{"id":315252,"date":"2026-04-20T12:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T11:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=315252"},"modified":"2026-04-20T10:49:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T09:49:49","slug":"sudanese-war-and-genocide-enters-fourth-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2026\/04\/sudanese-war-and-genocide-enters-fourth-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Sudanese War and Genocide Enters Fourth Year"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Patient Saidal Altaher, aged two months, receives treatment for malnutrition at the pediatric hospital stabilization center in Port Sudan, Wed 15 Apr 2026. (AP Photo\/Bernat Armangue)<\/p><\/div>\n

Sudan Enters Fourth Year of War as Officials Lament an ‘Abandoned Crisis’<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

16 Apr 2026\u00a0<\/em>– Famine. Massacres. Badly needed food<\/a> and other supplies are now under strain. Sudan yesterday entered a fourth year of war<\/a>\u00a0that\u2019s been called an \u201cabandoned crisis,\u201d as a new Middle East conflict throws into shadow the fighting that has forced 13 million people to flee their homes.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The North African country<\/a>\u00a0is described as the world\u2019s largest humanitarian crisis in terms of displacement and hunger. There is no end in sight to the fighting between the military and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, which witnesses and aid groups say has laid waste to parts of the vast Darfur region and committed genocide in El Fasher .<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Growing evidence shows the United Arab Emirates backing the genocidal Rapid Support Forces behind the scenes. Attempts by the United States and regional powers, now distracted by the Iran war<\/a> , have failed to establish a ceasefire.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019ve lost so many people in this war,\u201d said Hussein Mohamed Shareef, running his fingers over the scar on his head where he said an RSF sniper had shot him in the city of Omdurman, near Khartoum, Sudan\u2019s capital. He said at least 10 friends have been killed.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Numbers tell a tale of pain<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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At least 59,000 people<\/a>\u00a0have been killed. At least 6,000 died over three days as the RSF rampaged through the Darfur outpost of el-Fasher in October, according to the United Nations, with U.N.-backed experts concluding that the offensive bore \u201cthe defining characteristics of genocide<\/a>\u00a0.\u201d More than 11,000 people have gone missing over the course of the war, the Red Cross says.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The war has pushed parts of Sudan into famine. The number of people with severe acute malnutrition, the most dangerous and deadly kind, is expected to increase to 800,000, the world\u2019s foremost experts on food security, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, said in February.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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About 34 million people, or almost two out of three Sudanese, need assistance, the U.N. says. Only 63% of health facilities remain fully or partially functional amid disease outbreaks, including cholera, according to the World Health Organization.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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At a center for malnourished children in the Red Sea city of Port Sudan, health staff weighed crying babies and fed some through a tube in their nose.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The number of severely malnourished children entering the 16-bed center has doubled since the war began, to 60 a week, staff said. Several children often must share a mattress.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI don\u2019t know what will happen in the coming days,\u201d Dr. Osman Karrar said.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Now fuel prices in Sudan have increased by more than 24% because of the Iran war and its effects on shipping, driving up food prices.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cA plea from me: Please don\u2019t call this the forgotten crisis. I\u2019m referring to this as an abandoned crisis,\u201d the top U.N. official in Sudan, Denise Brown, said Monday, criticizing the international community for failing to focus on ending the fighting.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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War could spread beyond Sudan<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The conflict exploded from a power struggle that emerged following Sudan\u2019s transition to democracy after an uprising forced the military ouster of longtime autocratic President Omar al-Bashir<\/a>\u00a0in April 2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Tensions boiled over three years later, in April 2023 between Sudan\u2019s military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, who chairs the ruling sovereign council, and RSF commander Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who was Burhan\u2019s deputy.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Neither side can achieve a decisive victory, said Shamel Elnoor, a Sudanese journalist and researcher, adding that Sudanese \u201chave become powerless and are subjected to foreign dictates.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Germany was hosting a Sudan conference in Berlin on Wednesday for governments, U.N. agencies and aid groups. The aim was to rally humanitarian donors and \u201cpromote an immediate ceasefire,\u201d the German Development Ministry said. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[Genocide Watch comment: “High level” conferences are talk-fests that have never stopped a genocide.] <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Sudanese government in Khartoum, however, slammed the conference as an \u201cunacceptable\u201d interference and said Germany didn\u2019t consult with Sudan before convening it.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Sudan is now essentially divided between a military-backed, internationally recognized government in Khartoum and a rival RSF-controlled administration in Darfur.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The military has established control over the north, east and central regions, including Sudan\u2019s Red Sea ports and its oil refineries and pipelines. The RSF and its allies control Darfur and areas in the Kordofan region along the border with South Sudan. Both regions include many of Sudan\u2019s oil fields and gold mines.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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While Egypt supports Sudan\u2019s military, the UAE is accused by U.N. experts and rights groups of providing arms to the RSF. The UAE rejects the accusation despite overwhelming evidence of its complicity and arms shipments to the genocidal RSF.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Yale School of Public Health\u2019s Humanitarian Research Lab, which tracks the war through satellite imagery, said this month that the RSF had received military support from a UAE built base in Ethiopia. The RSF didn\u2019t comment on the allegation.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Josef Tucker, senior analyst for the Horn of Africa at the International Crisis Group, told The Associated Press that the war could spill over Sudan\u2019s borders, making the conflict \u201ceven more intractable.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Experts look at possible war crimes<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Three years of fighting have seen widespread atrocities such as mass killings of over 59,000 people and rampant sexual violence, including thousands of gang rapes.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Hospitals, ambulances and medical workers in Sudan have been attacked, with more than 2,000 people killed, WHO has said.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The International Criminal Court has said that it was investigating potential war crimes and crimes against humanity, particularly in Darfur, a region that two decades earlier, during Omar al-Bashir\u2019s rule, became synonymous with genocide and war crimes. Al-Bashir has never been tried for his crimes.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Most of the latest atrocities have been blamed on the RSF and their Janjaweed allies \u2014 Arab militias that were notorious for atrocities in the early 2000s against black people from the Fur, Masalit, or Zaghawa ethnic groups in Darfur. The RSF grew out of the Janjaweed.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The military\u2019s seizure of Khartoum and other urban areas in central Sudan in early 2025 did allow the return of about 4 million people to their homes, the U.N. migration agency said in March. But they struggle with damaged infrastructure and other challenges.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s not really a return to normal. It is trying to survive.\u201d said Tjada D\u2019Oyen McKenna, CEO of aid group Mercy Corps.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Copyright 2026 <\/span><\/em>The Washington Post<\/span><\/div>\n
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Magdy reported from Cairo. Fatma Khaled in Cairo, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this report.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Go to Original – genocidewatch.com<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

16 Apr 2026\u00a0– Famine. Massacres. Badly needed food and other supplies are now under strain. Sudan yesterday entered a fourth year of war\u00a0that\u2019s been called an \u201cabandoned crisis,\u201d as a new Middle East conflict throws into shadow the fighting that has forced 13 million people to flee their homes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":128971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127],"tags":[237,2479,100,865,2819,99,128,92],"class_list":["post-315252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa","tag-africa","tag-civil-war","tag-direct-violence","tag-genocide","tag-south-sudan","tag-structural-violence","tag-sudan","tag-violent-conflict"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315252"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":315254,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315252\/revisions\/315254"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}