One Year of Civil War in Sudan: What We Know About the Conflict
The forces of two rival generals have laid waste to Sudan for a year now, unleashing a wave of violence that has driven 8.6 million people from their homes — now one of the largest waves of displaced people in the world.
The war has reordered Africa’s third-largest nation with breathtaking speed. It has gutted the capital, Khartoum, once a major center of commerce and culture on the Nile. Deserted neighborhoods are now filled with bullet-scarred buildings and bodies buried in shallow graves, according to residents and aid workers.
More than a third of Sudan’s 48 million people are facing catastrophic levels of hunger, according to the United Nations, since harvests and aid deliveries have been disrupted. Nearly 230,000 severely malnourished children and new mothers are facing death in the coming months if they don’t get food and health care, the U.N. Population Fund has warned. Dozens of hospitals and clinics have been shuttered, aid workers say. The closure of schools and universities in a country that once drew many foreign students has precipitated what the U.N. says is “the worst education crisis in the world.”
The death toll from the yearlong fighting has surpassed 15,600, with many more injured, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project — though U.N. officials and Sudanese health workers believe the actual toll is much higher.