The world’s largest displacement crisis is getting relatively little international attention. More than 9.2 million people have been displaced by the civil war in Sudan that began last April, including the world’s largest internally displaced population and nearly 1.9 million people displaced internationally, to Chad, South Sudan, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the Central African Republic. More than half of displaced people are children, and more than one-fifth are under age 5. Fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) broke out in the aftermath of the coup that toppled former President Omar al-Bashir in 2019, and has since grown into a sprawling conflict over who will lead the country. More than 15,000 people—and as many as 150,000—have been killed in the violence. Rights advocates claim genocide may have been committed in the western Darfur region. Notably, Sudan is also a major host for refugees and other forcibly displaced people from neighboring countries, and nearly one-third of those fleeing Sudan are refugees who have returned to their origin countries (mostly South Sudan). Yet amid the conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, and elsewhere, the Sudan emergency has struggled to capture international headlines even as the UN warns it is on course to become the world’s worst hunger crisis. Chad, which is hosting more than 600,000 Sudanese refugees, is itself grappling with serious needs, with one-third of its population experiencing acute food insecurity. There is, sadly, a finite capacity for news about devastating wars and, as often happens, those farthest from Western power centers tend to be easiest to overlook. Yet most of the world’s refugees—75 percent, by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ estimate—are sheltered in the Global South. For Sudan, the lack of attention has profound consequences. A donor conference in April yielded only half of the funds needed to respond to the humanitarian situation. Now in the war’s second year, the two sides are believed to be receiving military support from countries including Egypt, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates. That suggests peace may be far off. The implications of continued violence are devastating for millions of people in Sudan and in neighboring countries. Best regards, Julian Hattem
Editor, Migration Information Source
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