War, Erasure, And The Politics Of Culture In Sudan

BY LARISSA-DIANA FUHRMANN

This article examines contemporary cultural erasure in Sudan. It highlights resilient Sudanese efforts and international collaboration, positioning cultural heritage as essential infrastructure for truth-telling, reparations, and inclusive post-war nation-building. It advocates for urgent policy integration to counter polarization and historical revisionism for a plural future.

Two millennia of inhabitation by indigenous groups, immigrant and diaspora communities, and many others who made the land their home have shaped Sudan’s cultural legacy along the two Niles. Today, over 120 languages connect Sudan’s territories and diasporas, exemplifying the country’s immense diversity as the result of its complex history. However, contemporary legislation, such as the “Strange Faces Law,” questions who is truly Sudanese, leading to the arrests of people suspected of being from Darfur or Kordofan based on their facial features and skin tone. As such laws polarize the country and the Sudanese Civil War ravages it, Sudan must act against them to preserve national unity.

In April 2023, the war in Sudan erupted in the capital, Khartoum, between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), commanded by General Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo Musa (Hemedti), and the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Former President Omer Al Bashir integrated the RSF into the SAF in 2018, but the RSF retained operational autonomy, funded by gold mines under its control. The RSF itself evolved from the militia Janjaweed, infamous for atrocities committed in Darfur since the 1990s. The escalation of the rivalry between al-Burhan and Hemedti has led to the current violent conflict. Thus far, combatants have deliberately targeted health and education systems, and essential services have collapsed.

The conflict ranks among this century’s most urgent humanitarian crises, and yet, international intervention remains limited, forcing Sudanese-led initiatives, such as the Emergency Response Rooms and Community Kitchens, to carry the burden of humanitarian response with minimal resources and a heavy reliance on volunteer work and donations from the diaspora. The limited array of international responses focuses on immediate needs such as medical care, shelter, food, water, sanitation, and education. As a result, the significant and often irreversible damage to Sudan’s cultural heritage and artistic community receives less attention and support. This overlooked destruction and subsequent inaction, however, fuel cycles of violence and erode community cohesion, positioning policies that safeguard Sudan’s cultural heritage on a broader scale as a prerequisite for post-conflict recovery.

Mapping the Damage: Tangible and Intangible Losses

Destruction and theft of cultural heritage have a long history as deliberate strategies to exert power in Sudan. Such policies of erasure and marginalization trace back to colonial-era policies where Khartoum, as a central hub of administration, utilized them to oppress and ostracize Darfuri, South Sudanese, and other peripheral histories.

Today, the RSF targets archives, libraries, and museums as tools to control memory and legitimize their dominance, often under the pretense of revenge against the Khartoum elites who have long sidelined the rest of Sudan. UNESCO’s risk and damage assessment and Sudanese-led initiatives confirm that out of 139 at-risk heritage sites—museums, world heritage sites, archeological sites, and important private collections—ten museums and cultural centers have been looted, stolen from, and vandalized in the past 1,000 days. However, due to present-day access constraints, especially in areas where active fighting continues, significant data gaps create an incomplete picture of damage. Satellite imagery, crowdsourced reports, and diaspora efforts are beginning to fill these information gaps, suggesting the true scale of damage far exceeds current estimates.

For example, RSF forces looted the National Museum in Khartoum in June 2023. A video circulating on social media shows fighters entering the bioarcheology lab of the museum, opening storage containers with mummies, and claiming the mummies were victims of the dictatorship of al-Bashir. The director of the National Museum, Dr. Ghalia Jar Al-Nabi, reacted to the viral clip, stating that she is “worried about where else they might have gone in the museum that no one filmed, and what else they are going to do.” Director Ikhlas Abdellatif of the Sudanese National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums (NCAM) accused RSF forces of smuggling artifacts to Chad and South Sudan for sale to art dealers and private collectors. Some artifacts have resurfaced on platforms such as eBay.

Additionally, the destruction of institutions such as the National Recording Office in Khartoum, which held unique documentation dating back to the mid-19th century, has resulted in the loss of vast amounts of data. Erasure of records prevents the uncovering of continuities of violence perpetrated by colonial powers, past abuses of power by Sudanese governments, corruption, or even legal precedents, effectively erasing the historical basis for current legal and social rights.

Sudanese cultural heritage faces threats not only through active displacement and destruction, but also through targeted violence against artists, musicians, poets, archivists, and other cultural workers. The yearly parade in Omdurman on the day of the Prophet’s birthday exemplifies events that have not been celebrated since the outbreak of the war. Smaller religious and linguistic communities in places including the Nuba Mountains and Darfur risk outright extinction amid mass displacement and death, with over 50 Sudanese languages at risk. Unlike traceable artifacts, these losses erode irreplaceable networks, transmission chains, and social spaces. Policy must therefore target both material safeguards and living practices to rebuild and restore cultural infrastructure.

Sudanese-Led Preservation Efforts

Several initiatives demonstrate that targeted local engagement and international collaboration can effectively combat cultural erasure in Sudan. They provide policy models that should be better supported by international donors.

Safeguarding Sudan’s Living Heritage (SSLH) is an initiative funded by the British Council and run by Sudanese archivists and cultural workers who conduct research, create maps, and curate exhibitions. They collaborate with vulnerable communities in Sudan and in exile to document their culture and help build resilience. The SSLH is one of the only groups currently dedicating its efforts to safeguarding intangible heritage on a global scale. Similarly, Blue Shield Sudan, established in December 2024, constitutes the first nationally coordinated cultural protection body founded during the Sudanese conflict. Led by Professor Intisar El-Zein Soghayroun, it connects various initiatives in Sudan that defend cultural identity.

In a more decentralized way, neighborhood committees, women’s groups, and youth groups have recorded stories from community members. Local radio stations, podcasts, and social media channels run by Sudanese creators have served as the vessels of this preservation, broadcasting oral histories and music as acts of resistance. Examples include private initiatives that contribute to the archiving of knowledge and raising of global awareness, such as Omer Al Tijani’s “Sudanese Kitchen” cookbook and Hana Baba’s “Folktales from Sudan” podcast.

Individually, visual artists, filmmakers, photographers, and performers document and preserve wartime life, atrocities, flight routes, and stories, as well as life in exile. Artists have employed street art and graffiti, as well as digital art, to commemorate massacres and disappeared persons in Sudan. These initiatives have revealed the potential and power of Sudanese art to connect the diverse population and overcome the ongoing crisis. They ultimately contribute to fostering community and preserving cohesion in a country increasingly torn apart by war.

These efforts, from nationally coordinated heritage protection such as the SSLH to grassroots storytelling, such as the podcast and book project, illustrate a diverse and community-driven movement resisting Sudan’s cultural destruction. They show how creative resilience and civic solidarity can preserve plural identities during active conflict and with minimal resources. Building on these examples, it becomes clear that integrating cultural preservation efforts into policy frameworks is not only valuable and possible but also necessary.

