Sudan’s Silent War: Why the World Can’t Keep Looking Away
As wars in Ukraine and Gaza dominate headlines and provoke urgent global responses, another devastating conflict continues to rage with far less attention — Sudan’s civil war. Now entering its third year, this brutal struggle between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has created what the United Nations and NGOs are calling the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. Despite the unimaginable scale of suffering, the conflict in Sudan remains largely ignored by the international community.
This silence comes at a staggering human cost.
Sudan is a nation in collapse. Over 13 million people have been displaced. Nearly 25 million face extreme hunger, and tens of thousands have died. In western Darfur alone, more than 400 people were killed in recent RSF assaults on refugee camps. In the besieged city of El Fasher, famine has been declared, and stories of indiscriminate shelling, mass rapes, and looting have emerged, illustrating a war that has turned civilians into primary targets.
Hafiza, a 21-year-old from El Fasher, watched her life shatter the day her mother was killed by RSF shelling at a market. Now responsible for her younger siblings, Hafiza spends her days distributing aid to displaced people and her nights alone in a city under constant bombardment. "Grief is very difficult," she says. "I feel broken." Like many young Sudanese women, Hafiza lives in fear that if El Fasher falls, she may be targeted for sexual violence — a terror based not on speculation, but on what has already happened in cities like El Geneina.
The RSF, originally born from the Janjaweed militias responsible for the Darfur genocide in the early 2000s, has been accused of repeating history — targeting non-Arab groups, particularly the Masalit people, with mass killings and rape. The United States formally declared in January 2025 that the RSF had committed genocide. Thousands of survivors now languish in refugee camps in Chad, bearing physical and emotional scars from atrocities no one should endure.
The roots of Sudan’s current conflict trace back to the ouster of dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019. Initially, military leaders General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo — known as Hemedti — joined forces to depose Bashir. But power-sharing agreements quickly unraveled. In 2021, they ousted a civilian-led transitional government, and by April 2023, tensions escalated into full-scale war. What began as a struggle for control has become a humanitarian catastrophe.
In El Fasher, home to one million people, residents like 32-year-old Mostafa live under relentless shellfire. He volunteers at a shelter for displaced people, recording his experience as explosions echo in the background. “Death can strike anyone, anytime, without warning,” he says. “By a bullet, shelling, hunger, or thirst.”
With nearly half the country in urgent need of food and water, aid efforts face overwhelming obstacles. Most international media and humanitarian organizations have extremely limited access. The RSF controls roads and checkpoints and frequently targets displacement camps. Zamzam camp alone has seen 400,000 people displaced since a single weekend of violence in early 2025.
Manahel, a 26-year-old who once dreamed of becoming a lawyer, now helps cook the only daily meal that many in her city will eat. After losing her father to an RSF artillery strike, she fled her home with her mother and siblings. "Every family is equal now — there is no rich or poor," she says. “People can't afford the basic necessities like food.”
Despite the magnitude of suffering, Sudan remains a footnote in international discourse. As Leni Kinzli of the World Food Programme noted, Sudan is not just forgotten — it’s ignored. “There should not be a competition between crises,” she said, “but Sudan is not getting the attention it needs.”
This lack of attention is not without consequences. With minimal global pressure, the RSF continues to advance, civilian protections crumble, and diplomatic negotiations remain stalled. Even as the UK recently hosted ministers from 20 countries to discuss peace efforts, these attempts pale in comparison to the international mobilization for Ukraine or Gaza.
But global awareness matters. When the world watches, it holds perpetrators accountable. When the world acts, it delivers aid, applies pressure, and supports peacebuilding. Sudan’s civil war has already become the deadliest and most destructive crisis of our time — and yet its people are fighting for survival largely in isolation.
There is still time to change that.
Sudan is not a remote tragedy that can be filed away under “distant wars.” It is a human emergency — as urgent, complex, and morally pressing as any other global conflict. Stories like Hafiza’s, Mostafa’s, and Manahel’s remind us that behind every statistic is a life, a family, and a dream cut short.
If the world continues to look away, it will be complicit in allowing another genocide to unfold in silence.
We must demand more — from our leaders, our media, and ourselves. Sudan deserves our eyes, our voices, and our action. The cost of silence is too high.