Television screens flick through various channels, each showcasing unique turmoil— climate change, deforestation and the Russo-Ukrainian war. However, one topic isn’t receiving the same extent of coverage, instead dismissed as an everyday African normality: the Sudanese Civil War. The crisis erupted during Ramadan, on the morning of April 15, with exchanges of military violence between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary, the Janjaweed Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The opposing groups have participated in political disagreements since overthrowing war criminal and former Head of State Omar al-Bashir in the 2019 coup d’état. Without a proper hierarchy of authority, the Republic of Sudan gradually fell victim to a power struggle between the SAF and the RSF. While the ongoing war is a military-based fight, the Sudanese people remain at the heart of the crisis.

According to The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), as of Sept. 5, around 5.1 million individuals in Sudan were internally displaced, and over one million fled to neighboring countries. Christopher Tounsel, the Director of African Studies and an Associate Professor of History at the University of Washington, specializing in Sudanese history, emphasizes that civilians are the primary group of individuals devastated by the crisis.

“It is the people who are suffering and it is the people whose homes have been destroyed, women who have been assaulted, water supplies and power plants that have been destroyed and families broken,” Tounsel said.

For the Sudanese community at West, the unexpected clashes have led to the loss and displacement of loved ones. Bashir Eltyeb ’25 recognizes the difficulties that come with the crisis.