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‘We Must Not Look Away As The Sudan War Enters Its Fourth, Horrific, Year’


The fall of El Fasher in late October 2025 has been described as
“probably the most explicitly anticipated mass atrocity event ever”. It was indeed clear to anyone watching the 18 month-long siege of the city that it was going to end in appalling violence.

But when the RSF (Rapid Support Forces) took the city, the eyes of the world were largely elsewhere, as crimes that UN reporters said bore “the hallmarks of genocide” took place. Tens of thousands – including countless children – were massacred in a matter of days.

This has been the story of the conflict in Sudan, which enters its third year this week, its grim anniversary overshadowed by events in the Middle East. Between 1989 and 2019, Sudan was ruled by President Omar al-Bashir, who among other things oversaw the devastating war in Darfur which blighted the country in the 2000s. After his overthrow at the hands of a popular uprising in 2019, the country’s military-civilian government was replaced in a military coup in 2021.

“Sudan has become the site of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today – and of the 21st century, full stop.”

Tensions between the forces of the Sudanese Army (SAF) and the paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) erupted into violence, with fighting beginning on the 15th of April 2023. Since then, the UN refugee agency estimates that more than 12 million people have been displaced. Millions have faced famine. There has been widespread use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. Hundreds of thousands have been killed. Since the first shots were fired three years ago, Sudan has become the site of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today – and of the 21st century, full stop.

You would be hard pressed to learn this studying the international community’s responses. The attitude of looking away implies that the conflict is detached from our concerns, our politics, here in the UK. It suggests that Sudan is so far away, so foreign, as to be essentially sealed from us. This is wrong morally, and practically too.

Some of the many millions displaced by this conflict have sought refuge on our shores, and those of our nearer neighbours. As well as people, commerce also flows through Sudan. Chains of exchange – money, arms, gold – bring the conflict from the killing fields of El Fasher to the malls of the UAE and back home to the UK. Several of those sanctioned by the government for providing military hardware or mercenary support had business based in the UK. Online, too, the conflict comes home: both belligerents use TikToks of child soldiers for recruitment and promotion. The Sudanese diaspora and their supporters also face violence here in the UK, including one incident at the end of last year when an expert on Sudan was assaulted at a public event by pro-SAF audience members.

The UK cannot lapse into a passive acceptance of the situation in Sudan that borders on complicity. There is a renewed energy in the Foreign Office, and this week international leaders – including the foreign secretary Yvette Cooper – will meet in Berlin. Their relentless focus must be on civilian protection. As things stand on this anniversary, there will be more atrocities like those that took place in El Fasher and Zamzam: slow-motion Srebrenicas in front of our eyes should we choose to look.

The next anniversary of this conflict must be different to the last two – a moment of remembrance and reflection, not yet another snapshot of the horrors of war. In April 2027, I hope we will be looking backwards in commemoration of the many thousands who have died – and not forwards, as we do today, to the many whose lives this conflict may yet claim.

Anneliese Dodds served as the development minister and minister for women and equalities between July 2024 and February 2025, before quitting government over Keir Starmer’s cuts to foreign aid. She also sat as the shadow chancellor for a year when Labour was in opposition.