The Sudan’s conflict: Neglected, not Forgotten

This blog post was written by Caterina Ame Pellecchia, a recent Master’s graduate in International Human Rights Law, with strong interests in geopolitics, European border and mobility politics, migration and refugee rights, and social justice. She has been volunteering with SolidariTee since September 2025 as part of the University of Liverpool regional team.

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How Sudan's Past Shaped its Present Conflict

The ongoing conflict in Sudan did not begin on 15 April 2023, when fighting erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the country’s formal national military, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a powerful paramilitary force that evolved out of militias active in Darfur. The violence that has unfolded since then is not the result of a sudden collapse, but the outcome of decades of political instability, militarisation, and elite capture. Understanding Sudan’s war therefore requires looking beyond the moment fighting began, and towards the historical and structural forces that have long shaped the country’s politics.

Colonial rule established a governance system in which political power and economic resources were concentrated in the hands of a narrow elite. As Raga Makawi (2025), a Sudanese researcher and analyst, has emphasised, the externally imposed concept of “development” shaped a postcolonial governance model in which money and power flowed through elites rather than towards the wider population. When colonial rule ended, this structure did not disappear. It transformed. Military governments became a defining feature of Sudanese political life, sustained through external financing and enforced through their monopoly on violence.

Since Sudan’s independence from Anglo-Egyptian rule (1899–1956), a joint British-Egyptian administration in which Britain exercised effective control, the country has experienced nearly 35 coup attempts, six of which succeeded. The most consequential brought Omar al-Bashir to power in 1989. His three-decade rule was marked by systematic repression, entrenched corruption, and mass violence. In 2009, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes committed in Darfur.

Under al-Bashir, the state deployed the Janjaweed militia, a government-backed force notorious for its role in ethnic violence, to crush rebellions in Darfur through mass killings, rape, forced displacement, and the destruction of civilian communities - particularly targeting the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa peoples. Around 300,000 people were killed, approximately 3,000 villages were destroyed, more than three million people were internally displaced, and nearly half a million were forced to flee to neighbouring countries. This violence was sustained by a war economy, in which conflict was financed through the control of natural resources rather than civilian institutions. Nearly a quarter of the national budget was directed towards war, while barely over one per cent was allocated to health and education. Resources such as oil, gold, and gum Arabic became central sources of financing for the military and its allied militias. This structure has never disappeared.

From the 2019 Revolution to the Outbreak of War in 2023

By 2018 and early 2019, widespread discontent reached breaking point. A deepening economic crisis, fuel and bread shortages, and cuts to subsidies pushed millions into the streets. After months of sustained mobilisation, al-Bashir was removed by the military in April 2019. Streets filled with chants calling for a new era and a civilian future. That hope was violently shattered on 3 June 2019, when the RSF carried out a massacre at the Khartoum sit-in, killing more than 130 people. Yet the revolution did not collapse. On 30 June 2019, hundreds of thousands returned to the streets demanding civilian rule. A fragile power-sharing agreement followed, and Abdalla Hamdok became prime minister. For a brief moment, a transition seemed possible. That possibility ended in October 2021, when General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan staged a coup, arresting Hamdok and senior civilian leaders. Protests erupted immediately. Rather than restoring stability, the coup deepened political fragmentation. These unresolved power struggles culminated on 15 April 2023, when open fighting broke out in Khartoum between the SAF and the RSF. What followed was not a sudden collapse, but the violent unravelling of a transition that had been systematically undermined since 2019.

