With more than 12,000 killed and 7.3 million people displaced, ongoing warfare in Sudan has steadily broken down the country’s political, social, and medical services. Reports suggest more than 24 million of the country’s 46 million people need assistance; cholera cases had risen to over 8,200 by late December; and between 70 percent and 80 percent of hospitals in affected states have been left nonfunctional.
As violence and displacement counts rise, humanitarian aid efforts haven’t kept up. Instead, initiatives to negotiate between the warring powers—the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan “Hemeti” Dagalo—have been the priority for the international community, neglecting the suffering that ordinary Sudanese citizens have endured for the last nine months. While talks have been on and off for months, vital humanitarian initiatives remain underfunded.
It is easy to assume that with negotiations come a harmonious cease-fire and peaceful postwar society, but global history and Sudan’s history indicate a very different outcome if international actors rely primarily on good-faith negotiations to end the conflict and launch Sudan into a successful postwar society.
To rely on negotiations is to assume that one of the warring factions will win and the other will concede, leaving either Burhan or Hemeti in charge of Sudan’s reconstruction. Given U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent determination that both the RSF and SAF have committed war crimes—with RSF forces also committing crimes against humanity and acts of ethnic cleansing—inviting these parties to a negotiation table projects a bleak future for Sudan.
The international community has its priorities backward. Instead of prioritizing negotiations between two factions that actively reject any notion of their own wrongdoing and that citizens overwhelmingly reject as unrepresentative, foreign actors must redirect their attention to limiting foreign funding of the conflict, advocating for the inclusion of Sudanese citizen groups, and financing proposed humanitarian plans. Indeed, the central focus of international organizations and outside powers seeking peace in Sudan should be the restoration of civilian life, rather than impractical negotiations that have often failed in the past.
After former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir was ousted from office in 2019, international powers and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) eagerly supported a citizen-led democratic transition, vowing to assist in the process. But, as the U.N. Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS) was shuttered this last December by the U.N. Security Council, such promises appear empty. Government officials in Khartoum deemed the mission “disappointing” as they demanded its end and blamed the violence on former UNITAMS chief Volker Perthes, forcing the U.N.’s hand to withdraw.
In managing negotiations between the factions that are barring the progress of a civilian government, international mediators continue to walk back these promises. To reassert their commitment to civilian-led initiatives in Sudan, a healthy and safe citizenry is necessary.
The continued failure of Sudan’s health system represents just one of the many failures Sudan’s public systems have suffered amid the ongoing violence. As RSF and SAF forces have made Sudan dangerous to move within, humanitarian access has been greatly limited. This has since resulted in cholera spreading to nine of Sudan’s states—threatening communities plagued by inadequate water treatment and food insecurity at a higher rate. As measles, cholera, and dengue fever spread, it becomes increasingly obvious that if guns and bombs don’t kill Sudanese citizens, the failure of the health system and lack of medical supplies will.
The ongoing conflict’s impact on access to food and resources has also contributed to massive degradation in the nation’s economy. With an inflation rate of 256 percent relative to average consumer prices, citizens across Sudan, whether in conflict-ridden areas or not, are suffering.
Most efforts aimed at assisting vulnerable citizens have been undertaken by Sudanese people themselves. With unreliable access to the internet, Sudanese people globally have used social media to advertise the best routes to escape Sudan, share which shops have food and medicine in stock, and how to send and receive money amid shuttered banks. Sudanese citizens have taken it upon themselves to do the work they’ve expected of international organizations and powers.
Stories that have emerged out of Sudan over the last nine months detail harrowing civilian experiences with ethnic and sexual violence largely perpetrated by the RSF, invoking memories of the war in Darfur, where widespread violence occurred at the hands of the janjaweed, the militia from which the RSF emerged. While that war was declared ended in August 2020 as Sudan’s newly formed transitional government promised Darfur rebel groups a role in Sudan’s democratic transition, those oaths have disappeared amid the current conflict.
The western area of Darfur remains the epicenter of violence toward civilians, as risks of ethnic cleansing, genocide, and sexual abuse mount against primarily non-Arab communities. A lack of organization within RSF ranks and the group’s history have all but authorized heinous attacks against Sudan’s most vulnerable populations, with a limited humanitarian response from parties outside of the country.
When humanitarian aid does manage to reach displaced people, it typically happens in refugee camps in neighboring countries, such as Doctors Without Borders’ work in the Ourang camp in Chad, despite the organization’s ongoing efforts to maintain a presence in Sudan. Fears of looting and violence, a lack of institutional protection, and the continued degradation of networks have made it increasingly difficult to reach afflicted communities in Sudan.
As violence rains down on West Darfur, communities are becoming more vulnerable. While around 42 percent of Sudan’s population suffers from high levels of acute food insecurity, these figures increase dramatically to over 60 percent in West Darfur. As the humanitarian crisis deepens in areas most affected by ethnic and sexual violence over the last 20 years, a lack of urgency in the international response ensures that the situation will get worse.
The most urgent initiative to protect Sudanese citizens is readily waiting, but with only 41.8 percent of the necessary funding acquired, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) response plan has not been as effective as it could be. The plan aims to provide lifesaving assistance to limit immediate morbidity and mortality rates and keep pending risks at bay through preemptive action.
The limited funding has allowed OCHA to reach only 21 percent of targeted people in need, so increasing pressure on state actors is key to assure humanitarian aid. Of the $2.57 billion needed to fully enact the plan, the United States has provided $549.1 million of the current secured funding, but Saudi Arabia—the other key broker—has contributed only $38 million, and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development has given less than $100,000. As negotiating powers aim to bring the United Arab Emirates into talks regarding its role, its government has given less than $400,000 to the effort. Encouraging allies in the West to assist in the existing plan is similarly crucial, as it offers a more immediate response.
Using existing Sudanese citizen networks of grassroots trauma response and financial and educational empowerment of mental health services across Sudan—specifically in areas like Darfur, Kordofan, and Khartoum—is key to development. Frameworks to assist displaced people are necessary as well, as hundreds of thousands flee to neighboring countries where more danger often awaits them.
Building networks for refugees and asylum-seekers to safely leave the country and resettle with the assistance of foreign governments ensures vulnerable populations gain access to robust medical and social services that are not currently available domestically. All these efforts have begun thanks to Sudanese citizens, but without foreign intervention and commitment, these initiatives will not have a wide impact.
As peace talks continue, the Sudanese public must be represented by the citizen groups that led protests against Bashir and his government—as the loudest voice.
Even as Sudanese citizens internally and globally call for both Hemeti and Burhan to be held accountable by the international community, the former allies who served in the Bashir regime may very well end up sharing power in defiance of the public’s will. Bringing Sudanese citizen groups into the discussion could avoid such an outcome while prioritizing the health and human rights of the population. Until humanitarian efforts take center stage in discussions surrounding Sudan, there will be no winners.
