Sudan is struggling with the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, and its civilians continue to pay for inaction by the international community, NGOs and the United Nations said the country’s civil war is entering its third year.
Two years after the battle exploded between Sudanese and paramilitary swift supporters, hundreds of people were feared to have been killed in RSF attacks on refugee camps in the West Darfur region, in the latest obvious atrocities of the war, characterized by its cruelty and widespread humanitarian influence.
The outcome of Sudan’s 51 million people is devastating. Tens of thousands reportedly died. Hundreds of thousands of people are facing hunger. Almost 13 million people have been evacuated, of which 4 million have been evacuated to neighboring countries.
“Sudan is worse than ever,” said Elise Nalbandian, Oxfam’s regional advocacy manager. “The biggest humanitarian crisis, the biggest evacuation crisis, the biggest hunger crisis… breaking all kinds of wrong records.”
Daniel O’Malley, head of the International Committee of the Sudan Red Cross Delegation, said there was a “massive” violation of international humanitarian law in the conflict. “Regardless of where you are in the country, every civilian is basically trapped between one, two or more political parties, and they are on the brunt of everything.
Last month, Sudanese troops recaptured Khartoum’s highly iconic presidential palace and recaptured much of the capital. However, in most parts of the country, conflict is raging. Sources cited by the UN reported that more than 400 people have been killed in a recent attack by the RSF in Darfur. There, the group is about to seize El Fasher, the region’s last state capital.
Starting from the second half of last week, the RSF launched ground and air attacks on Elfasher itself and nearby evacuation camps in Zamzam and Abushk. A UN spokesman told Agence France-Presse that the UN’s Office of Rights has confirmed the killings of 148 people and received reports from “reliable sources” that the total number of deaths has exceeded 400.
Reuters reported that data from the UN’s International Migration Agency suggested that up to 400,000 people have been expelled from Zamzam Camp alone from the weekend.
In a statement, UN’s rights director Volker Türk said, “The massive attacks revealed absolutely the costs of inaction by the international community despite my repeated warnings about the increased risks for civilians in the region.”
He added: “The attack exacerbated the already tragic protection and humanitarian crisis of cities that have endured a devastating RSF siege since last May.”
El Fasher is one of several areas of Darfur where hunger has been declared, affecting around 637,000 people. Almost half of Sudan’s 50 million population (24.6 million) have not enough food.
The UK hosted ministers from 20 London countries on Tuesday, and is about to resume stagnant peace talks. However, diplomatic efforts have often been sidelined by other crises, including the war in Ukraine and Gaza.
Lenikintsuri, the World Food Program’s Head of Sudan Communications, said that since the era of other conflicts, lack of access to journalists and the regime of exiled dictator Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s relative international isolation did not attract the attention that Sudan needed.
“We don’t see the level of international attention in Sudan, as we do because of other crises,” she said. “There’s no competition between crises, but unfortunately we see everything that’s happening in the world, other conflicts, other humanitarian crises, and other things that make headlines.
The origins of the war can be traced to the second half of 2018, when general protests erupted against Sudanese dictator Bashir. Sudanese army leader General Abdel Fatta al-Burhan formed an alliance with the chief of General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, a former warlord known as Hemedi, to drive Bashir out in a coup in April 2019.
They then reunited in 2021 and retired from the private government aimed at transitioning Sudan to democracy. However, Hemetti has longed for the ultimate power for himself, and within two years the friction between them was caught up in a complete war.
The RSF, a paramilitary that grew from the Janjaweed Arab militia, accused of committing genocide in the Darfur region in the mid-2000s, brought rapid benefits in the first few weeks and months as the battle spread across Khartoum.
In Darfur, thousands of people died in the first year of the war, and in well-documented attacks by the Allied Militia against the RSF and non-Arab Masarits and other ethnic groups. Masalit refugees who fled west from Chad say there are women and girls Gang rape targets And the boy shot him in the street. The militia fighter jets said they would force women to “Arab babies” according to a UN report released in November 2024.
The RSF and the Army are both accused of committing war crimes during the course of the conflict.
In January this year, the US officially declared that RSF had committed genocide, marking its second genocide within 30 years that it took place in Sudan.
The United Arab Emirates is accused of promoting conflict by arming the RSF. Emirati’s passport, discovered on the battlefield last year, points to potential secret boots on the ground. The UAE denies all involvement in the war.
