Sudan as an afterthought
Sudan is neither a footnote nor a distraction.

For two-and-a-half years, Sudan has been referred to as the “forgotten war” by its people—not because of the inadequate media representation or its social irrelevancy, but as an accusation of global complicity and silence. 

For over two years, Sudan has witnessed the displacement of more than 15 million people, 24.6 million people are experiencing famine levels of starvation, more than 30 million people are in dire need of humanitarian aid—two-third of which must access a collapsed healthcare system—and more than 150,000 have been killed by the war and its devastation as of July 2025.

The war in Sudan, however, is not a product of overnight civil tension, not a footnote in social activism, and nor should it be reduced as a statistical tragedy in global politics. 

What is happening in Sudan?

In 2013, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) was established as a paramilitary group in the Darfur region, west of the capital city, Khartoum. Initially formed as aid to the government against the people protesting President Omar al Bashir’s three-decade rule, who rose to power in 1989, the RSF soon demanded an incorporation of the militia as a new force in the state army.

In 2019, following the tensions of the Arab Spring, born in northern Africa, the Sudanese people formally took to the streets to call for an end to Bashir’s dictatorial rule. The fertile state of corruption presented an opportunity for the RSF leader, Gen Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo “Hemedti”, to rise to power. 

The security of the RSF as puppeteers of the Sudanese government was not coincidental—for by then, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had become a key supplier in its dominion: an open secret that the Gulf state continues to deny, despite UN reports proving the UAE to be an invested foreign player in the devastation. Regardless, the UAE’s involvement with Sudan dates back to the 1970s, where agricultural investments in the African nation were established, among “smuggling networks and illicit trade routes”, which allowed for the UAE to control mass economic and political operations in Sudan. 

The backing of the RSF by the UAE also resides in the fact that the paramilitary group is laced in a history of tribalism, favouring Arab tribes in Sudan—with international records indicating a deliberate targeting of non-Arab tribes as a part of a grander genocidal project. 

By 2021, the RSF dissolved progress towards a democratically elected government in Sudan. State control races among the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) eventually resulted in violent attacks, blockades, and mass bombardments in April 2023. Since, sexual and gender-based violence, famine, and mass murder has been rampantly growing and targeting the Sudanese people. 

Sudan is not a footnote in your activism

While global cries for Palestine have become rightfully more vocal—yet, still insufficient—and collective liberation has encountered a renaissance in activism trends, the world’s largest refugee and humanitarian crisis has been diluted into a mere footnote. Sudan has become a token that performs to an audience of wokeism. 

Although well-intended, commentaries on Sudan in passing are a performative and lazy way to say, “See, I care about all crises!” It is inauthentic and ineffective.

The concern for tokenism isn’t unique to Sudan; it litters African crises, just like it silences the voices for Congo now. Subconsciously, advocating for Sudan today is riddled with fears of redirecting attention from Gaza. 

I ask activists to cease from treating Sudan as a distraction. The lives of the Sudanese people are not a distraction. Time after time, African and Black lives are treated as secondary in the concern for humanitarianism. Because the world has desensitized us to see a starving Sudanese kid, not as a humanitarian issue, but as the tragedy that is Africa. 

Now, I do not direct this blame solely to the West (although, I acknowledge that it is the West and its colonial campaigns that have reinforced racial inequity across the globe), but it is, nevertheless, a rather prevalent epidemic that also resides within Arab and Muslim communities alike. 

When Arab and Muslim communities occupy discourse by prioritising their racial or religious identities, rather than acknowledging issues of racial inequity, they, as Dr Amir Azraki states, “foster a form of colour blindness that effectively denies… the complexities of racism in [the] communities.” And I personally have witnessed the ways in which both communities have reacted to the crisis. For long, they have distanced themselves from the Afro-Arab identity and predominately Islamic culture of Sudan, allowing for the luxury of remembering the Sudanese people as a footnote instead of creating a proximity to the crisis through their identity, as they may have done with Palestine. 

There is also a reluctance to speak on Sudan by the Arab and Muslim community when one of the primary perpetrators of the violence happens to be an Arab and Muslim state: the UAE. The romanticization of the UAE, both as a luxury touristic destination and safe haven for Muslim visitors globally, has only resulted in overshadowing the brutal realities of the country’s economy of violence. 

The point is that when approximating identity with humanitarianism, advocacy becomes transactional—civic and global organisation becomes reliant on personal interest, rather than the livelihood of the Sudanese people, and our humanity is the cost. 

Act now for Sudan

We have established that silence is an act of complicity, but so are the performative mentions of Sudan as an afterthought in activism. Note that you should be able to speak on Sudan without associating it as a distraction from other genocides. 

Amplifying the voices of Sudanese reporters and activists is an essential process in shifting the lazy narrative that “Sudan does not have enough coverage” to materialise as a humanitarian crisis. Pages on Instagram like @BSonBlast, @SudanIsNoteAFootnote, @Red_Maat, and @AlMigdadHassan0 are among the many that are reporting live on the war. 

And take substantial actions to boycott. You cannot claim to stand for Sudan if you are complicit in funding the genocide, like normalising the UAE. Sudan is under attack and the UAE is funding it. The calls to end normalisation, however, does not extend to the Sudanese people residing in the UAE, for their resilience under a genocidal state has been overlooked by global activists. 

The “forgotten war” of Sudan will only stand deliberately forgotten as long as voices for the crisis remain muffled.