Sudan needs an exceptional humanitarian endeavour to end its horrific civil war

The country’s traumatised people are desperate for a new approach to end atrocities and famine in beleaguered country.

 ‘Complete failure of humanity’: Stanford affiliates urge peace-building and aid in Sudan

“The civil war in Sudan is creating a colossal humanitarian crisis that seems bound to grow much worse. The picture right now is staggering,” said Bertrand Patenaude, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. “The cascading violence, destruction and displacement are threatening to produce a catastrophic famine.”

A Catastrophic Civil War in Sudan

How an unexpected conflict is crushing Africa’s third-largest country.

Crisis in Sudan: What is happening and how to help

The brutal conflict since April 2023 has forced millions of people to flee their homes, leaving more than 12 million Sudanese people displaced. The vast majority—over 10 million people—remain within Sudan, representing the largest displacement crisis in the world. Amidst mass displacement and reports of mass killings, humanitarian access has been severely curtailed, making it extremely hard for aid to reach vulnerable communities. Learn more about this ongoing crisis below.

Don’t ignore Sudan’s horrific conflict

The diplomatic and humanitarian responses to the Sudan conflict have been completely insufficient to meet the desperate need — both to stop Sudanese people’s suffering and to prevent the fighting from destabilizing other countries, Stigant said. “If you look at the Horn of Africa more broadly, there appears to be a reordering of the politics and the power. If, for example, the Rapid Support Forces push east in an offensive, then they’re getting uncomfortably close to the borders of Eritrea and Ethiopia.”

How and why the humanitarian crisis in Sudan is being forgotten

It’s one of the world’s most serious current crises – and yet, this conflict is being deemed “forgotten.” But it’s certainly well known by the more than 25 million people in Sudan who are facing starvation and the 11 million who have been displaced from their homes.

Millions of lives upended as Sudan’s civil war leads to displacement crisis

More than 7 million have been internally displaced since the war began, of whom about 4 million are children, according to Unicef. “Child displacement goes along with multiple other crises as a result of the war,” said Mandeep O’Brien, Unicef’s country representative for Sudan. “Children face disease, malnutrition and hunger and close to 8.9 million are acutely food insecure.”

Nine Million People Have Fled. Up to 150,000 Are Dead. No One Is Talking About It.

The threat of famine is grave. People inside and outside Sudan are trying to get anyone to notice.

Starvation crisis of ‘historic proportions’ in Sudan, aid groups warn

The international community is failing to address ‘the immense hunger’ amid Sudan’s civil war, three humanitarian agencies say.

Sudan crisis: People are dying of hunger

Following 14 months of escalating conflict, Sudan has become the world’s largest hunger crisis. Over half of the country is currently experiencing severe food insecurity, meaning people don’t have reliable access to food and sometimes go more than a day without eating. This is expected to become much worse during the upcoming lean season.

Sudan is collapsing – here’s how to stop it

The war has caused a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented size. According to United Nations figures from January 2024, of Sudan’s 45 million people, 5.9 million are internally displaced and 1.4 million have fled as refugees, with 25 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, with a looming food crisis and risk of famine. The prospects for a democratic transition, so bright after the non-violent uprising that overthrew the long-standing military-Islamist regime of President Omar al-Bashir in April 2019, are buried in the rubble of Khartoum.

Sudan is the world’s worst modern war – what has happened and what it’ll take to rebuild

Sudan is now the site of one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. According to UN experts, around 25 million people – half of Sudan’s population before the war – are in need of urgent assistance. Nearly 9 million people are internally displaced, among them about 4 million children. Another 20 million children are out of school. Over half the population of 49.6 million doesn’t have access to healthcare.

Sudan war: A simple guide to what is happening

The war, which continues to this day, has claimed more than 15,000 lives. And in what the United Nations has called one of the world's "largest displacement crises", about nine million people have been forced to flee their homes. There have been warnings of genocide regarding the western region of Darfur, where residents say they have been targeted by fighters based on their ethnicity.

Sudan’s disastrous war — and the science it is imperilling

Ongoing conflict has displaced students and destroyed institutions that were once among Africa’s best. Small projects show how a brighter future can be built.

Sudan’s Humanitarian Crisis Deepens As The World Looks Away

While the situation in Sudan does not receive much attention, the humanitarian crisis continues to deepen. Indeed, as indicated by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), “Sudan is facing one of the fastest unfolding crises globally, with unprecedented needs emerging in such a short period.”

U.S. announces the Aligned for Advancing Lifesaving and Peace in Sudan

The war that has torn through Sudan for 16 long months is still worsening the largest humanitarian emergency in the world. Khartoum lies in ruins, as do countless other towns and villages that the army and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have fought over, or that the RSF has simply massacred. Famine claims at least 100 lives on a “good day.” Bodies are piling up in makeshift cemeteries that are now so large they are being documented from space, while more satellite imagery documents trucks dumping the dead into the Nile River. No one knows the true death toll in Sudan, but some estimates put out months ago were already exceeding 150,000 lives lost. And that was well before famine was officially declared.

What Is the Extent of Sudan’s Humanitarian Crisis?

Sudan has been engulfed in civil war since fighting erupted on April 15, 2023, between the nation’s military, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The violence shattered Sudan’s fragile peace and worsened an already precarious humanitarian situation, driving the spread of mass-starvation conditions. Meanwhile, neighboring countries have taken in more than one million refugees, risking broader destabilization across the Horn of Africa and Sahel regions.

Why Sudan is being called a 'humanitarian desert'

The toll on health care has been enormous: from shortages of doctors to hospitals barely able to function.