The largest humanitarian catastrophe on Earth is unfolding in near-total silence. In Sudan, a popular, people-led revolution is being annihilated not by natural disaster, and not by accident, but by design. Two rival factions, each born of dictatorship and groomed by foreign powers, are dismantling the country piece by piece.
This is not a fight between opposing visions. It is a coordinated assault by two counter-revolutionary military regimes, both operating within a foreign-backed kleptocracy. The civilians are not in the way. They are the target.
This is not a war. It is the violent suppression of a democratic uprising.
In 2019, the Sudanese people rose up and toppled a thirty-year dictatorship without weapons or foreign help. They built their revolution on mass protest, grassroots organization, and collective care. What followed was betrayal. The generals who claimed to protect the movement turned on it. They pushed out civilian leaders and carved up power for themselves. Behind closed doors, they made deals with the same foreign states that had supported the old regime.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been torn apart by these two factions. One controls the formal military. The other commands a paramilitary empire built on mercenary capitalism and gold smuggling. Both are armed, trained, and funded by external governments, especially the United Arab Emirates and Russia, along with Egypt, Israel, and others. They do not fight for ideology or for the future of Sudan. They fight for profit, dominance, and foreign approval. Their war is not against each other. It is against the people who once demanded bread and democracy.
Khartoum, once home to 5 million people, has become a city of rubble and ash. Hospitals have been bombed. Markets have vanished. In Darfur, genocide has returned. Over 8 million people have been displaced. Children are starving. Women are raped as a weapon of war. Aid convoys are blocked or looted. Famine is spreading. And the international response has been silence or complicity. Western powers, including the United States and the European Union, continue to speak the language of neutrality while refusing to name the perpetrators, cut off their funding, or open their borders to the fleeing.
This is not a civil conflict. This is a slow extermination. It is a crime against a population that dared to demand freedom. It is a war of elites against civilians. It is the destruction of a democratic dream by military strongmen serving imperial interests. This is a foreign-fueled collapse that was not only predictable, but profitable.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been torn apart by these two factions. One controls the formal military. The other commands a paramilitary empire built on mercenary capitalism and gold smuggling. Both are armed, trained, and funded by external governments, especially the United Arab Emirates and Russia, along with Egypt, Israel, and others. They do not fight for ideology or for the future of Sudan. They fight for profit, dominance, and foreign approval. Their war is not against each other. It is against the people who once demanded bread and democracy.
Khartoum, once home to 5 million people, has become a city of rubble and ash. Hospitals have been bombed. Markets have vanished. In Darfur, genocide has returned. Over 8 million people have been displaced. Children are starving. Women are raped as a weapon of war. Aid convoys are blocked or looted. Famine is spreading. And the international response has been silence or complicity. Western powers, including the United States and the European Union, continue to speak the language of neutrality while refusing to name the perpetrators, cut off their funding, or open their borders to the fleeing.
This is not a civil conflict. This is a slow extermination. It is a crime against a population that dared to demand freedom. It is a war of elites against civilians. It is the destruction of a democratic dream by military strongmen serving imperial interests. This is a foreign-fueled collapse that was not only predictable, but profitable.
The Two Men Who Lit the Fuse
At the center of Sudan’s collapse are two men who were never elected, never accountable to the people, and never interested in democracy. Both claim to rule in the name of order. Both built their power on the ruins of a revolution. Their names are General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (widely known as Hemedti).
Burhan is the head of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the official national army. He was part of the inner circle of former dictator Omar al-Bashir, and spent years overseeing military campaigns that targeted civilians in Sudan’s southern and western regions. He presents himself as the face of state authority, but in truth he is a continuation of military rule dressed in diplomatic language. Burhan has received political and military support from Egypt, whose own military regime sees him as a useful ally for regional control and Nile River negotiations.
