The war is in its second year. Some 15,000 people have been killed and 33,000 have been injured. More than 8.5 million people have been displaced. An estimated additional two million people have fled to unstable areas in neighboring countries, overrunning refugee camps and promoting concern that refugees could soon attempt to enter Europe.
The United Nations has begged for international support and warns that 25 million people are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance. The U.N. further warns that deteriorating food security risks in the area are triggering “the world’s largest hunger crisis.”
Mediation efforts have failed. Regional and international powers have taken sides in the conflict, but no one has taken control of the situation. And the two warring parties refuse to stop their violent war efforts.
We are not talking about the war in Ukraine, now well into its second year. Nor are we talking about the nearly year-long war in Gaza. We’re talking about the civil war in Sudan where warring factions remain locked in a deadly power struggle — spawning death, destruction, displacement and starvation, with no end in sight. And yet, the world knows little about the Sudan war, its origins or its devastating results.
In April 2023, fighting between rival armed factions broke out in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. The conflict is primarily a battle between the leaders of the Sudanese Amed Forces and a powerful paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces — two groups who originally agreed to share power following a military coup in late 2021 — but couldn’t agree on how to implement their deal. The two groups are fighting for control of the state and its resources.
There is a familiar, disturbing ring to this story. But why isn’t the world community paying attention to the mounting Sudanese death toll, the reports of mind-numbing wartime atrocities and the mushrooming humanitarian and growing refugee crisis in Sudan? And why aren’t world governments flexing their political, diplomatic and financial muscle to impose order in Sudan like what we’ve seen elsewhere in the world?
Opinions vary. But the bottom line is that very few in the international community are getting worked up about the loss of life, displacement and destruction in Sudan.
According to some, there is simply less international interest in a civil war in a faraway country, particularly where there does not appear to be significant doctrinal differences between the warring parties. To others, there is concern for some degree of “psychic numbing” coming into play in Sudan — a reaction that makes people less concerned about a tragedy as numbers of victims increase.
And for others, world apathy is attributed to the distraction of so many other international crises that compete for attention and response. In that light, the goings-on in a third-world country such as Sudan, which sits at the crossroads of Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, abuts the Red Sea and shares its border with Libya, Egypt, Chad, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea, has a hard time getting attention.
That needs to change. The innocents of Sudan deserve better.
