How Sudan became a killing zone

Few conflicts have caused as much horror and devastation to people’s lives as Sudan’s civil war. And yet, the country’s ongoing death and destruction remains largely unnoticed, and often ignored, by the rest of the world.

An estimated 150,000 people have been killed, and 14 million people displaced, since the country was plunged into civil war in April 2023 after a power struggle broke out between the country’s army and a powerful paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Last month, the RSF captured the city of El Fasher, the last major urban centre in Darfur held by the army and its allies. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were left trapped in desperate famine-like conditions with no access to food, medicine or relief supplies.

The city’s civilians have also been subjected to mass killings, and ethnic and sexual violence, while pregnant women are giving birth on the streets after the last remaining maternity hospital was looted and destroyed.

Why do so many in the world continue to the turn a blind eye to the world’s largest humanitarian crisis?

And is a ceasefire even possible in a region plagued by decades of instability, mass displacement and destruction?

Today, on In The News, how Sudan became a killing zone.

New York Times chief Africa correspondent Declan Walsh discusses the devastating effects of Sudan’s civil war, the foreign powers funding the crisis and the measures needed to end this conflict.

Presented by Sorcha Pollak. Produced by Andrew McNair. 

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