By Abdikarim H Abdi Buh
For more than two years, Sudan has been trapped in a conflict of almost indescribable brutality. The United Nations estimates that over 150,000 people have been killed and 12 million displaced, making Sudan not only Africa’s largest humanitarian emergency but the world’s worst. Nearly half the country’s population now requires humanitarian assistance, and famine-like conditions have spread across several regions.
From Khartoum to Darfur, from Kordofan to the Red Sea coast, Sudan’s civilian population—children in particular—has been forced to endure massacres, starvation, mass displacement, and the collapse of hospitals, schools, and entire cities. The war is not only a battle between two generals. It is a disaster decade in the making, fueled by historic grievances, economic rivalries, regional power plays, and the unmistakable fingerprints of foreign intervention.
Darfur: Where the Seeds of Today’s War Were Planted
Darfur, an expansive region in western Sudan, is home to a mix of Arab tribes and Black African ethnic groups. Its history is marked by decades of marginalization by Khartoum, deep economic inequality, and battles over land and resources.
In the early 2000s, rebellion erupted against the government. In response, Omar al-Bashir—then military ruler and head of an Islamist government—unleashed Arab militias known as the Janjaweed to crush the uprising.
What followed shocked the world:
- 300,000 civilians killed
- 2 million displaced
- Widespread mass rape, village burnings, and ethnic cleansing
The Janjaweed’s brutality drew global outrage but also created a new class of warlord commanders. Among them was a young camel trader named Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo—better known as Hemeti.
Bashir found Hemeti so effective that he formalized the Janjaweed in 2013 into a new paramilitary, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), installing Hemeti as its commander. This gave the RSF legal authority, government salaries, weapons, training—and most importantly, control of Darfur’s gold mines and smuggling routes.
This economic empire transformed Hemeti into one of the richest men in Sudan, planting the seeds for a future power struggle with the army.
2019: A Revolution Hijacked
Fast-forward to 2018–2019. Sudanese protesters, angered by rising bread prices and decades of dictatorship, mobilized into a mass movement demanding democracy. After months of protests, sit-ins, and killings, the military finally removed Bashir. But Sudanese hopes were quickly dashed.In place of one dictator came two generals:
● General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan
Leader of the Sudanese Armed Forces, guardian of the old military establishment.
● General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo “Hemeti”
Commander of the RSF, wealthy warlord with ambitions far beyond Darfur.
The uneasy alliance did not last. Their shared history and rivalry over political influence, economic interests, and future control of the nation made confrontation inevitable.
2023: War Erupts—And Sudan Collapses
On 15 April 2023, open fighting broke out between the two militaries in Khartoum. Since then, Sudan has suffered total devastation.
The Humanitarian Toll
- 150,000+ killed (UN estimates)
- 12 million displaced, including 4 million who fled to neighboring countries
- 24 million people facing acute food insecurity
- 70% of hospitals destroyed or non-functional
- Entire cities turned to rubble
Both sides have committed war crimes:
RSF Atrocities
- Mass executions of civilians
- Gang rapes and sexual slavery
- Looting and burning of neighborhoods
- Ethnic cleansing in Darfur
- Turning homes and public buildings into torture centers
Army Atrocities
- Indiscriminate airstrikes in civilian areas
- Bombing hospitals, markets, and homes
- Targeting ethnic groups believed to support the RSF
The collapse of Khartoum—a city once home to over 5 million—became a symbol of Sudan’s unraveling. When the RSF seized the capital in 2023, they turned buildings into prisons, raped women, executed civilians, and looted homes. For nearly two years, journalists could not enter.
When the army reclaimed the capital in early 2025, reporters documented a city so destroyed that “not a single building was untouched.”
Children in the Ruins
Some of the most painful reporting has involved Sudan’s children.
Zahir—The Boy Who Lost His Legs but Refused to Lose His Joy
Twelve-year-old Zahir was selling lentils with his mother when a drone strike hit. Both his legs were infected beyond saving. For weeks he kept asking his mother: “Why did you let them cut my legs?”
