An endless civil war in Sudan has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. But the world’s attention lies elsewhere.

Despite a catastrophic death toll and the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, Sudan’s bloody civil war is widely forgotten outside Africa, overshadowed by conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine. 

But the level of suffering may well surpass those battles, as terrible as they are. Sudan’s 19-month war has seen multiple accusations of ethnic cleansing, war crimes, massacres and what the United Nations calls “staggering” levels of sexual violence. 

The U.N. official death toll is around 20,000 but many deaths go unreported in the chaotic conflict. The U.S. special envoy for Sudan, Tom Perriello, has cited estimates that as many as 150,000 people have died. 

Last month the Sudan Research Group at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, using its own measures, estimated 60,000 dead in the Khartoum region around the capital alone. 

In addition, 12 million people have been forced from their homes in the world’s largest displacement crisis, with half the 50 million population facing starvation and disease.  

Africa’s third biggest country by area was one of the world’s poorest countries even before the civil war broke out in April 2023. Since then, the economy has shrunk by 40% according to Sudan’s finance minister. 

Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), said after a visit to Sudan last month: “All that I saw confirms that this is indeed the biggest humanitarian emergency on our watch, the biggest hunger crisis, the biggest displacement crisis,” Egeland said.

Yet the world’s media and public seems relatively uninterested in the catastrophe unfolding in northeast Africa, which rarely makes it on to the front pages despite casualties and suffering rivalling the conflicts in Gaza and the wider Middle East, or Ukraine. 

Sudan seems to suffer from its lack of strategic importance for the West, although several Middle Eastern powers and Russia are backing one side or the other. 

The world looks elsewhere.

NRC Sudan chief Tariq Riebl told the BBC that his worst fear is that the world is so focused on Ukraine and Gaza that no one is paying attention to Sudan. The overthrow of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad may add another distraction. 

Analysts say the disastrous outcome of previous U.S. interventions in Iraq, Libya, Somalia and elsewhere have made Washington wary of intervening in intractable conflicts lest it remains bogged down for years. It is feared incoming President Donald Trump may lead the United States into a new era of isolationism. 

The civil war broke out on 15 April 2023 when Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) began fighting in Khartoum in a struggle for power. They had previously combined to block a transition to partly civilian rule following the overthrow of autocrat Omar al-Bashir in 2019 after 30 years in power.

Events since then have dashed hopes that Sudan could move to a more democratic future after 20 years of autocracy and decades of warfare. 

The war has spread throughout the vast country with the RSF, led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo — known as Hemedti — gaining the upper hand, forcing the de facto government, led by army commander General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, to evacuate from Khartoum to Port Sudan on the Red Sea. 

The RSF in particular has been accused of massacres, ethnic cleansing and sexual violence while civilians charge the army with indiscriminate shelling and air strikes. 

A history of civil war

This is Sudan’s third civil war in a violent and tragic history. After independence from joint Egyptian and British rule in 1956, a million people are estimated to have died in a 17-year conflict between the mainly Arab north and the Black African south which demanded greater autonomy. 

The conflict broke out again in 1983 and lasted another 22 years with another two million people killed. It led to the breakaway of South Sudan as an independent state in 2011. 

Some analysts fear the current conflict could cause further fragmentation, destabilising a volatile region including the Red Sea, Horn of Africa and the Sahel.

The United Arab Emirates is accused of arming the RSF, which it denies, while Russia, Egypt and Iran are believed to back the army. 

Hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled to Chad and South Sudan — both themselves dirt poor — Egypt and elsewhere. Aid agencies have warned that this will fuel further refugee flows into Europe, where they have boosted support for far-right populist parties.

Unstoppable violence

Apart from Khartoum, the western region of Darfur has been particularly badly hit by the violence, a brutal echo of 20 years ago when al-Bashir used the army, and an Arab militia called the Janjaweed (“Devils on Horseback”), to crush rebels. 

The violence then, which killed an estimated 300,000 people, is being investigated for possible genocide charges by the International Criminal Court. The RSF emerged from the Janjaweed and its leader, Hemedti, has his power base in Darfur. 

The RSF is accused of a repeat of ethnic cleansing and possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in the current conflict. Survivors said members of the ethnic-black African Masalit tribe were slaughtered in the West Darfur capital of El Geneina in two waves of bloodshed last year. The U.N. says 15,000 people were killed over several months. 

Despite the terrible suffering and death diplomats see no immediate prospect of an end to the violence. Both leaders seem motivated by  ambition and greed; Hemedti has considerable wealth from gold mines he seized from a rival in Darfur.

To end Sudan’s suffering will take an urgent improvement in aid deliveries and international pressure, especially on those backing the two sides, for a ceasefire. 

“An immediate ceasefire is now more critical than ever to prevent mass deaths resulting from a hunger crisis that is rapidly spreading across Sudan,” said IRC country director Eatizaz Yousif in an IRC report. 

The United Nations has come under criticism, especially from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) which is operating in Sudan but says other aid agencies are not doing enough. Critics say U.N. aid is held up by rules that prevent it operating without government permission, which in this case means allowing General al-Burhan to block aid to areas held by RSF. 

The key to ending Sudan’s suffering is greater international attention and pressure to give it the importance it desperately deserves.

Barry Moody was Africa Editor for Reuters for 10 years and Middle East editor for seven, during which time he led coverage of the 2003 Iraq war. He worked on every continent as one of the agency’s most experienced foreign correspondents and editors. His postings included Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, Italy, Hong Kong, Australasia and the United States. He ran editorial operations in Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal at the height of the EU debt crisis.​