The World Is Failing Sudan

I don’t know if the rhetoric-to-action ratio was even lower than usual during this year’s meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, but after all the public lamenting, condemning, and handwringing, the global outlook is, to my mind, even bleaker than it was last week. What UNGA also laid bare was how differently the international community is responding to regional conflicts. Many countries, including the US, are willing to spend immense political capital on Ukraine and the Middle East while seeming resigned to the crisis in Sudan, despite widespread famine, disease, and unspeakable acts of human depravity. Abdalla Hamdok, the former prime minister of Sudan, has warned that the war could devolve into a broader regional conflict, fueling jihadist violence.

Just a few years ago, there was reason to be cautiously optimistic about Sudan’s future following decades of economic mismanagement and civil unrest.  Sudan finally reached “decision point” under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative in June 2021, one of the last HIPC-eligible countries to do so. This put Sudan on track to receive $50 billion in debt relief—equivalent to 90 percent of its total external debt burden —and an inflow of $2 billion in grants from the World Bank. But just a year later, this financial relief was suspended after the Sudanese military displaced the transitional government. In April 2023, a brutal civil war erupted when the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)—a paramilitary group—began fighting the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).

Before the latest conflict, Sudan was already amongst the world’s poorest countries, with an estimated two thirds of the population living in poverty. Sudan was also doing poorly compared to its peers on key social indicators including maternal and child mortality, ranking 166 out of 187 countries in the World Bank’s 2018 Human Development Index.  Due to its heavy reliance on agriculture, Sudan also ranks as one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change. 

The scale of deterioration since the onset of the war has been catastrophic. The Economist reports that at least 150,000 people have been killed and 10 million people—or 20 percent of the population—have fled their homes. Crisis groups have been sounding the alarm about the risk of famine for months, and the UN now estimates that half of the population is facing acute levels of hunger and over 750,000 are on the brink of famine—the worst levels of food security in Sudan history. Refugees who have fled to neighboring Chad (there are 600,000 and counting) also report widespread hunger due to inadequate funding and difficulty accessing the camps. (The UN funding goal of $2.7 billion for 2024 is facing a shortfall of more than fifty percent.)

Nicholas Kristof’s wrenching firsthand account of his recent trip conveys the horrors on the ground in a way that mere statistics cannot. In his piece, Kristof expressed hope that the fortitude of a 17-year-old orphan he met at a refugee camp “might inspire President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, along with world leaders gathering at the United Nations, to summon a similar resolve to tackle slaughter and starvation in Sudan.” Such resolve has yet to emerge: a UN Ministerial on the sidelines of UNGA had no discernable effect. The joint statement on the event signals a woeful lack of resolve, as exemplified by this statement: “Participants believed that the international community should be prepared to explore options to support the implementation and durability of any future local or nationwide cessation of hostilities.” (italics mine)

What distinguishes this war from previous conflicts in Sudan is the role of outside agitators, especially the UAE, complicating efforts to broker a cease fire. Under the guise of humanitarian aid, as documented by the New York Times, the UAE is providing arms and money to the RSF, which a recent Council on Foreign Relations blog described as an “undisciplined, marauding force responsible for sexual violence on a massive scale and ethnic cleansing.”  Russia and Iran are purportedly backing the SAF. Tragically, both sides are using hunger and rape as weapons of war, with an estimated 6.7 million women at risk of violence. 

An essential step to peace is that the UAE stop arming the RSF and be held to account for its actions, which it officially denies. The United States is one of the few countries that has enough sway to have an impact. And yet after President Biden’s recent meeting with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Administration appears to have decided that the benefits of the alliance outweigh the downside of a public shaming. The official readout stressed the leaders’ joint “alarm” over the millions displaced by the war, the spread of famine, and the atrocities against the civilian population, conveyed their “firm and unwavering position on the imperative for concrete and immediate action to achieve a lasting cessation of hostilities....and their shared commitment to de-escalate the conflict.” (italics mine).  

During his UN address the next day, President Biden called on “the world” to stop arming the generals, “to speak with one voice and tell them: Stop tearing your country apart. Stop blocking aid to the Sudanese people. End this war now.”  Admonishing unnamed parties to behave could hardly be more inadequate to the task. And President Biden’s decision to give the UAE a free pass begs the question- how high must the human toll be before the US—and other global leaders—are willing to muster the political will needed to help bring this conflict to an end?