Famine in Sudan deepens amid civil war and global neglect
4 Min Read
Sudan’s famine continues to escalate amid the Sudan civil war. With millions displaced, widespread atrocities in Darfur, and global inaction, the humanitarian crisis shows no sign of easing.
-
Displaced Sudanese gather at a camp near the town of Tawila in North Darfur, photo undated. (AFP)
The humanitarian crisis in Sudan continues to worsen as the war in Sudan has claimed tens of thousands of lives amid a protracted civil war. More than 150,000 people have died since the conflict erupted over two years ago, while over 12 million have been displaced.
The UN warns that 3.2 million children under five will suffer acute malnutrition in the coming year. The World Food Programme (WFP) also states that the conflict has "created the world’s largest hunger crisis," citing that roughly 25 million people face acute hunger.
Famine was declared in parts of Sudan a year ago, but, as The Washington Post columnist Ishaan Tharoor notes, the crisis has only worsened. In El Fasher, the last major city in Darfur not under the control of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), at least 63 people, mostly women and children, starved to death last week. Aid has not entered the city for a year.
“Everyone in El Fasher is facing a daily struggle to survive,” WFP regional director for Eastern and Southern Africa Eric Perdison said. “People’s coping mechanisms have been completely exhausted by over two years of war. Without immediate and sustained access, lives will be lost.”
Darfur at the center of the humanitarian crisis
The RSF has renewed its offensive in Darfur after losing ground in Khartoum to the Sudanese army. Its advances have forced tens of thousands from displacement camps and sparked massacres. The International Criminal Court has gathered evidence of war crimes, including systematic rape, ethnic cleansing, and the deprivation of food and water.
“People are being deprived of water and food. Rape and sexual violence are being weaponized. Abductions for ransom and to bolster the ranks of armed groups have become common practice,” ICC Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan told the UN Security Council.
Aid cuts, including the dismantling of parts of USAID, have further worsened conditions, forcing the closure of vital clinics and halting lifesaving assistance to communities, Tharoor notes.
Geopolitics and the prolonged civil war
According to Tharoor, the conflict has drawn in foreign powers, including Egypt, Turkey, Russia, and Gulf monarchies. Last week, Sudan’s military claimed it shot down an Emirati plane carrying Colombian mercenaries aligned with the RSF, which the UAE denied.
Sources confirmed to Al Mayadeen that Sudan's al-Burhan met with US President Donald Trump's Africa advisor, Massad Boulos, on the evening of 11 August in Switzerland, reportedly as part of an attempt to put an end to the conflict.
The three-hour-long talk centred around the civil war, where Boulos stressed “the need for direct negotiations between Sudan and the UAE to reduce tensions between the two countries, to pressure Abu Dhabi, and to prevent it from continuing to support the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).”
The sources also highlighted that the US side also emphasized “the need to stop the war as soon as possible and to focus on the humanitarian crisis in Sudan.”
Sudan and the 'end of the liberal world order'
Tharoor also mentions a cover story written by The Atlantic's Anne Applebaum, wherein she states that Sudan is a clear indication of the end of the liberal world order.
"The end of the liberal world order is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot in conference rooms and university lecture halls in places like Washington and Brussels,” Applebaum wrote. "But in al-Ahamdda, this theoretical idea has become reality. The liberal world order has already ended in Sudan, and there isn’t anything to replace it.”
Former Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok spoke to Applebaum, confirming her thesis, “We live in a very interesting, many people call it, new world order. The world we got to know, the consensus, the Pax Americana, the post-Second World War consensus, is just no more.”
However, former Portuguese government minister and geopolitical commentator Bruno Maçães said on X that Applebaum's thesis was off in that the war in Sudan shows how the current American order functions rather than a post-America situation.
"Did Anne Applebaum really say Sudan shows what the world after America will look like?!" Maçães wrote. "It shows what the American order looks like in all its main traits: complete collusion between foreign policy and the military industrial complex"
Did Anne Applebaum really say Sudan shows what the world after America will look like?! It shows what the American order looks like in all its main traits:
— Bruno Maçães (@MacaesBruno) August 6, 2025
- complete collusion between foreign policy and the military industrial complex