Hemedti, on the other hand, is not a career general. He is a warlord who rose through the ranks of the Janjaweed militias, the same groups responsible for the genocidal campaign in Darfur during the early 2000s. After being formally rebranded as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), his paramilitary empire expanded through gold smuggling, extortion, and brutal violence. The RSF has deep financial and logistical ties to the United Arab Emirates, which trades protection and arms in exchange for direct access to Sudanese gold. Russia, through the Wagner Group, has also backed Hemedti’s forces, training fighters and profiting from mineral extraction in RSF-controlled areas.
For years, Burhan and Hemedti worked together to crush Sudan’s democratic aspirations. After the 2019 uprising ousted Bashir, both generals joined a so-called transitional government. It was a lie from the beginning. They used the cover of civilian partnership to consolidate control. When mass protests reemerged in 2021 demanding full civilian rule, the two men staged a coup, dissolved the transitional government, and ruled directly by force.
The partnership lasted until ambition got in the way. In early 2023, a dispute over integrating Hemedti’s paramilitary forces into the regular army escalated into open confrontation. Neither man would surrender power. Neither would allow civilian oversight. Their solution was to divide the country into zones of influence, mobilize troops, and begin the systematic destruction of cities, villages, and infrastructure.
But this is not simply a personal feud between two warlords. It is a foreign-backed conflict rooted in the logic of militarized capitalism. The Sudanese state has long been treated as a prize to be looted. As the RSF and SAF tear the country apart, they are also controlling gold mines, oil fields, smuggling routes, and the strategic Red Sea coast. The people of Sudan are being killed, displaced, or starved not because of ideology, but because they are standing in the way of wealth extraction.
The civilians who led the 2019 revolution have been silenced. Many are now in hiding, in exile, or in graves. The generals who betrayed them are still shaking hands with regional leaders, trading resources for legitimacy. And the governments funding them — the United Arab Emirates, Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Israel — continue to treat Sudan not as a people to be protected, but as territory to be controlled.
A Humanitarian Collapse Without Cameras
Sudan is not just collapsing. It is being stripped to the bone. The destruction is not accidental. It is organized, deliberate, and methodical. As the generals fight over power, civilians have become the battlefield. Hospitals are occupied or bombed. Water infrastructure is targeted. Markets are looted, not by gangs but by uniformed forces. Humanitarian workers are attacked or blocked. The aim is not just to win territory. It is to crush the population that once rose up.
Across vast parts of the country, there is no food. Children die in their parents’ arms from hunger. People grind tree bark into powder and boil it into soup. In refugee camps, cholera and measles spread through tents crowded with families who fled with nothing. Entire neighborhoods have disappeared without documentation. Survivors in Darfur speak of mass graves and executions. The attacks are not collateral. They are systematic.
Aid cannot reach the majority of those who need it. Routes are blocked. The RSF loots convoys and targets humanitarian workers. The SAF restricts access to rebel-held areas and accuses aid groups of bias. Most international organizations are barely operating. Their staff have been evacuated or face constant threat. The governments with the power to open these lifelines — including the United States, the European Union, and the Gulf states — refuse to act.
Even where aid could be delivered, the political will is missing. Public pressure is absent. Sudan is not trending on social media. It is not on the evening news. There are no viral images, no viral grief. Without public outrage, there is no incentive for intervention. So Sudan is allowed to vanish quietly, beneath layers of bureaucracy, fatigue, and distance.
This silence is not a technical failure. It is a choice. It is a form of abandonment. When white cities are bombed, the world reacts. When Black societies are destroyed, the world goes silent. This is not about capacity. It is about perceived worth.
Sudanese journalists and organizers continue to risk everything to document the violence. Internet blackouts are frequent. Reporters are arrested or killed. Radio stations have been destroyed. Independent media relies on smuggled testimonies, shaky WhatsApp videos, and voices that speak only briefly before vanishing. These fragments are not just stories. They are proof that the Sudanese people still exist — even as the world pretends they do not.