The Human Cost since April 2023

Since the outbreak of fighting on 15 April 2023, the human cost of the war has been catastrophic. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA, 2024), reliable casualty figures are extremely difficult to verify due to access restrictions and the collapse of reporting systems. However, available estimates indicate that well over 10,000 people have been killed, with many analysts and humanitarian organisations warning that the true figure is likely far higher (OCHA, 2024). Displacement has reached an unprecedented scale. According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM, 2024), around 14 million people have been displaced in total, including more than 10 million internally displaced persons and over 3 million refugees who have fled to neighbouring countries. Sudan has now become the largest displacement crisis in the world (IOM, 2024). The destruction of Sudan’s health system has been equally devastating. The World Health Organisation (WHO, 2024) reports that the majority of hospitals and health facilities in conflict-affected areas are no longer functional, having been bombed, looted, occupied, or abandoned due to shortages of electricity, medical supplies, and medical staff. Preventable illnesses, untreated injuries, and maternal deaths have surged as access to healthcare has collapsed. According to OCHA (2024), more than half of Sudan’s population now requires humanitarian assistance, including emergency food aid, healthcare, and protection.

External Complicity, Aid Cuts, and Anti-Migration Politics

This war has been sustained not only by domestic actors, but a complex architecture of external involvement. Sudan’s strategic location along the Red Sea, linking North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, makes it central to trade routes, food security, and regional influence. Both the SAF and the RSF have received financial, material, and military support from international actors. The SAF has been backed by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, both of which view Sudan as strategically significant to regional security. The RSF has been supported by the United Arab Emirates, which has cultivated close ties with Hemedti, as well as networks operating through Libya, particularly areas controlled by General Khalifa Haftar. The RSF also previously received support from Russia through the Wagner Group, a private military company closely linked to the Russian state. Control over Sudan’s natural resources, particularly gold, has played a central role in financing the war, enabling armed actors to sustain their operations while competing for monopoly access to wealth. Sudan is therefore not simply the site of a domestic power struggle; it has become a battleground shaped by regional rivalries, arms pipelines, and geopolitical opportunism.

At the same time, the humanitarian response to Sudan has been progressively weakened. This is particularly significant given that the United Kingdom was historically one of the largest donors of humanitarian assistance to Sudan. Recent UK aid cuts have directly reduced funding available for food, healthcare, and emergency relief at a moment of extreme need.The United States, another major donor, has also reduced humanitarian funding. Cuts to US foreign assistance, including reductions linked to decisions taken under the Trump administration, have had long-term consequences for humanitarian operations, including those implemented through multilateral agencies such as the World Food Programme (WFP). These funding reductions have taken place despite the scale of Sudan’s humanitarian emergency. Programmes providing food aid, nutrition support, and basic services have been scaled back or suspended, while local organisations have struggled to survive without international funding. This has not been due to a lack of need, but to political choices made far from the sites of suffering. These choices are closely connected to the rise of antimigration rhetoric across Western states.

Migrants and refugees are increasingly framed as burdens or threats, while humanitarian aid is portrayed as an unnecessary expense. In this political climate, cutting aid becomes easier to justify, even as displacement reaches historic levels. Sudanese people are rendered invisible until they cross borders, at which point they are discussed not as civilians fleeing war, but as a problem to be managed. The contradiction is stark. Governments withdraw humanitarian support while simultaneously hardening migration policies, turning away from both the causes and the consequences of conflict. This selective indifference allows mass suffering to continue while responsibility is displaced elsewhere.

Personal Reflection 

People often ask why I care. I am the child of a Nigerian mother who migrated to Italy and an Italian father; I hold Italian nationality and later moved to the United Kingdom for my studies. I am fully aware of the privilege that a passport and stable citizenship provide. I have never lived through war or extreme poverty. But growing up with a Nigerian mother meant hearing stories of military governments suppressing protesters, elites ignoring the masses, and ordinary people bearing the cost. This awareness shapes how I see Sudan. I do not speak for Sudanese people, but I refuse to look away from what the world already knows yet continues to allow. I cannot truly comprehend the terror Sudanese civilians endure. Mobility is a privilege. Escape is a privilege. Survival becomes a privilege. This is precisely why awareness matters. Without sustained attention there is no pressure, and without pressure governments, including those in the West, continue to arm, support, or ignore the perpetrators of violence. Refusing to look away is the first step towards refusing complicity.