The war in Sudan is still happening and the world has moved on

Somewhere between the latest tech layoffs, celebrity gossip, and viral TikToks about how to season your trauma with lavender oil and affirmations, a war is still raging in Sudan. Yes, still. Not metaphorically. Not in the abstract. Real bombs, real bodies, real cities reduced to skeletal rubble. Real people, over 13 million of them fleeing from homes that once smelled of spice and promise. But if you blinked, or just scrolled too fast, you probably missed it. That's not entirely your fault. The world, it seems, moved on like it was just another news cycle. Like Sudan's suffering expired with the algorithm.

Sudan's civil war didn't end because it got boring. It simply got inconvenient. On April 15, 2023, two men, both intoxicated with power and thoroughly uninterested in democracy, turned the capital Khartoum into a battlefield. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan leads the army (SAF), while his former ally, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Their bromance soured, and like all toxic breakups between armed men, it escalated into carnage. Markets were shelled. Hospitals were bombed. Women were raped. Children starved. Then silence. Not in Sudan, but outside it.

Let's be honest: the world has a hierarchy of horror. When war breaks out in Ukraine, the headlines scream. When missiles fall on Gaza, people protest. When terror strikes Paris or London, the monuments light up. But when Black bodies pile up in Darfur or Khartoum, the coverage comes slow, if at all. We've internalized the idea that African tragedy is ambient noise. It's just how things are, right? War, famine, coups, it's the usual rotation on the continent. We gasp briefly, maybe share a thread or two, then scroll on to lighter content. Our silence is not neutral. It's complicity with a global order that doesn't believe African lives carry the same emotional weight.

And then there's the media, bless their sometimes shallow, sometimes exhausted hearts. They love a conflict with a narrative arc. Good guys, bad guys, a tearful reunion, maybe a golden retriever pulled from the rubble. Sudan offers no such simplicity. The warring factions are both drenched in civilian blood. There's no Zelensky in olive green rallying Western support, no slick press conferences or rousing speeches that go viral. Just endless suffering in a place most editors couldn't find on a map. It's hard to sell nuance to a click economy. Tragedy, too, must be marketable.

The irony? Sudan is not some isolated, unknowable place. It's a nation that stood at the edge of democratic transition not too long ago. In 2019, its people many of them young, many of them women, toppled the 30-year dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir with nothing but protest chants and raw courage. They dreamed out loud. And the world briefly clapped. But soon came the military takeover. And now this war. The democratic dream is bleeding out in the dark, without witnesses.

Meanwhile, the response from the so-called international community has been what you'd expect from a group chat with the read receipts off. The African Union, the United Nations, the Arab League, everyone released a strongly worded statement and then shuffled awkwardly into bureaucratic silence. The U.S. and Europe? Busy with domestic fires or more politically “urgent” conflicts. The 2024 UN humanitarian appeal for Sudan is still billions short. Some countries have sent aid, but not nearly enough to match the scale of need. And sanctions? Please. Both generals are still flying private.

So who's keeping track? Sudanese journalists are doing the Lord's work, often at great personal risk, documenting the unspeakable. Refugees are telling their stories, hoping someone with power might listen. Civil society groups are still demanding justice, even as they dodge bullets and bury loved ones. But their WiFi is weak, their platforms small, and their suffering is inconveniently complex. It's hard to go viral when your city has no electricity.

Here's the real kicker: the neglect isn't just about geography or attention spans. It's about race. We live in a world where empathy is unevenly distributed. Where the skin color of the victim still determines how fast and how fiercely the world responds. If millions of white people had been displaced, we wouldn't be having this conversation. The appeals would be fully funded. The hashtags would be trending. Governments would trip over themselves to offer asylum. Instead, Sudanese refugees are being turned away at borders, deported, or stuffed into cages in detention centers in Egypt and Europe. Because to much of the world, they are not seen as fleeing war. They are seen as burdens.

Let's not pretend this is new. In 1994, a million Rwandans died in a genocide while the world watched from a comfortable distance. In 2003, Darfur burned and the global response was performative at best. The cycle of Black death and white silence is old and vicious. But that doesn't mean we can't break it.

Because we are the world, too. The algorithms don't force themselves on us. The headlines follow our clicks. The outrage follows our noise. If the war in Sudan has fallen off the radar, it's because we let it. And while none of us can stop the bombs, all of us can push back against the silence. We can ask why our governments aren't doing more. We can demand better coverage. We can amplify Sudanese voices instead of speaking over them.

The war in Sudan is not over. Children are still dying in makeshift camps. Pregnant women are giving birth in bombed-out schools. Families are eating leaves to survive. This isn't yesterday's news. It's today's reality. And unless we find the will to care, it will also be tomorrow's shame.

Kumbirai Thierry Nhamo is a Social Justice Activist and a Writer.

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