NAIROBI, Kenya – Sudan is facing a devastating humanitarian crisis, with tens of thousands dead and millions displaced after nearly two years of brutal conflict between military factions. As CBN News discovered, civilians are bearing the brunt of the violence while famine grips much of the country.
Twenty-one months of relentless fighting between two powerful generals vying for control of Sudan have wrecked the African nation.
“The situation in Sudan is just awful,” said Dervla Cleary, with the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
It is estimated that more than 61,000 people have been killed, with many more wounded.
“Each day, as you heard from our briefers, brings new atrocities, attacks on hospitals, on markets, displaced persons camps, summary executions, women and girls subjected to unspeakable sexual violence,” Antony Blinken, former U.S. Secretary of State, testified before the United Nation’s Security Council.
The U.S. is officially labeling it as genocide while the U.N. cities the human suffering as catastrophic.
“More than 11.5 million people are now estimated to be internally displaced, of whom nearly 8.8 million people have been uprooted since April 2023,” remarked Edem Wosornu with the United Nations.
For more than a decade, Tina Ramirez’s Christian group HardWired Global has sought to advance human rights and religious freedom in this predominantly Muslim country.
She tells CBN News the war has dismantled food systems there, leaving roughly 25 million people—half the population—facing famine.
“Just to put it in context for most people: If Sudan was fully utilized for its agriculture, it could feed half of Africa,” said Ramirez. “The tragedy here is that Sudan could be one of the richest nations in Africa and instead it’s being exploited for its gold and for its other resources, and the people are just suffering immensely.”
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Nathaniel Raymond is there, documenting the human suffering for Yale University.
“In short, what we’ve witnessed is the murder of a country. We have seen the largest displacement crisis on the planet unfold while watching from space,” Raymond told CBN News.
Using satellite images, his team at Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab has documented alleged crimes by both the Sudanese Armed Forces and the rival Rapid Support Forces since the war started in 2023.
He says violence from both sides is widespread, with civilians bearing the brunt.
“We’ve seen the destruction of villages by fire, we’ve seen the mass killings of civilians and we’ve seen the destruction of Sudan’s critical infrastructure, including its hospitals, its bridges, and its ability to feed itself,” said Raymond.
When the State Department accused the Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces or RSF of genocide, it imposed sanctions on its leader, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken accuses RSF and its proxies of targeting women and girls of certain ethnic groups for rape.
“The civilian population has taken a horrible toll,” said Ramirez. “Women are being raped everywhere from ages 8 to 75; it’s just unconscionable what’s happening.”
Christian aid group World Vision has been on the ground there providing relief to displaced civilians. CBN News met Simon Mane, country director for World Vision Sudan, in Nairobi, Kenya.
“Today, I’m making a call to the international community to come together with authorities in Sudan to bring peace in the country,” Mane told CBN News. “Sudan is like a forgotten crisis because of what is happening in Gaza and Ukraine, but it doesn’t have to be like that.”
World Vision, which has a significant presence in the country, is currently trying to get more of its relief workers into Sudan. Meanwhile, the aid agency says more children in Sudan are displaced than in any other country in the world today.
Since war started, more than three million people, mostly women and children, have fled Sudan to neighboring countries like Chad.
“Children are suffering. If you take the example of Chad, 40% of the children who are directed to the emergency clinics, most of them are malnourished and now they are suffering,” warned Mane.
World Vision says it has helped around three million people by delivering food, clean water, and sanitation services. Access, however, to hard-hit areas remains off-limits due to ongoing violence.
Mane is pressing both sides to open safe corridors for aid workers.
“There is challenges to have access and it’s a mixed situation and sometimes not easy to have access to reach some areas, but our strategy is to continue talking, advocating with local leaders and also local governments to be able to have access to those areas,” Mane said.
Raymond says money is also driving the conflict.
“What we are seeing is not just a war, it’s a robbery. Sudan’s wealth is being robbed and so is its future,” said Raymond.
Sudan is one of the continent’s largest gold producers and several countries—including Iran, Russia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates—are buying it in exchange for arming both sides.
“Both of the Rapid Support Forces and Sudan Armed Forces, they are taking the country’s mineral wealth, including but not only gold, and they are selling it to outside actors and it’s those outside actors, including United Arab Emirates and Iran, that are primarily fueling this conflict,” Raymond said.
Today, 21 months into the war, there is no sign of it slowing down. If anything, it continues to escalate.
Ramirez says even though Sudan remains almost forgotten given other global conflicts, the international community cannot look away from its humanitarian catastrophe.
“In comparison to Ukraine and so many other countries, this is far worse,” warned Ramirez. “This is something we need to be paying attention to. We need to get President Trump to appoint a special envoy and to take the matter seriously so that the people of Sudan aren’t suffering anymore.”
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