea, just to name a few, it seems people around the world have hit some sort of “conflict fatigue”: they just don’t care anymore. It is very clear that one of the main reasons that the genocide in Sudan has been allowed to continue is due to Western apathy.
Western governments have the political capital to impose themselves on the world stage and do something about this and other conflicts. But there must be a certain desire to change things within the average voter.
To conclude, if you wish to stay updated on the matter, you can visit the following sites:
Sudan | Sudan | Today’s latest from Al Jazeera
Sudan’s crisis deepens with communities trapped in ‘siege conditions’ | UN News
If you wish to help, you can visit:
Ways to Give to the Sudan Relief Fund – Sudan Relief Fund
Help us be ready | UNHCR Canada
Source:
Sheil, Don. “Mass graves and “blood” seen from space: Inside Sudan’s “invisible crisis.” ABC News, 7 Nov., 2025, Sudan’s crisis has entered a dramatic new phase — but it started years ago – ABC News
Picture:
Mercy Corps (2019)