Importantly, Sudan acceded to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and has recently joined the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Second Protocol on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. These actions strengthen Sudan’s legal and institutional framework for protecting cultural property and create a base for international collaboration to counter illicit trafficking. As such, they enable a greater cooperative breadth within which cultural preservation initiatives can be coordinated and integrated, and ultimately constitute the legal foundation of any future policy.

Why Prioritize Culture: Rationales for Policy Integration

The widespread destruction and displacement in Sudan have created a critical threat to tangible and intangible heritage. While much has been destroyed, scaling Sudanese-led efforts, such as Sudan Memory and SSLH, will support long-term holistic recovery. International donors, UN agencies, and regional bodies should integrate cultural safeguarding into their humanitarian and reconstruction frameworks. These actions should become a core element of post-conflict resilience.

Effective steps could include deploying cultural emergency response teams. Composed of expert units for on-site urgent recovery, stabilization, or excavation of artifacts or sites, such teams would support the data-mapping of endangered sites. Their deployment with coordination clusters, humanitarian working groups like the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, local NGOs, or civilian initiatives networks, would cement preservation as a key function of operations.

As the effectiveness of deployments would face the constraints of distance and active conflict, funding for “low-tech, low-visibility” tools like digitization kits, secure cloud storage, and training and micro-grants for community archiving could supplement the capacity for preservation in empowering existing local networks to scale their proven practices. Cultural workers and artists should be recognized as critical civilian responders. Offering training programs in artifact restoration techniques, documentation, and conservation would help build durable skills that remain within Sudan, irrespective of international partners’ willingness to invest in broader initiatives. Donors such as UNESCO and national authorities like the NCAM can facilitate partnerships with museums, universities, and digital preservation institutions to provide knowledge exchange and emergency technical support.

Finally, a coalition of international and domestic actors should implement fast-tracked emergency protection measures to prevent further looting. Temporary relocation, digital “mirroring” (rapid 3D digital replicas of artifacts produced for safe virtual access), or “cultural protection corridors” (secure pathways like humanitarian corridors linking sites for monitored movement) for endangered materials and personnel would reduce the prevalence of trafficking. Such measures should, however, be tempered by binding return and ownership guarantees to avoid their exploitation. Supporting monitoring initiatives between cultural institutions and international observers of these processes could further coordinate disparate initiatives.

Conclusion

Lasting culture counters the serious threats enabled by targeted cultural destruction, including historical revisionism, polarization, and weakened social cohesion. Examples such as Afghanistan and Iraq show how heritage demolitions and bans on cultural or religious practice serve to erase collective memory and undermine diverse identities. Conversely, in Sudan, shared narratives, mourning rituals, and cross-community dialogues via cultural practices soften polarization, trauma, and cycles of revenge, forming a foundation for reconciliation and transitional justice after prolonged conflict.

Today, warring factions in Sudan use cultural erasure to silence resistance and diverse voices. Funding preservation now will determine who gets remembered, whose suffering remains legible, and which futures seem viable. Preserving Sudan’s cultural artifacts and traditions amid war does not merely serve a nostalgic purpose. It ensures any political settlement rests on plural memory, rather than silence, amnesia, or erasure.

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Serving A State That Couldn’t Pay: Why South Sudan’s Civil Servants Didn’t Quit During The War

Public administration, Yambio, Western Equatoria, South Sudan. Emmanuelle Veuillet, Author provided (no reuse)

BY EMMANUELLA VEUILLET

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

UNIVERSITY OF JUBA

When civil war broke out in South Sudan in December 2013, civil servants found themselves at the centre of a deep political and economic crisis.

The state was, and remains, the largest employer, surpassing private companies and NGOs. In 2015, the approved national budget accounted for 465,041 government personnel. Over 85% were engaged in security-related functions. Despite the absence of official statistics, observations confirm that the civil service has not shrunk over the years.

As the conflict became increasingly politicised and shaped by ethnic divisions, civil servants had to navigate shifting loyalties and growing insecurity.

The war also triggered an economic collapse. In 2015, the South Sudanese pound lost nearly 90% of its value against the US dollar. Trade routes were disrupted. Domestic production of products declined and shortages of imported goods fuelled hyperinflation.

The near-total collapse of oil exports – the government’s main source of revenue – severely weakened state finances. By late 2015, the government was effectively bankrupt and increasingly unable to fund the public sector.

This resulted in long delays in civil servants’ salary payments from several months to a year. Hyperinflation also eroded the value of wages.

This did not lead to a mass exodus from the civil service, however. During my PhD fieldwork, I found that many civil servants chose to stay. As a political sociologist, I was interested in understanding their decision to remain in a broke administration during such challenging times. I explored the little-known wartime experiences of ordinary middle-ranking civil servants to make sense of it.

Drawing on 22 months of fieldwork in South Sudan, I found that civil servants chose to remain in government because – despite the absence of a salary and direct income – their jobs provided benefits. These included social status, and access to networks and opportunities. The job provided a sense of normality, too, during a period of political upheaval. It was also a realistic route to paid employment in a hoped-for future. Other options were scarce.

The civil war formally ended with the 2018 peace agreement, but South Sudan remains mired in political and economic crises. My findings help explain why, despite repeated shocks, state institutions have endured.

The study

I collected the data in my study between 2017 and 2022 in the region of Western Equatoria in South Sudan. The region doesn’t have oil resources, hosts a variety of ethnic groups and plunged into war later than many others. I relied on observations from various administration offices at county and state levels, and informal conversations held during these visits.

As part of my research, I followed the stories of six civil servants – two women and four men – from different departments and directorates at the county and state levels. They held different grades within the administration. They were aged over 30 and held at least a high school certificate.

The findings

My study shows that civil servants’ attachment to a state with no money was shaped by material, social and political factors.

Before the war – from independence in 2011 to 2013 – even lower-ranking government jobs provided civil servants with a modest but stable standard of living. For instance, a cleaner (grade 16) in public administration earned around US$180 to US$200 at the time. But after the conflict began, that economic security disappeared.

By April 2017, a director’s monthly salary (grade 3) could only buy a 20kg bag of rice and a 10kg bag of red beans. An administrative officer’s (grade 12) salary could barely pay for 2kg of rice.

All civil servants had to look for other sources of income for daily survival. These included farming, small-scale businesses, and renting or selling properties. The economic security attached to a position in the civil service had vanished.

Yet civil servants continued to go to the office because it still gave them access to other forms of resources, helped them maintain their status and preserved an appearance of normality.

