While global headlines are dominated by conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, a lesser-known crisis continues to unfold in Sudan, where approximately 12 million people have been uprooted from their homes, marking it as the world’s largest displacement crisis.
“Sudan is facing an unparalleled catastrophe, one that has regrettably been met with inaction by the international community for too long,” stated Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Africa subcommittee. His remarks came during a December 11 hearing focused on the crimes against humanity occurring in Sudan.
During the hearing, Smith emphasized the need for a global response and called for an immediate end to the ongoing hostilities between the conflicting factions in Sudan.
The conflict escalated dramatically on April 16, 2023, with clashes in the Sudanese capital between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The violence has resulted in 56 deaths and 595 injuries, as dense smoke from the battles continues to rise over the city. (Photo by Mahmoud Hjaj/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
“The crimes committed, especially by the Rapid Support Forces — including mass rape, ethnic targeting, and systematic looting — demand thorough investigation and accountability for those responsible,” Smith continued.
Attention to Sudan’s plight has intensified following former President Donald Trump’s pledge to broker a peace agreement in the region, a commitment he made after discussions with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in November.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, recently said repeated drone strikes on Dec. 4 in Sudan’s South Kordofan region struck a kindergarten and nearby hospital, killing 114 people, including 63 children.
Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Africa subcommittee, held a hearing on Sudan’s devastating civil war on Thursday. (Rep. Chris Smith’s Office)
“Disturbingly, paramedics and responders came under attack as they tried to move the injured from the kindergarten to the hospital,” Tedros said in a statement.
Sudan Doctors Network, a medical organization, said the attacks were perpetrated by the Rapid Support Forces.
The conflict in Sudan has been raging since April 2023, when an uneasy alliance between Sudan’s two warring factions, the government-led Sudanese armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) collapsed following a tenuous power-sharing agreement struck in 2021.
Sudan’s army and the RSF had collaborated for years under the previous regime of ousted dictator Omar al-Bashir.
Members of the Sudanese army’s Special Mission Forces batallion in the Northern State hold a parade in Karima city on May 19, 2024. Sudan has been in the throes of conflict for over a year between the regular army led by de facto ruler Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the RSF led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo. (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)
The situation has only escalated since fighting first broke out in 2023 and has not garnered the same level of international effort or outrage that the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza have generated.
“The war in Sudan has been one of the most gruesome humanitarian catastrophes in world history. However, there has been frequent paralysis by world leaders and international institutions to solve it, in addition to reduced, fluctuating media attention on the conflict,” Caroline Rose, director of Military and National Security Priorities at New Lines Institute, told Fox News Digital.
“This could be attributed to the fact that, unlike wars in Ukraine and Gaza, there is not a component of great-power competition or regional contestation,” she added.
Rose and other observers of the conflict note that there is inhibited ground access, creating challenges not only for journalistic reporting, but also the documentation of war crimes and testimonies.
The Sudanese armed forces have prevented access to aid workers in territories they control on the basis of sovereignty and have expelled humanitarian workers that had been in the country.
The RSF has also been accused of committing grave human rights violations and reportedly killed over 400 aid workers and patients in October at the Saudi Maternity Hospital in the North Darfur city of El Fasher. The RSF siege of El Fasher caused at least 28,000 people to flee to neighboring towns, and the U.N. Human Rights Office accused the RSF of “summary executions, mass killings, rapes, attacks against humanitarian workers, looting, abductions and forced displacement.”
A man walks by a house hit in recent fighting in Khartoum, Sudan, Tuesday, April 25, 2023. Sudan has been torn by war for a year now, torn by fighting between the military and the notorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali, File)
Even as the Trump administration works for a ceasefire between the warring factions, the killings continue.
Tom Perriello, the former U.S. special envoy for Sudan, said in a September New York Times interview that he believed up to 400,000 have been killed since the outbreak of violence in 2023. A recent article in Foreign Policy put the figure at 100,000 in what it called the “forgotten war.”
In addition to the deaths, it’s been estimated by various groups that more than 30 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance and around 21.2 million, or 45% of the population, are facing high levels of acute food insecurity.
