Sudan Tragedy

Nearly a thousand days after the outbreak of civil war, we return to the emergency in Sudan. According to four United Nations organizations, two and a half years of brutal fighting, widespread human rights violations, famine, and the collapse of essential services have passed. This has forced millions of people, especially women and children, to flee exhausted to live in internally displaced persons camps or as refugees in neighboring, often very poor, states such as South Sudan and Ethiopia.

During recent missions in Sudan, senior officials from the International Organization for Migration, UNHCR, UNICEF, and the World Food Program witnessed the dire impact of the crisis across the country, ravaged by a power struggle between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which no one wants to stop.
The war in Sudan is one of the world's most serious emergencies, with over 30 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, and nearly 15 million of them are children who are paying a very high price. Three out of four children in Sudan cannot go to school, eat regularly, or play. A generation has been completely undermined by a senseless civil war. Essential services have been destroyed, cholera is spreading due to damaged water mains, and man-made famine, caused by the blockade of humanitarian aid, is affecting several areas of the country.

The most dramatic situation is in the capital of North Darfur, El Fasher, where nearly 200,000 civilians have been besieged for a year and a half by rapid support forces. They are trying to conquer Darfur's last city held by the army, bombarding it with drones and artillery, preventing the entry of humanitarian aid and food. They are unable to leave because those who flee, particularly men of fighting age, often risk being killed on the spot by the besiegers, while women are raped and kidnapped.
Unspeakable horrors. The RSF are made up of tribes of Arab origin from Sudan or the Sahel countries who speak Arabic and are Muslim, but have darker skin. According to accusations from many humanitarian organizations and the United States itself, the RSF are committing genocide against native African tribes to complete their insane plan, which their predecessors, the Janjaweed, began 20 years ago: to create an independent Darfur.
The army, despite being supported by fundamentalist groups, at least tries to spare civilians in its attacks and defends national unity.
Both sides covet the rich gold mines of Darfur, currently controlled by the RSF leader, who sells it to the Emirates and, in part, to the Russians to circumvent the Western embargo.

There are numerous foreign powers fueling the conflict for geopolitical influence and to sell weapons. While the United Arab Emirates are supporting the RSF, Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar are selling weapons to the Sudanese army, while the Emirati weapons are said to be flowing through Chad and Haftar's Libya. In short, a maze of intrigues and alliances threatens to erupt in North Africa, the Sahel, and the Horn of Africa, sparking further conflicts with unpredictable outcomes, unstable balances, and high human costs. Now that the war appears to have temporarily subsided in Gaza, it's time to turn the spotlight on Sudan and launch an intense diplomatic initiative to try to stop the weapons, despite the fact that economic interests appear to outweigh the law, the desire for peace, and the right to life.

Paolo Lambruschi
NP November 2025