The benefits included:

access to opportunities, such as NGO trainings and workshops that provided per diems for the period of participation, or a certificate of attendance that could be added to a CV

the knowledge and power to help people and do favours, which helped them cultivate social networks that could be used to access goods, services or credit

preserving social position and maintaining practices that reinforced a sense of normality, both in the eyes of others and for themselves


a shared experience which fostered forms of solidarity and mutual understanding among civil servants. They organised social activities and support mechanisms, such as savings groups, among themselves rather than with other social groups.

A desired future

Despite the South Sudanese government’s withdrawal from many of its social responsibilities, civil servants continued to imagine a different kind of state. Those I interviewed shared a vision of a strong and functioning state.

It was often accompanied by a sense of self-fulfilment, as they imagined themselves helping to build such a state. Maintaining the functioning of state institutions and preserving some level of public service during the crisis became a meaningful commitment, a survival strategy and an investment in upward mobility within a “wished-for state”.

The decision to remain in this career was also shaped by a lack of alternatives, however. Middle-ranking civil servants had relatively low levels of formal education and lacked the networks needed to secure other employment. The private sector has remained small because of a difficult business climate and a lack of economic diversification.

The total collapse of a functioning state would mean the disappearance of their jobs – which helps explain their efforts to keep the administration going.

The economic crisis in South Sudan raises questions, however, about how long civil servants can continue to sustain state institutions.

In many cases, salaries have gone unpaid for more than a year. And cash shortages in banks prevent civil servants from accessing whatever funds may be available to them.

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South Sudan At 15: How The Political Elite Have Found A Way To Profit From Peace As Well As War

Juba, the capital of South Sudan. Wikimedia Commons

BY MARTIN BENSON STROHMAYDER

RESEARCH FELLOW AND SUDANS RESEARCH

DIRECTOR, LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

South Sudan’s independence from Sudan in 2011 was meant to close the chapter on one of Africa’s longest civil wars: the north-south war that preceded it. Formally, it did. But independence did not end the deeper struggles over power, revenue and coercion inside the newly independent state.

South Sudan returned to war in 2013, watched a 2015 settlement collapse, and now lives under a 2018 Revitalised Agreement whose promised transition has been postponed repeatedly.

This is usually told as a story of failed peacemaking, with too many spoilers and too little political will. But what if these deals are not failing so much as working? What if they stabilise order precisely by preserving the systems that make violence profitable?

Political settlements theory helps explain why peace agreements often focus on dividing power, offices and resources among elites. The hope is that if rival leaders receive a share of power, offices and resources, they will have less reason to fight. But negotiated transitions can also carry wartime systems into peace. The question, then, is not only who gets a share of the state, but what kinds of war economies, revenue systems and coercive practices are being preserved.

As an economic historian of war and peace, I have spent more than a decade tracing how rulers in South Sudan and Sudan raise money, goods, labour and other resources, and how payment is enforced through soldiers, officials, checkpoints and offices. My recent research paper examined how South Sudan’s peace agreements reshaped the country’s systems of revenue, spending and coercion: who could extract resources, who could allocate them, and who could enforce payment.

My analysis drew on 2020-2024 fieldwork and archival, secondary and peace agreement data. I sought to answer three questions: who collected revenue from monetary and non-monetary sources, such as cash, cattle, grain and labour; who paid; and who benefited.

What emerges is that peace settlements have redistributed access to money, offices and external finance among elites, while leaving intact the coercive revenue system and war economies that preceded them. In some cases, peace has formalised those systems by turning wartime access to extraction into recognised office, revenue authority or security control. Violence changes form rather than ending; it recedes from the battlefield and lodges in the revenue systems, security forces and war economies that continue to extract from civilians – now in the name of order.

This is a pattern I call predatory peace.

The same machinery makes the state itself a prize: controlling it is so lucrative that capture remains worth fighting for, and when the power-sharing breaks down, as it did in 2013, the fighting returns. Peace and war become two settings of one extractive machine rather than true opposites.

Similar dynamics have emerged in other resource-rich, conflict-affected states, such as in oil-rich Angola and the mineral endowed Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). South Sudan is resource-rich too, above all because of oil. But the wider issue is not only natural resources. It is the political control of revenue streams such as oil, customs, aid, loans, contracts, checkpoints, timber, charcoal and other forms of extraction.

It’s all part of a wider pattern in peacemaking that has repeatedly paired political deals with economic reforms that entrenched elite control over revenue and other resources.

None of this is inevitable. A different approach would start by treating the whole revenue complex as the heart of peacemaking itself, not as a technical issue to be postponed until after a peace agreement is signed. It would ask who controls money and other resources, including humanitarian and development assistance; who is allowed to extract resources, payments and labour from civilians; and whether people can see anything in return for what they pay.

Peace as ‘organised robbery’ in South Sudan

South Sudan’s national revenue system includes taxes, customs, fees, oil revenues, international loans, aid and off-budget income. It also includes non-monetary extraction, such as cattle, grain, labour and goods taken from civilians. These flows are enforced through soldiers, security forces, government offices and checkpoints. Together, they form what I call a revenue complex: the machinery through which rulers extract the resources that allow them to govern, reward allies and sustain coercive power.

In much of South Sudan, “peace” has reshuffled who profits from the revenue system, not what it does to those who pay. A businessman in Malakal, a city in Upper Nile State, described the tax system as “organised robbery” in which soldiers were overcharging and pocketing the proceeds. He was told that the system had to be endured to “maintain peace”.

Predation was not a breakdown of order; it was a condition of order.

None of this began with the peace process. My peace agreement analysis starts in the early 1970s, but in separate archival research and an earlier round of just over 200 interviews, I traced the territory’s revenue complex back to at least 1899. Across colonial, rebel and independent rule, I found a similar logic: revenue sources were used to secure rulers’ control more than to fund public goods.

Across more than 120 years, changes in government did not dismantle the underlying machinery of extraction and control. Each major political settlement since the 1970s has been laid over that inheritance, reshuffling who profits from it.

Confusion is integral to the system. Traders described being shuttled from office to office to meet fresh demands; collectors themselves spoke of decrees “passed from nowhere” that shifted revenue to other units. A businesswoman in Wau described fierce competition for tax collection posts because of what could be skimmed from them. This is not administrative failure, but a system that works for those who run it. When revenue authority is spread across overlapping offices, no one can be held to account and everyone can be rewarded for their loyalty.

This performance of state finance runs all the way up. In 2012, the president conceded that some US$4 billion in oil money had simply been “stolen”. In 2026, a UN panel of experts found that South Sudan continued to sell oil months in advance of delivery, and that disputes over undelivered oil cargoes and oil-backed debts had reached UK commercial courts.

State budgets perform reform while the money moves elsewhere.

What people get in return

South Sudanese nevertheless do not reject the idea of contributing to public authority. They contrasted community-level payments and contributions, which they could see returning as boreholes, roads or clinics, with state taxation, which they experienced as extraction without return.

Many insisted that paying tax is good, so long as it is reciprocal, transparent and tied to public goods.

