Three years ago today, Sudan’s national Sudanese Armed Forces and a rival paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces turned their guns on each other. They have not stopped since. What that has done to the country’s civilian population is staggering.
The war began as a power struggle between the two military factions that had jointly seized power in a coup in 2021. The falling out was triggered by a US and Saudi-brokered plan to integrate the Rapid Support Forces into the national army, which would have stripped their commander of his independent power base. Fighting broke out in the capital Khartoum in April 2023 and spread rapidly across the country.
28.9 million people, nearly 62% of Sudan’s entire population, are now acutely food insecure. In the worst hit areas millions of families are surviving on one meal a day. Some have resorted to eating leaves and animal feed. Famine has been officially confirmed in parts of Darfur and the Kordofans and the UN warns it is spreading.
14 million people have been displaced. 74% of displaced households have no income whatsoever. 18% of families have been forced to send their children to work just to survive.
Sudan’s $3 billion humanitarian response plan is critically underfunded. The ongoing conflict has destroyed the country’s food system field by field, market by market. Three years in and the world still has not shown up in the way Sudan needs.
