In a dusty northern Sudanese town, a mother queuing for a sleeping mat for her child is one of millions uprooted by Sudan’s war. More than two years after fighting erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), tens of thousands have been killed and an estimated 12 million people forced from their homes, creating one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
For much of that time, however, the war scarcely registered in major Western news outlets. In a recent analysis for Middle East Eye titled “Why the ‘international’ media suddenly cares about Sudan,” journalist Barry Malone argues that global attention spiked briefly in April 2023, when foreign embassies were evacuated from Khartoum, then quickly faded once mostly white diplomats and aid workers were flown to safety.
Now, after the RSF last month seized the city of El-Fasher, the army’s final stronghold in the long-suffering Darfur region, residents and survivors describe wide-scale, ethnically targeted killings, looting and sexual violence as RSF fighters and allied militias swept through neighbourhoods. Humanitarian groups say entire districts have been burned, while satellite images point to mass displacement, though casualty figures remain impossible to verify.
The RSF has laid siege to El-Fasher for some 18 months. Since its capture, eyewitnesses interviewed by Sudanese and regional media have reported executions of civilians, the targeting of non-Arab communities and the use of rape as a weapon of war. Some RSF members have publicly boasted online of “cleansing” areas of their rivals, prompting renewed warnings of genocide.
Even before El-Fasher fell, Sudan’s civilians were being pushed to the brink. Aid agencies warn of looming famine as fighting and looting block supply routes. Hospitals have been gutted or occupied by armed groups, while displacement camps lack clean water, food and medicine. The United Nations has repeatedly called Sudan one of the gravest – and most underfunded – crises on the planet.
Sudanese journalists have risked detention and death to document daily life under bombardment. Broadcasters such as Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan and Sky News correspondent Yousra Elbagir continued to report even as interest in Western capitals waned. Their stories, Malone notes, were often buried deep on websites or relegated to the tail end of TV bulletins.
The fall of El-Fasher and mounting scrutiny of the United Arab Emirates, widely reported as a key RSF backer, have forced Sudan back onto front pages. Diplomats are now facing growing calls for sanctions and an arms embargo on those fuelling the conflict. Yet for millions of Sudanese now scattered across their own country and neighbouring states, the sudden surge of coverage is tinged with bitterness.
Analysts and Sudanese activists say the world’s media cannot afford to look away again. They argue that if news organisations truly aim to cover global events, they must treat African civilians as more than background to the fate of foreign nationals – and recognise that Sudanese lives count every bit as much as those in any other war zone.
Photo: Gemini AI