The problem is that peace agreements often leave that link severed, even as they formalise new bargains among elites.

What non-predatory peace would require

A different kind of peacemaking would mean taking the following steps.

rebuilding of a transparent, civilian-controlled revenue complex


linking what people pay to what they receive


making external support conditional on genuine revenue reform.


Lastly, South Sudanese civic actors should be supported to monitor the cross-border flows – oil, arms, timber, charcoal, looted goods and finance – that fund fighting.

This work does not fall solely to donors and mediators. People are already documenting where the money goes.

A serious settlement would treat them as central to any peace worth the name.

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The Rhythms That Broke Bashir: How Sudan’s Music Shaped A Revolution

Sudanese people protest Omar al-Bashir’s authoritarian regime in 2019. Wikimedia Commons

BY CATHY WILCOCK

RESEARCH FELLOW,

UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER

The revolution in Sudan in 2019 has been eclipsed by the war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, which began in April 2023.

But the events of 2019 demand greater attention as they hold lessons for a post-war Sudan.

Music was central to the protests in 2019. The camp outside military headquarters in Khartoum, where demonstrators gathered for weeks to demand civilian rule, became known as Sudan’s largest ever arts festival.

My research on resistance movements has led me to believe that music is not only a cosmetic accessory to protests. In Sudan, it was an integral part of the revolutionary movement that ousted the Omar al-Bashir regime. For decades, music helped cultivate anti-government sentiment and forge the networks and communities that would sustain the revolution in 2019.

I’ve explored this idea in a recent paper, drawing on interviews with protesters and musicians.
Sudanese music and resistance

Music in Sudan has historically been intertwined with popular resistance. First against colonial rulers and then – following independence in 1956 – against post-colonial despots. The patriotic anthems of the 60s and 70s expressed the sentiment that Sudan was being built by the people, not the government.

As one music fan who was a young teenager in the early 1970s said:

There were different ideas, of course, about what sounded good, but if you were making music, you were against the government, that was for sure.

One after the other, however, authoritarian regimes sought to crush all creativity – and especially music – through censorship laws and the systematic intimidation of artists.

Gigs had to be held as private events in people’s homes and even these were regularly broken up by a morality monitoring unit. Many popular musicians left for careers abroad.

But underground music scenes kept anti-government sentiment alive.

My research shows that the exodus of musicians, producers and fans under the Bashir regime did not weaken popular resistance. Instead, this displacement helped build strong transnational social networks, enabling musicians to record music outside Sudan. This was then distributed back to communities inside the borders. Later, these same social networks supported the 2019 revolution.

Throughout recent history and across various genres and scenes, music has helped the Sudanese imagine alternatives to authoritarian rule and build the relationships needed for collective action.

Given the close historical ties between resistance movements and music scenes, examining the music of the revolution provides insight into the values, identities and visions of democratic change that shaped Sudan’s revolutionary movement.

Music, gender and class

In my paper I analyse the most prominent revolution songs – collected in a shareable YouTube playlist – to explore what protesters’ choices reveal about the movement itself. The songs point to a growing openness towards gender and class.

At the 2019 protests, the revolutionaries honoured a canon of anti-oppression anthems. These included traditional Sudanese staples, hip-hop classics and contemporary pop sing-a-longs.

Not all revolutionary anthems are lyrically political, however, and there are gendered reasons for this.

In Sudan’s decades of patriarchal autocracy, speaking openly about politics through song lyrics was often far riskier for women than for men. As a result, women-led genres, such as tumtum and aghani albanat, typically centred on romance and everyday life, accompanied by handclapping and rhythms played on the doolka drum. Among highbrow creatives, these vocal and percussive genres are considered artistically subordinate to male-dominated genres. These include haqeeba, which features instrumental accompaniment on the more technically demanding oud.

However, tumtum and aghani albanat were popular with protesters in 2019. This was not because their lyrics were directly political (they were not). Rather, they represented the defiance of women who continued to create and perform music despite decades of state restrictions on women’s artistry.

Despite their lyrical playfulness and political neutrality, Sudanese society celebrated these genres in the revolution. This sends a powerful political message about a rising cultural openness towards feminine creativity, which had been inhibited by the state.

Zenig is a new Sudanese genre of music. It emerged in the early 2010s from the poor and peripheral neighbourhoods in Khartoum. It takes its rhythmic base from tumtum, and mixes this with retro keyboards, low-fi synths and improvised vocals. It is fundamentally a Khartoumian invention, and is deliberately defiant of conservative gender and class hierarchies.

Zenig contributed to the cacophony of sounds during the 2019 sit-in. One protester remembered “its fast-paced rhythmic style worked well in energising crowds”. The most likely place to hear Zenig at the sit-in was in intimate circles and small stages where friends could dance together. Before the revolution, Zenig was known in Khartoum as the music of poor outcasts.

The significance

By elevating female leadership in the music of the revolution, Sudanese revolutionaries deliberatively negotiated what an alternative ideal Sudanese society would be like; one with more empowerment for women, as both creative and political forerunners.

The inclusion of genres like Zenig at the 2019 sit-in demonstrates that Sudan’s revolution was not only about changing the regime.

For many young Sudanese, it was also an expression of yearning for broader societal change and an upending of societal power relations.

Read more: Ethiopia’s musicians fled the country after the 1974 revolution - how their culture lives on

The revolution in 2019 was a unique time for openness, experimentation and future-making facilitated by music.

Music and rebuilding

The war has prevented Sudanese civilians from continuing these important social negotiations.

The resistance movement and its musicians have been displaced within Sudan and to regional hubs like Cairo (Egypt) and Nairobi (Kenya). Many have tragically lost their lives. Some have remained in Khartoum and continue to make hopeful music against the odds.

Even as Sudan’s future remains uncertain, music will be surely be central in the rebuilding of civilian lives that will come.

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Sudan’s Civil War: A Visual Guide To The Brutal Conflict

Mahmoud Hjaj/Anadolu Agency via Getty, Ebrahim Hamid, Getty, Hussein Malla/Getty, Anadolu/Getty, The Conversation

BY CHRISTOPHER TOUNSEL

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF HISTORY,

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

Sudan’s brutal civil war has dragged on for more than 2½ years, displacing millions and killing in excess of 150,000 people – making it among the most deadly conflicts in the world today.

As of December 2025, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces appear to be making gains, seizing a key oil field in central Sudan and forcing the retreat of the Sudanese Armed Forces in key cities in the country’s west.

But fighting has ebbed and flowed throughout the war, with parts of the country changing hands a number of times. It has left a complicated picture of a nation mired in violence. Here’s a visual guide to help understand what is going on and the toll it has taken on the Sudanese population.

What military forces are involved?

