Sudanese civilians are suffering a brutal genocide, yet the world has all but forgotten and ignored their plight.

The UN estimates that the ongoing conflict in Sudan has driven 11 million people from their homes and unleashed one of the world’s most severe famines. Nearly 25 million people - half of Sudan’s population – require. Famine has even taken hold in at least one displacement camp, demonstrating the scale of the humanitarian crisis.

Britain is seeking support from other United Nations Security Council members for its demand that Sudan's warring parties stop hostilities and allow aid delivery, according to the British Foreign Office.  However, a Russian veto prevented the Resolution from being enacted.

The United States sanctioned a senior Sudanese paramilitary official last week, accusing him of overseeing human rights abuses in West Darfur, a small step in the right direction.

The Treasury Department announced the sanctions on Abdel Rahman Joma’a Barakallah, a commander with Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which it accused of being “a primary party responsible for the ongoing violence against civilians in Sudan.”

The deadly conflict in Sudan has raged since April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the RSF, led by his former deputy, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti.

The United Nations has stated that continued weapons supplies to Sudan’s warring military and paramilitary forces are “enabling the slaughter” and must cease, with civilians bearing the brunt of the conflict.

Several reports reveal that Sudanese women and girls are being sexually exploited, including by  humanitarian workers and local security forces.

To further encourage progress towards peace, the personal envoy of the Secretary-General for Sudan, Ramtane Lamamra, is considering the next phase of his engagement with the warring parties. This includes another round of “proximity talks” focused on commitments related to protecting civilians.

Lamamra plans to travel to Sudan and elsewhere in the region to meet with key stakeholders. He will also closely engage with Sudanese civilian groups to ensure his endeavours reflect their perspectives.

Rosemary DiCarlo, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, said both the SAF and the RSF are escalating their military operations and recruiting new fighters fuelled by “considerable” external support and a steady flow of arms.

“To put it bluntly, certain purported allies of the parties are enabling the slaughter in Sudan,” she told the UN Security Council (UNSC) last week.

Calling for an immediate ceasefire, DiCarlo emphasized that ending the fighting is the most effective way to protect civilians.

“It is long before the warring parties come to the negotiating table. The only path out of this conflict is a negotiated political solution.”

“This is unconscionable, it is illegal, and it must end,” DiCarlo added.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said last month that the United Nations Security Council’s November 8, 2024, sanctions designations for two commanders of Sudan’s RSF are a positive first step in ensuring consequences for the force's abuses.

The Security Council imposed an international travel ban and asset freeze on the Rapid Support Forces’ head of operations, Major Gen. Osman Mohamed Hamid Mohamed, and the West Darfur RSF commander, Gen. Abdel Rahman Joma’a Barakallah.

This was the first time the Security Council has added names to its sanctions list on Darfur since 2006; the first time it had listed members of the RSF and sanctions were imposed explicitly in response to human rights abuses.

“The Security Council’s action is an important signal that it’s willing to impose consequences on those who bear responsibility for atrocities against Sudan’s civilians,” said Louis Charbonneau, United Nations director at Human Rights Watch. “This move should be the first, but not the last, of such accountability measures.”

International NGO Amnesty International said that armored vehicles made by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and equipped with French military technology are being deployed in Sudan’s civil war by paramilitary forces, in a likely violation of a U.N. arms embargo.

The rights group said in a report that it had identified the UAE-made armored personnel carriers in various parts of Sudan — including the Darfur region — where the RSF used them in its conflict with the Sudanese army.

According to HRW, in West Darfur, the RSF “has committed crimes against humanity and widespread war crimes in the context of an ethnic cleansing campaign against the city’s ethnic Massalit and other non-Arab populations. In North Darfur’s city of El Fasher, both parties and their allies have killed hundreds of civilians and destroyed civilian infrastructure. The RSF continues to attack civilian infrastructure in El Fasher.”

More than 60,000 people are estimated to have died in Khartoum state during the first year of Sudan’s war. However, a report by researchers in Britain and Sudan suggests the actual toll from the devastating conflict is significantly higher than previously recorded.

The estimate includes some 26,000 people who suffered violent deaths in Khartoum State, a higher figure than one currently used by the United Nations for the entire country.

The recently published study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s Sudan Research Group, suggested that starvation and disease are increasingly becoming the leading causes of death reported across Sudan.

While Sudan’s humanitarian crisis and rapidly evolving conflict makes it challenging for the international community to respond swiftly, robust action to stem the deaths of innocents and prevent an all-out genocide has so far proved piecemeal.

Now is the time to act.

Dr. Gerald Walker, PhD, focuses on world politics and international diplomacy. On occasion, he is invited as a guest lecturer to speak on university campuses.