Foreign Powers and the Machinery of Complicity
Sudan’s collapse is not only the result of internal rivalries. It is being sustained by foreign governments that provide weapons, funding, and political cover to the very forces responsible for mass violence. These alliances are not incidental. They are long-standing, strategic, and deeply profitable.
The United Arab Emirates is the most significant external backer of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Through a network of gold smuggling operations, the RSF finances its operations by exporting Sudanese gold to Dubai, where it enters international markets. In return, the UAE has supplied arms, logistics, and safe passage. This relationship has continued throughout the conflict, even as RSF forces have been implicated in ethnic killings, mass rapes, and the destruction of entire towns in Darfur.
Russia, through the Wagner Group, has also maintained a close relationship with the RSF. Wagner has provided training, equipment, and extraction support in exchange for access to gold mines in RSF-held territory. These operations have helped fund Russia’s own military ambitions while fueling violence inside Sudan. Cargo flights between Sudan and Russian-controlled airports have been documented, alongside joint operations in the gold sector.
On the other side, Egypt has aligned itself with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). The Egyptian military views General Burhan as a reliable ally who can help maintain regional stability and protect shared interests along the Nile. Egypt has supplied arms and provided diplomatic support for the SAF’s claims to state legitimacy.
Saudi Arabia and Israel have pursued their own objectives. Saudi Arabia has attempted to position itself as a mediator, hosting rounds of ceasefire talks in Jeddah. However, it maintains relationships with both factions and has stopped short of using its influence to halt weapons flows or demand accountability. Israel has worked quietly with both the SAF and the RSF as part of its broader strategy to normalize ties with Sudan and expand regional intelligence cooperation. These efforts have continued despite ongoing human rights abuses.
The United States and the European Union have not armed the factions directly, but they have played a passive role in enabling the crisis. For years, both Burhan and Hemedti were treated as political partners by Western diplomats. After the 2019 people-led revolution, the international community continued to legitimize the generals as transitional leaders, despite repeated delays in transferring power to civilians.
Since the violence began in April 2023, global leaders have applied very little pressure on the foreign governments fueling the conflict. Sanctions have been narrow and inconsistent. No coordinated campaign has been launched to stop the flow of gold or weapons. Humanitarian funding has fallen short of targets. The official approach remains cautious and reactive.
China continues its economic engagement with Sudan. It does not directly support either faction, but has sustained oil and infrastructure investments throughout the conflict. Its policy remains focused on protecting its commercial interests without involvement in political or humanitarian outcomes.
The result is a crisis that continues not only because of local actors, but because international players have made the cost of violence bearable for them. Without these alliances, both the SAF and RSF would face serious constraints. Instead, they are supplied, legitimized, and largely shielded from consequences.
Sudan’s violence is not contained within its borders. It is supported across air corridors, financial systems, and diplomatic channels. Any serious effort to end the crisis must include pressure on the foreign states that keep it going.
Sudan is being dismantled in real time. The generals are not the only ones responsible. Their power depends on international partnerships, foreign arms, and the refusal of other states to intervene. What began as a civilian uprising has become a crisis of global complicity. The question is no longer whether the world knows. The question is whether it will continue to look away.
China continues its economic engagement with Sudan. It does not directly support either faction, but has sustained oil and infrastructure investments throughout the conflict. Its policy remains focused on protecting its commercial interests without involvement in political or humanitarian outcomes.
The result is a crisis that continues not only because of local actors, but because international players have made the cost of violence bearable for them. Without these alliances, both the SAF and RSF would face serious constraints. Instead, they are supplied, legitimized, and largely shielded from consequences.
Sudan’s violence is not contained within its borders. It is supported across air corridors, financial systems, and diplomatic channels. Any serious effort to end the crisis must include pressure on the foreign states that keep it going.
Final Thought
Sudan is being dismantled in real time. The generals are not the only ones responsible. Their power depends on international partnerships, foreign arms, and the refusal of other states to intervene. What began as a civilian uprising has become a crisis of global complicity. The question is no longer whether the world knows. The question is whether it will continue to look away.