The two main warring parties are the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The SAF is the nation’s official military. Prior to the civil war, it was responsible with enforcing the border, protecting the country from foreign entities and maintaining internal security. As of April 2023, the SAF had an estimated force of up to 200,000 people.

The paramilitary RSF is a semi-autonomous organization that was created in 2013 to confront rebel groups. Its origins lie in the feared Janjaweed militia that gained international notoriety for its scorched-earth tactics, extrajudicial killings and sexual assaults during a campaign in Darfur between 2003 and 2005.

Rebranding as the RSF, the paramilitary force evolved to become President Omar al-Bashir’s personal security force before al-Bashir’s ouster in 2019.

After that, the RSF and the SAF worked together to stage a 2021 coup against Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok in 2021. But a power struggle emerged between the leaders of the RSF and SAF amid disagreements over the future direction of the country and whether the RSF would be incorporated into the army.

By the outbreak of the civil war in 2023, the RSF had amassed around 100,000 troops.

Various other armed groups have lent their support to the RSF and SAF during the conflict, including the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, which supports the RSF, and the army-aligned Justice and Equality Movement

Who are the main leaders?

The SAF is led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the nation’s top military commander and de facto head of state. The longtime soldier rose to the rank of regional commander in 2008 and was promoted a decade later to the position of army chief of staff.

Following Bashir’s 2019 ouster, Burhan was appointed to lead the Transitional Military Council and its successor civilian-military entity known as the Sovereign Council. As leader of the Sovereign Council, Burhan occupied the nation’s highest office.

His reputation has been marred by his own military’s attacks on civilians in Darfur in the early 2000s and, more recently, his reliance on support from Islamist groups.

The RSF leader, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as “Hemedti,” was Burhan’s second-in-command.

Born to a poor family that settled in Darfur, Hemedti was part of the Janjaweed militia that President Bashir deployed to crush non-Arab resistance in the country’s west. Becoming leader of the Janjaweed before going on to head the RSF, Hemedti acquired a reputation as a ruthless commander whose brutal methods disturbed some fellow officers.

Where are the weapons, funding coming from?

While the fighting has largely been contained to within Sudan’s boundaries, it is being fueled from outside the country.

Amnesty International has reported that despite a decades-old arms embargo by the United Nations Security Council, recently manufactured weapons and equipment from China, Russia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates have been used by both sides in the conflict.

The Sudanese government has accused the UAE of providing military assistance to the RSF, which in turn has been accused of using the UAE for illegal gold trafficking.

In addition to providing military assistance, the UAE has been accused of providing economic support for the RSF. In January 2025, the Biden administration sanctioned seven UAE-based companies funding Hemedti.

Saudi Arabia, which sees Sudan as an ally to counter Iran’s regional influence, has provided financial support to the SAF. In October 2025, the SAF-backed government announced that Saudi Arabia planned to invest an additional US$50 billion into Sudan, on top of the $35 billion it has already invested.

Egypt, allied with Burhan in a dispute with Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, has supplied the SAF with warplanes and pilots.

Meanwhile, Iran and Russia have each extended support for the Sudanese government. It is believed that Iran, which renewed diplomatic ties with Sudan in October 2023, has provided the SAF with attack drones, while Russia has provided Sudan’s government with diplomatic and military support.

What areas are controlled by whom?

As of December 2025, the RSF and SAF control different halves of the country split along a roughly north-south axis. The SAF controls a little more than half of the country.

The SAF has a stronghold in the nation’s capital Khartoum. In the east, the army controls the city of Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast. The SAF also controls approximately three-quarters of the Sudanese border with Egypt to the north.

Strategically, the areas under SAF control provide the advantages of access to the Red Sea – a crucial transport hub through which 12% of the world’s maritime trade passes – as well as the historic demographic and administrative epicenter of Khartoum, situated at the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, and the livestock-rich Kassala state.

In all, Sudanese researcher Jihad Mashamoun estimates that as of November 2025, the SAF controlled 60% of the country.

Meanwhile, the RSF has consolidated control over Darfur – the massive western region that has been a hub for gold mining and trafficking routes – and the regional capital of el-Fasher, an economic hub connecting routes to Libya to the north, the Nile to the east and Chad to the west.

As researcher Bravin Onditi has noted, el-Fasher’s fall to the RSF in late October eliminated the SAF’s last stronghold in Darfur from which it could assert authority in western Sudan.

Outside of Darfur, the RSF controls most the country’s oil fields, many of the goldfields in central and southwest Sudan, and splits control over important grazing lands with the SAF.

What has been the toll on Sudan’s citizens?

One of the war’s distinguishing horrors has been repeated incidents of civilian killings.

Both sides have been accused of war crimes that include targeted attacks on civilians, medical centers and food systems. Mass killings in Khartoum, Darfur, Kordofan, Gezira, Sennar and White Nile states reflect the general scope of slaughter that has swept the country.

In some instances, this violence has taken on a decidedly ethnic dimension. Human Rights Watch reports that from late April to early November 2023, the RSF and its allied militias systematically sought to remove — including by murder — ethnic Masalit people from El Geneina, capital of West Darfur.

In October 2025, following the RAF’s siege of el-Fasher, the world watched in horror as satellite images of “clusters” consistent with bodies and blood-red discoloration could be seen on the ground. The U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting condemning the RSF’s killing of nearly 500 people in el-Fasher’s Saudi Maternity Hospital.

More than 9.5 million people are classified as internally displaced, having fled violence. The International Organization for Migration reports that North and South Darfur states host the largest number of internally displaced people, followed by Central and East Darfur states.

Meanwhile, over 4 million have fled to the neighboring countries of Egypt, South Sudan and Chad.

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Can The World Prevent A Genocide In Sudan?

A woman from El Fasher at a displacement camp in the Darfur region of Sudan in late October. Mohammed Jammal/UNICEF/AP

BY PHILIPP KASTNER

SENIOR LECTURER IN INTERNATIONAL LAW,

THE UN IVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Two years ago, a power struggle erupted between two factions of Sudan’s military. Today, this conflict is spiralling out of control, with thousands being killed in what a United Nations report has called “slaughterhouses”.

Last week, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary group battling Sudan’s army, captured the city of El Fasher, the last hold-out in the western Darfur region held by the military.

Soon after, reports of ethnically motivated massacres emerged. The World Health Organization said 460 people were killed in just one incident at the city’s hospital. Witnesses described widespread executions and sexual violence targeting certain ethnic groups.

A UN fact-finding mission found already last year that both sides in the conflict have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Rights groups and analysts are now sounding the alarm about a possible genocide taking place. Some say the killings are reminiscent of the start of the Rwanda genocide in 1994, which killed a staggering 800,000 people.

The atrocities are also following the same troubling pattern as in Darfur 20 years ago, which killed an estimated 300,000 people.

