Ending Sudan's civil war may require help of the very countries inflaming it

The suffering Sudan's devastating conflict has inflicted on millions of people made a slight dent in global indifference last week as the one-year anniversary of its start came and went.

It nudged its way into the headlines with the help of an international donors conference hosted by France that raised $2 billion US worth of pledges in humanitarian aid — half of what the United Nations says is needed.

French President Emmanuel Macron called the gathering a "duty to make it clear that we are not forgetting what is happening in Sudan."

Yet critics say that is exactly what's happening in the absence of a more concerted effort by the international community to get the warring sides to a negotiating table.

"The more generous view is that there are lots of other things going on. You've got Gaza, you've got Ukraine, and so the international attention is elsewhere," said Yassmin Abdel-Majied, a Sudanese writer and activist based in London.

"But I think, unfortunately, some of this is also the fact that people see Sudan as an African country and think, oh, this is just another part of the story of, you know, these post-colonial nations that have warring generals, and so on."

"What people don't understand is that this is one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world," Abdel-Majied said. "It will have an effect beyond the borders of Sudan."

Players beyond the borders of Sudan — from its African neighbours to the Gulf States and beyond — are influencing the course of the conflict for their own purposes and increasing the chances of it metastasizing, analysts say.

Their involvement is seen both as a complicating factor and a potential key to resolving the conflict.  

Sudan descended into war last April when the two generals who staged a joint coup in 2021 to overthrow a government transitioning to civilian rule turned on each other.

Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), and Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who leads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), have been locked in a brutal war ever since.

Eight million people have been displaced by fighting and 18 million people are suffering acute food insecurity, according to the UN. Both sides have been accused of widespread human rights abuses, including systemic rape.

"We have a famine warning on top of all the protection issues around human rights abuses," said Justin Brady, who heads the UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

"The other problem we're facing is an access problem, with both parties to the conflict creating some obstacles for us to be able to reach those in dire need right now," he said in a Zoom interview from Port Sudan.