Yet when the reporters met, he was playing football every day in a bomb-scarred field—running on his knees despite the pain.
Ahmed—A Child Living in a Destroyed Funfair
In what used to be Khartoum’s biggest amusement park, reporters found Ahmed, living on a mattress. He earns $50 per month to clean the ruins after RSF battles. He pointed out human remains—jawbones, limbs, skull fragments.
He told the journalists: “I used to play here with my brothers. Now I sleep here.”His innocence clashes brutally with the horror around him.
Al-Fasher: A New Genocide?
In October 2025, the RSF captured Al-Fasher, the last major city in Darfur still under army control. Satellite images released by Yale University show clusters of bodies on the sand—visible from space.
Videos posted by RSF fighters show executions of unarmed civilians. The RSF denies orchestrating atrocities, claiming “isolated violations.” But testimonies, videos, and satellite data point to systematic massacres.
A Proxy War Fueled by Regional Powers
Sudan’s conflict has expanded far beyond a domestic struggle; it has become a proxy battlefield shaped by the ambitions of regional powers.
The UAE — The RSF’s Lifeline
According to leaked UN investigations, intelligence assessments, and regional diplomatic sources, the United Arab Emirates is accused of providing extensive support to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) through supply routes in Libya and Chad. Reported assistance includes:
- Drone systems
- Armored vehicles
- Steady ammunition shipments
- Financial support tied to gold-smuggling networks
Abu Dhabi denies any involvement, but the RSF’s resilience, firepower, and logistical reach paint a different picture.
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and Iran — Supporters of the Army
The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) receive varying degrees of political, diplomatic, or military backing from several states—most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and Iran. Their support, however, does not approach the alleged scale or intensity of the UAE’s assistance to the RSF. The result is a multi-layered proxy war in which Sudan’s civilians are trapped between foreign interests and domestic armed factions—while the country itself risks disintegration.
Why Is the World Not Paying Attention?
Sudan’s collapse is unfolding in near silence, eclipsed by the global focus on Ukraine and Gaza. Several factors explain this dangerous neglect:
- Conflicts in Africa consistently receive minimal international media coverage
- The celebrity-driven activism that once spotlighted Darfur has largely faded
- Western governments are consumed by war fatigue and domestic politics
- The conflict’s complexity deters sustained diplomatic engagement
- The international response is fractured, inconsistent, and painfully slow
Although the White House has listed Sudan among the crises it seeks to address, meaningful diplomatic action has been tentative, delayed, and divided. In the meantime, Sudan’s war accelerates, and its people continue to suffer largely out of sight.
Attempts at Peace—and Why They Have Failed
A diplomatic group known as the Quad—the U.S., UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt—has proposed a peace plan:
- Three-month humanitarian truce
- Nine-month ceasefire
- Transition toward a civilian government
The RSF accepted the proposal after capturing al-Fasher. The army has not responded officially and continues fighting, calling the RSF a “terrorist militia.” Regional diplomacy is paralyzed. The suffering continues.
A Nation on the Brink of Erasure
Sudan stands today at the edge of a catastrophe so vast that few nations in modern history have survived anything comparable. The signs of national collapse are unmistakable:
- A genocidal militia operating without restraint
- A national army unraveling under pressure
- Millions of civilians uprooted from their homes
- Famine creeping across entire regions
- Foreign powers treating Sudan as a geopolitical battleground
From the shattered streets of Khartoum to the scorched plains of Darfur, it is Sudanese civilians—ordinary families, children, and the elderly—who are paying the price for a decades-long legacy of dictatorship, corruption, and external interference.
A country that once held the title of Africa’s largest is now in danger of becoming something far more tragic: a permanently fragmented landscape ruled by militias, haunted by hunger, and abandoned to warlords and their foreign sponsors.
Unless the international community wakes up—and unless the Sudanese people receive the political, diplomatic, and humanitarian support required to reclaim their nation from generals and the external actors bankrolling them—Sudan will not simply fall. It risks disappearing altogether from the map of African states.
Abdikarim H Abdi Buh
Email: abdikarimbuh@yahoo.com