Dont Forget Sudan: After three years of war, the worst humanitarian crisis in the world

For three years, a bloody war between rival generals has been raging in Sudan.

• The conflict has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and caused a humanitarian disaster.
• A conference was held on Wednesday, April 15, in Berlin to bring this “forgotten” conflict back into focus.

To end the “nightmare” of war in Sudan. This was the essence of the message sent by the international community following the support conference for this country in northeast Africa, held on Wednesday, April 15, in Berlin, Germany. This was accompanied by the collection of over 1.3 billion euros in promises of humanitarian aid, pending a ceasefire.

For three years, a deadly standoff between rival generals has plunged the Republic of Sudan into what the UN has called the “largest humanitarian crisis in the world”. A humanitarian tragedy unfolding in deafening silence, eclipsed by wars in Ukraine, Gaza, and now Iran.

“Let’s not forget Sudan,” declared the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Noël Barrot, on the social network X before the start of this conference. “Never, since the beginning of the century, have so many people been exposed to famine and hunger,” emphasized the French Minister of Foreign Affairs. “Millions of displaced people fleeing combat, sexual violence, and abuses. Millions of women and children lacking everything: food, medicine, tents for shelter in camps where hundreds of thousands of refugees live in extreme poverty.”

Seven out of ten Sudanese live in poverty

The numbers are staggering: at least 150,000 dead, 13 million displaced, and over 20 million people suffering from famine, roughly half of the country’s estimated 50 million inhabitants. This war is a “nightmare” that must “end,” urged UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, calling for an immediate ceasefire. However, three years to the day after the start of the conflict, the Berlin meeting, which brought together governments, humanitarian agencies, and civil society organizations, while excluding the two warring parties – the military and the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – failed to make progress towards a possible truce.

Beyond the destruction of infrastructure, the war in Sudan has further plunged the population into food insecurity and poverty: about seven out of ten Sudanese now live in poverty due to the conflict. Before this conflict, “there were probably about 38% of the population living in poverty and now this figure is estimated at around 70%,” stated Luca Renda, the director of the UN Development Program (UNDP) in Sudan, using a poverty threshold of $4 per day. At least a quarter of the Sudanese population is considered to live on less than $2 per day, he emphasized.

Sudan descended into civil war due to a fierce power struggle between the country’s number one in the army (and leader), General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and his former deputy, General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, who leads the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries. On April 15, 2023, a series of deadly attacks hit government sites in several cities in the country, including Khartoum, the capital, where the paramilitaries took control of the presidential palace and the international airport. Despite international diplomatic efforts to convince the parties to cease hostilities, the conflict escalated into civil war.