Here at TrooRa, we know that every life is equal. We want to shine a light on these overlooked wars. People living through them deserve to know they are seen. They deserve international pressure to end their suffering. And you, our readers, deserve the chance to help, whether that means amplifying stories or donating to grassroots organizations working on the ground.

We’ll start this series with Sudan, where a brutal civil war has been raging for two and a half years.

As of September 2025, Sudan remains embroiled in one of the world’s deadliest and least-covered wars. Fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed at least 150 000 people, displaced over 14 million, and pushed 24 million into food insecurity. The UN calls it the world’s largest displacement crisis.

“The situation in Sudan is very alarming… the massive displacement—it’s now the largest in the world, and, of course, famine,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the BBC after a visit in 2024.

Entire cities have been reduced to rubble. Hospitals lie in ruin, schools are abandoned, and famine stalks Darfur and beyond. The International Rescue Committee notes that it is the worst humanitarian crisis on record, with 30.4 million people in urgent need of assistance.

And yet, this catastrophe barely flickers across Western newsfeeds.

Sudan lies in northeast Africa, south of Egypt. Almost three times the size of Texas, it’s one of the largest countries on the continent. Its official languages are Arabic and English, and it is a majority Muslim country.

Despite rich gold reserves, Sudan is one of the world’s poorest countries. Before the conflict, the average annual income was just $750 per person in 2022. By 2024, the finance minister admitted government revenues had shrunk by 80 percent.

Since independence from joint British–Egyptian rule in 1956, Sudan has endured more than thirty-five coups, attempted coups, and coup plots—more than any other African state. The colonial strategy of ruling the north and south separately left deep ethnic, religious, and regional divisions, creating a fragile political order vulnerable to repeated military takeovers.

The most recent cycle of turmoil began in December 2018, when President Omar al-Bashir, who had ruled since seizing power in a 1989 coup, tripled the price of bread. Protests quickly spread into a nationwide movement demanding his removal. Women, who made up as much as 70 percent of demonstrators, played an important role in these uprisings. They were fighting not only against rising living costs but also against the entrenched sexism in Sudan’s conservative society.

In April 2019, al-Bashir was overthrown by his own generals. The military established a ruling council, but protesters kept up pressure for civilian rule. In June, security forces—widely believed to include General Dagalo’s RSF—brutally cleared a sit-in in Khartoum, killing more than one hundred people.

Under international pressure, a power-sharing agreement was signed in August 2019 between the military and protest leaders. A Sovereign Council, chaired by General al-Burhan, was established alongside a civilian prime minister to guide a transition toward elections.

Hopes for democracy faltered. In October 2021, al-Burhan and Dagalo staged another coup, dissolving the civilian government and returning Sudan to military rule. But then the two generals disagreed on the direction in which to take the country. One major question was whether to incorporate Dagalo’s RSF into the national army. The RSF had its roots in the Janjaweed militias, which fought rebels in Darfur in 2013. They were accused of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the region’s non-Arab population.

Talks with civilian groups in late 2022 yielded a fragile framework agreement, but mistrust between al-Burhan and Dagalo deepened. On 15 April 2023, clashes erupted in Khartoum between the SAF and RSF, plunging the country into full-scale civil war. The RSF quickly seized Khartoum’s airport and presidential palace, and violence spread to Darfur, where atrocities against civilians echoed the genocidal campaigns of the 2000s.

Throughout 2023 and 2024, ceasefire attempts collapsed while both sides committed war crimes. The RSF captured Wad Madani in December 2023, striking Sudan’s breadbasket, while the SAF launched counter-offensives in Khartoum and regained territory in late 2024. By early 2025, battles raged across multiple fronts, with the SAF retaking El Obeid and Khartoum’s Republican Palace. Meanwhile, millions of Sudanese have been displaced, famine looms, and regional actors are accused of fueling the conflict.

Peace talks in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Jeddah have collapsed repeatedly. The UN Security Council’s ceasefire resolution during Ramadan 2024 was ignored.

The International Crisis Group has called diplomacy “lacklustre.” Amnesty International has labelled the world’s response “woefully inadequate.”

Today, nowhere is more emblematic of the Sudanese conflict than El Fasher, the last major army-held city in Darfur. It has been under RSF siege for more than five hundred days. Its 260 000 remaining inhabitants are trapped, and food and aid convoys are blocked.

The Sudan Doctors Network warned in September 2025: “Children and pregnant women are dying from malnutrition. This is a systematic crime represented by depriving civilians of their right to life and targeting El Fasher citizens with famine as a weapon of war.” In that single month, twenty-three people—including five pregnant women—died of hunger. And the siege continues.

During its takeover of the Darfur region, the RSF has unleashed mass violence against the non-Arab Massalit people and others.

Human Rights Watch said in 2024 that it was possible that a genocide was underway by the RSF. “Serious violations that targeted the Massalit people and other non-Arab communities with the apparent objective of at least having them permanently leave the region constitutes ethnic cleansing,” the organization wrote.

An investigation by a UN team found that both the RSF and the army had committed war crimes, but fell short of declaring a genocide.

In January 2025, the US took further action. Then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared: “The RSF and allied militias have systematically murdered men and boys—even infants—on an ethnic basis, and deliberately targeted women and girls from certain ethnic groups for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence. Based on this information, I have now concluded that members of the RSF and allied militias have committed genocide in Sudan.”

The RSF denies the charge. But survivors’ testimonies are harrowing: women raped while being told to “have Arab babies,” families massacred as they fled, entire towns erased.

As of late 2025, Sudan is a country in ruins. Khartoum is a burned-out shell of ministries, banks, and aircraft wreckage. Darfur is in famine. Millions are on the move. And yet, the war grinds on.

Whether Sudan descends further into chaos or begins to rebuild depends on whether international actors, especially those with influence over Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia, step up.

If they don’t, the war could drag on for decades, sacrificing the lives of generations.

Sudan’s people need solidarity. Here are three organizations doing vital work on the ground:

• Doctors Without Borders (Medecins sans Frontiéres): Providing emergency medical care across Sudan and to refugees in Chad and South Sudan.
• Sudan Relief Fund: Supporting displaced families with food, shelter, and education.
• International Rescue Committee: Delivering healthcare, cash assistance, and protection for women and children.

Donating even a small amount can help save lives.