Back then, celebrity activists such as George Clooney helped put Darfur on the map. It became a major foreign policy issue in the United States, Europe, Africa and elsewhere. The genocide in Rwanda was still relatively fresh in people’s minds. The slogan “never again” was still taken somewhat seriously.

The global attention eventually led the International Criminal Court to indict Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for allegedly directing the campaign of mass killings in Darfur, the first sitting head of state to be indicted.

Sudan is now home to the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. Hundreds of thousands have been killed since 2023, 12 million people have been displaced and 21 million people face what the UN calls “high levels of acute food insecurity”.

Yet, compared to the early 2000s, the international community has been largely silent.

Why global attention matters

It would be tempting to say the wars and suffering in Gaza and Ukraine have overshadowed Sudan in the minds of global leaders and concerned citizens alike. But this does not mean the world can’t do anything.

Global awareness did not solve anything by itself in Darfur 20 years ago, but it was a first step. It led to the eventual deployment of a peacekeeping mission by the United Nations and the African Union.

The mission was too small and limited, but it showed that international peacekeepers can still have a positive impact in the 21st century. They can monitor ceasefires, implement disarmament programs, protect civilians and prevent further escalations of violence.

More attention – and pressure – also needs to be placed on the external actors supporting both sides in the current conflict. These countries are pursuing their own strategic interests in Sudan and consider the power struggle a chance to increase their influence in the region and exert control over Sudan’s natural resources.

The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) are backed by Egypt, Turkey, Iran and Russia. The United Arab Emirates, meanwhile, has been accused of funding and providing weapons to the Rapid Support Forces in clear violation of an arms embargo.

While these countries deny arming both sides, rights groups say a flood of weapons has nonetheless entered the country. The United Arab Emirates, in particular, is accused of covertly supplying drones, howitzers, heavy machine guns and mortars to RSF fighters in Darfur.

The United Arab Emirates has only just started to distance itself from the RSF following the recent atrocities in El Fasher.

What’s needed to bring peace

A ceasefire must urgently be agreed to, so humanitarian corridors can be opened to allow aid organisations to do their work.

All outside military support to the warring parties must end immediately. The current arms embargo is too limited and has been poorly implemented – it needs to be strengthened.

And more sanctions should be imposed, especially on the perpetrators reportedly responsible for international crimes. In January, the Biden administration levied sanctions on the RSF commander and several UAE-based companies supporting him – these must now be expanded.

This would make it more difficult for Sudan’s lucrative gold trade to continue to be used by both sides to sustain the war.

For the peace to hold in the long term, both sides must also agree on a mechanism to disarm or integrate the RSF fighters into the regular forces.

Establishing some form of justice and reconciliation process can also contribute to preventing further violence. This sends a clear signal that committing crimes will not be rewarded. It can also help communities heal and give peace a better chance.

Nothing of this sort has really happened in Darfur over the past couple decades. Instead, political actors continued to exploit and aggravate ethnic tensions. The RSF, in particular, has recruited fighters from the infamous Janjaweed militias responsible for the Darfur atrocities in the early 2000s.

A further complication is the increasing fragmentation of the situation, as the Sudanese Armed Forces and RSF are not perfectly integrated armies. They do not have centralised control over their various coalitions of fighters.

This means that while getting the leaders to agree on a ceasefire is important, it may not be sufficient.

As a result, peace initiatives must include local agreements with individual rebel leaders and smaller factions of fighters, which can greatly increase the security of the population in particular areas.

To be clear, lasting peace does not come from some miracle peacemaker. In fact, nothing tangible came out of previous attempts at peace talks aimed at ending the conflict this year.

But this is where other actors can play an important role. The United Arab Emirates, for example, may now feel pressured to exert a more positive influence on the RSF and urge it to come to the negotiating table. The same applies to Egypt and the Sudanese Armed Forces.

And a more comprehensive plan then needs to be worked out, ideally through an international organisation like the United Nations or the African Union, with the goal of empowering the people of Sudan to make their own political decisions.

Sudan is a stark reminder that making lasting peace takes huge efforts. The devastating situation in the country demands the world keep trying.

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Sudan’s Civil War: What Military Advances Mean, And Where The Country Could Be Heading Next

A fighter loyal to the Sudanese army patrols a market area in Khartoum on March 24, 2025. AFP via Getty Images

BY CHRISTOPHER TOUNSEL

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF HISTORY

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

A series of advances by the Sudanese military has led some observers to posit that the African nation’s yearslong civil war could be at a crucial turning point.

Even if it were to end tomorrow, the bloody conflict would have left the Sudanese people scarred by violence that has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions of people. But the recent victories by the military do not spell the end of its adversary, a rebel paramilitary group that still holds large areas in Sudan.

The Conversation turned to Christopher Tounsel, a historian of modern Sudan at the University of Washington, to explain what the war has cost and where it could turn now.

Can you give a summary of the civil war to date?

On April 15, 2023, fighting broke out in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces, or SAF – led by de facto head of state Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan – and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, led by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known colloquially as “Hemedti.” The RSF emerged out of the feared Janjaweed militia that had terrorized the Darfur region of Sudan.

While the SAF and RSF previously worked together to forcibly remove longtime President Omar al-Bashir from power in 2019, they later split amid a power struggle that turned deadly.

The major point of contention was the disputed timeline for RSF integration into the national military, with the RSF preferring a 10-year process to the SAF’s preferred two-year plan.

By early April 2023, the government deployed SAF troops along the streets of the capital, Khartoum, while RSF forces took up locations throughout the country. Matters came to a head when explosions and gunfire rocked Khartoum on April 15 of that year. The two forces have been in conflict ever since.

To human toll of the civil war has been staggering. As of February 2025, estimates of those killed from the conflict and its related causes, including lack of sufficient medical facilities and hunger, have ranged from 20,000 to 150,000 – a wide gulf that, according to Humanitarian Research Lab executive director Nathaniel Raymond, is partially due to the fact that the dead or displaced are still being counted.

Where is Sudan?

The conflict has displaced more than 14 million people, a number that demographically makes the Sudan situation the world’s worst displacement crisis. Nearly half of Sudan’s population is “acutely food insecure,” according to the U.N.’s World Food Programme. Another 638,000 face “catastrophic levels of hunger” – the world’s highest number.

How have recent developments changed the war?

The SAF has recently scored a slew of victories. At time of writing, the Sudanese military controls much of the country’s southeastern border with Ethiopia, the Red Sea coast – and, with it, Sudan’s strategically important Port Sudan – and parts of the country’s metropolitan center located at the confluence of the Blue and White Nile rivers.

Further, the SAF has reclaimed much of the White Nile and Gezira provinces and broken an RSF siege of North Kordofan’s provincial capital of el-Obeid. In perhaps the most important development, the army in late March recaptured the RSF’s last major stronghold in Khartoum, the Presidential Palace.

Each of these actions indicates that the SAF is taking an increasingly proactive approach in the war. Such positive momentum could not only serve to reassure the Sudanese populace that the SAF is the country’s strongest force but also signal to foreign powers that it is, and will continue to be, the country’s legitimate authority moving forward.

And yet, there are other indications that the RSF is in no rush to concede defeat. Despite the SAF’s advances, the RSF has strengthened its control over nearly all of Darfur, Sudan’s massive western region that shares a lengthy border with neighboring Chad.

It is here that the RSF has been accused of committing genocide against non-Arab communities, and only the besieged capital of North Darfur, El Fasher, stands in the way of total RSF hegemony in the region. The RSF also controls territory to the south, along Sudan’s borders with the Central African Republic and South Sudan.

The fact that the SAF and RSF are entrenched in their respective regional strongholds casts doubt on the significance of the military’s recent victories.

Could Sudan be heading to partition?

As a historian who spent years writing about South Sudanese separatism, I find it somewhat unfathomable to imagine that Sudan would further splinter into different countries. Given the current state of affairs, however, partition is not outside the realm of possibility. In February, during a summit in Kenya, the RSF and its allies officially commenced plans to create a rival government.

The African Union’s 55 member states are said to be split on the issue of Sudanese partition and the question of whether any entity linked with the RSF should be accepted. In January, during the waning days of U.S. President Joe Biden’s presidency, Washington determined that the RSF and its allies had committed genocide and sanctioned Hemedti, the RSF leader, prohibiting him and his family from traveling to the U.S. and freezing any American assets he may hold.

Any attempt to entertain partition could be read as an acknowledgment of the legitimacy of the RSF and would also create a dangerous precedent for other leaders who have been accused of human rights violations.

In addition to the RSF’s perceived lack of moral legitimacy, there is also the recent precedent of South Sudan’s secession. South Sudan, since seceding from Sudan in 2011, has experienced enormous difficulties. Roughly 2½ years into independence, the nation erupted into a civil war waged largely along ethnic lines. Since the conclusion of that war in 2018, the world’s youngest nation continues to struggle with intergroup violence, food insecurity and sanctions resulting from human rights violations.

Simply put, recent Sudanese history has shown that partition is not a risk-free solution to civil war.

How has shifting geopolitics affected the conflict?

It is important to understand that the conflict’s ripples extend far beyond Sudan’s borders. Similarly, the actions of countries such as the U.S., Russia and China have an impact on the war.

President Donald Trump’s executive order freezing contributions from the U.S. government’s development organization, USAID, has shuttered approximately 80% of the emergency food kitchens established to help those impacted by the conflict. An estimated 2 million people have been affected by this development.

Russian financial and military contributions have been credited with helping the SAF achieve its gains in recent months. Russia has long desired a Red Sea naval base near Port Sudan, and the expulsion of Russia’s fleet from Syria following the fall of President Bashar Assad increased the importance of such a base.

And then there is China. A major importer of Sudanese crude oil, China engaged in conversations to renegotiate oil cooperation agreements with Sudan in October 2024 with the hopes of increasing oil production amid the war. An end to the war – and, with it, protecting the flow of oil through pipelines vulnerable to attack – would benefit both members of this bilateral relationship.

As the war enters its third year, the outlook remains frustratingly difficult to discern.

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World Donors Pledge $2.1 Billion In Aid For War-Stricken Sudan To Ward Off Famine

French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during session at the international conference on Sudan, Monday, April 15, 2024 in Paris...(AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard; Pool)

BY BARBARA SURK AND SAMY MAGDY

KHARTOUM, SUDAN (ASSOCIATED PRESS) - World donors pledged more than $2.1 billion in humanitarian aid for Sudan after a yearlong war that has pushed its population to the brink of famine, French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday.

Macron spoke at the end of an international conference in Paris aimed at drumming up support for Sudan’s 51 million people. The aid will go to food, water, medicines and other urgent needs, he said, without providing a specific timeline.

Top diplomatic envoys, U.N. officials and aid agencies urged Sudan’s warring parties to stop attacks on civilians and allow access for humanitarian aid, and called for immediate international mediation efforts toward peace. Members of Sudan’s civil society took part in the Paris meeting, but neither the Sudanese army nor its rival paramilitary were represented.

Sudan descended into conflict in April last year when simmering tensions between the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere across the country.

“Much of the world has been focused on the crisis that was generated in the Middle East. As concerning as those developments are, other dramatic life-and-death emergencies are being pushed into the shadows,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres told reporters after the Security Council met on Sudan on Monday.

“The world is forgetting about the people of Sudan,” he said.

The United Nations’ humanitarian campaign needs some $2.7 billion this year to get food, health care and other supplies to 24 million people in Sudan — nearly half its population. So far, funders have given only $145 million, about 5%, according to the U.N’s humanitarian office, known as OCHA.

After Monday’s conference, Macron said, ‘’We are today at 2 billion euros ($2.1 billion) for Sudan.’' Of that, some 900 million euros comes from EU countries, he said.

Monday’s conference among 58 countries also called on regional powers to stop funding Sudan’s war. Without naming them, Macron said, ’’The amount we raised today remains probably less than all the money raised by several powers’’ to wage a proxy conflict in Sudan.

More than 14,000 people have been killed and at least 33,000 have been wounded in the yearlong war. Nearly 9 million people have been forced to flee their homes either to safer areas inside Sudan or to neighboring countries, according to the U.N. Hunger, sexual violence against women and girls and continued displacement are rampant and much of the country’s infrastructure — homes, hospitals and schools — has been reduced to rubble.

“We cannot let this nightmare slide from view,” Guterres said in a video message to the Paris conference.

“It’s time to support the Sudanese people. It’s time to silence the guns,” he added.

French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said the aim of the conference was to mobilize humanitarian funding to help Sudanese people, who have been victims of both a “terrible war” and “international indifference.”

The European Union’s crisis management commissioner, Janez Lenarcic, said the 27-member bloc wants to ensure that Sudan is not forgotten as wars in Gaza and Ukraine dominate the international news.

“People of Sudan, caught up in this emergency, are almost completely invisible,” Lenarcic said. Sudan has turned into one of the worst humanitarian disasters ever on the African continent, he said, and added: “It is our duty not to look away.”

President of the International Committee of the Red Cross Mirjana Spoljaric warned that humanitarian action is increasingly politicized in Sudan and humanitarian workers are risking their lives to get vital aid to people.

“Securing a military advantage cannot be pursued regardless of the human cost,” Spoljaric said.

The United States and Saudi Arabia initially led efforts to find a negotiated way out of the conflict. But since October the fighting has been overshadowed by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, which is threatening to expand into a broader regional conflict.

Relief workers, meanwhile, warn that Sudan is hurtling towards potential mass death in the coming months. Food production and distribution networks have broken down and aid agencies are unable to reach the worst-stricken regions.

The conflict has also been marked by widespread reports of atrocities including killings, displacement and rape, particularly in the area of the capital and the western region of Darfur.

At least 37% of the population at crisis level or above suffer from hunger, according to OCHA. Save the Children warned that about 230,000 children, pregnant women and newborn mothers could die of malnutrition in the coming months.

“Famine is a reality in Sudan,” said Abdallah al-Dardari, a regional director of the U.N. Development Program.

The military, headed by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and the RSF, commanded by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, have carved up Khartoum and trade indiscriminate fire at each other. In 2021, Burhan and Dagalo were uneasy allies who led a military coup. They toppled an internationally recognized civilian government that was supposed to steer Sudan’s democratic transition.

Magdy reported from Cairo and Surk from Nice, France. AP journalist Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.

World Paid Little Attention To Sudan’s War For A Year. Now Aid Groups Warn Of Mass Death From Hunger

People board a truck as they leave Khartoum, Sudan, June 19, 2023...(AP Photo, File)

BY SAMY MAGDY

CAIRO (AP) — On a clear night a year ago, a dozen heavily armed fighters broke into Omaima Farouq’s house in an upscale neighborhood in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. At gunpoint, they whipped and slapped the woman, and terrorized her children. Then they expelled them from the fenced two-story house.

“Since then, our life has been ruined,” said the 45-year-old schoolteacher. “Everything has changed in this year.”

Farouq, who is a widow, and her four children now live in a small village outside the central city of Wad Madani, 136 kilometers (85 miles) southeast of Khartoum. They depend on aid from villagers and philanthropists since international aid groups can’t reach the village.

Sudan has been torn by war for a year now, ever since simmering tensions between its military and the notorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces exploded into street clashes in the capital Khartoum in mid-April 2023. The fighting rapidly spread across the country.

The conflict has been overshadowed by the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza Strip, which since October has caused a massive humanitarian crisis for Palestinians and a threat of famine in the territory.

But relief workers warn Sudan is hurtling towards an even larger-scale calamity of starvation, with potential mass death in coming months. Food production and distribution networks have broken down and aid agencies are unable to reach the worst-stricken regions. At the same time, the conflict has brought widespread reports of atrocities including killings, displacement and rape, particularly in the area of the capital and the western region of Darfur.

Justin Brady, head of the U.N. humanitarian coordination office for Sudan, warned that potentially tens or even hundreds of thousands could die in coming months from malnutrition-related causes.

“This is going to get very ugly very quickly unless we can overcome both the resource challenges and the access challenges,” Brady said. The world, he said, needs to take fast action to pressure the two sides for a stop in fighting and raise funds for the U.N. humanitarian effort.

But the international community has paid little attention. The U.N. humanitarian campaign needs some $2.7 billion this year to get food, heath care and other supplies to 24 million people in Sudan – nearly half its population of 51 million. So far, funders have given only $145 million, about 5%, according to the humanitarian office, known as OCHA.

The “level of international neglect is shocking,” Christos Christou, president of the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, said in a recent statement.

The situation in fighting on the ground has been deteriorating. The military, headed by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and the RSF, commanded by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, have carved up Khartoum and trade indiscriminate fire at each other. RSF forces have overrun much of Darfur, while Burhan has moved the government and his headquarters to the Red Sea city of Port Sudan.

The Sudanese Unit for Combating Violence Against Women, a government organization, documented at least 159 cases of rape and gang rape the past year, almost all in Khartoum and Darfur. The organization’s head, Sulima Ishaq Sharif, said this figure represents the tip of the iceberg since many victims don’t speak out for fear of reprisal or the stigma connected to rape.

In 2021, Burhan and Dagalo were uneasy allies who led a military coup. They toppled an internationally recognized civilian government that was supposed to steer Sudan’s democratic transition after the 2019 military overthrow of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir amid a popular uprising. Burhan and Dagalo subsequently fell out in a struggle for power.

The situation has been horrific in Darfur, where the RSF and its allies are accused of rampant sexual violence and ethnic attacks on African tribes’ areas. The International Criminal Court said it was investigating fresh allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the region, which was the scene of genocidal war in the 2000s.

A series of attacks by the RSF and allied militias on the ethnic African Masalit tribe killed between 10,000 and 15,000 people in Geneina, the capital of West Darfur near the Chad border, according to a report by United Nations experts to the Security Council earlier this year. It said Darfur is experiencing “its worst violence since 2005.”

With aid groups unable to reach Darfur’s camps for displaced people, eight out of every 10 families in the camps eat only one meal a day, said Adam Rijal, the spokesman for the Coordination for Displaced Persons and Refugees in Darfur.

In Kelma camp in South Darfur province, he said an average of nearly three children die every 12 hours, most due to diseases related to malnutrition. He said the medical center in the camp receives between 14 and 18 cases of malnutrition every day, mostly children and pregnant women.

Not including the Geneina killings, the war has killed at least 14,600 people across Sudan and created the world’s largest displacement crisis, according to the United Nations. More than 8 million people have been driven from their homes, fleeing either to safer areas inside Sudan or to neighboring countries.

Many flee repeatedly as the war expands.

When fighting reached his street in Khartoum, Taj el-Ser and his wife and four children headed west to his relatives in Darfur in the town of Ardamata.

Then the RSF and its allies overran Ardamata in November, rampaging through the town for six days. El-Ser said they killed many Masalit and relatives of army soldiers.

“Some were shot dead or burned inside their homes,” he said by phone from another town in Darfur. “I and my family survived only because I am Arab.”

Both sides, the military and RSF, have committed serious violations of international law, killing civilians and destroying vital infrastructure, said Mohamed Osman, Sudan researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Food production has crashed, imports stalled, movement of food around the country is hampered by fighting, and staple food prices have soared by 45% in less than a year, OCHA says. The war wrecked the country’s healthcare system, leaving only 20 to 30% of the health facilities functional across the country, according to MSF.

At least 37% of the population at crisis level or above in hunger, according OCHA. Save the Children warned that about 230,000 children, pregnant women and newborn mothers could die of malnutrition in the coming months.

“We are seeing massive hunger, suffering and death. And yet the world looks away,” said Arif Noor, Save the Children’s director in Sudan.

About 3.5 million children aged under 5 years have acute malnutrition, including more than 710,000 with severe acute malnutrition, according to the World Health Organization.

About 5 million people were one step away from famine, according to a December assessment by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, considered the global authority on determining the severity of hunger crises. Overall, 17.7 million people were facing acute food insecurity, it found.

Aid workers say the world has to take action.

“Sudan is described as a forgotten crisis. I’m starting to wonder how many people knew about it in the first place to forget about it,” said Brady, from OCHA. “There are others that have more attention than Sudan. I don’t like to compare crises. It’s like comparing two cancer patients. ... They both need to be treated.”