Sudan has been “abandoned, not forgotten”, top UN official warns

The world has abandoned, not forgotten, people in Sudan, a top UN official has said. UN coordinator for Sudan Denise Brown said the country was “on repeat”. The war is in its fourth year. Some estimates say 150,000 people have died as a result of the war with over 10 million displaced.

Human rights violations, widespread sexual violence, and sundry other war crimes have been normalised as the UAE-backed Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fights the national government.

As Sudan’s war moves into a fourth year, civilians are still being killed, displaced and subjected to widespread sexual violence.

"We are on repeat in Sudan", the UN’s top humanitarian official in the country warned on Monday, calling for urgent action to stop the fighting. pic.twitter.com/4U29nPFIFS

— UN News (@UN_News_Centre) April 13, 2026

And although the world’s great power have failed to help, many of them are involved – pursuing their own interests at the expense of the Sudanese population. Neighbouring states have also become entangled.

Brown told journalists:

We are on repeat in Sudan. Please don’t call this a forgotten crisis. I’m referring to this as an abandoned crisis.

The UN website said:

Humanitarians in Darfur have treated close to 2,500 survivors of sexual violence over the past year. Ms. Brown said the impact goes far beyond the immediate survivors, affecting families, communities and children born as a result of sexual violence.

She also highlighted mass killings around El Fasher, where she said 6,000 people were killed in three days according to verified information, while the real number could be higher.

Brown asked:

What more has to happen for everyone to sit up and pay attention, to find a solution?

And:

She urged Member States to focus on the forces driving the war, including the flow of weapons and the wider war economy. She also referred to questions around the Darfur arms embargo and whether enough is being done to enforce it.

Arms flows into Sudan

As the Canary has reported, the UAE has been a major backer of RSF in its war with the Sudanese government. Turkey, Egypt, Israel and many more countries are pursuing their own interests in Sudan too. British military components has also shown up on the battlefield in RSF hands. The UK is a major arms supplier to UAE.

As the Canary has said in our previous coverage of this poorly understood genocidal war:

The war in Sudan is theoretically between RSF and the Sudanese government. But foreign states pursuing their own interests are backing the combatants. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), for example, backs the RSF with arms and equipment. Egypt backs the government, alongside Russia, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. Israel has backed both sides at different times.

The mounting death toll is similarly mindboggling:

RSF has killed Sudanese civilians in vast numbers. And some estimates say 150,000 people have died and over 10mn have been displaced by fighting.

You can read more of our reporting on RSF and Sudan here.

Beyond time for action

On 9 April, a Yale forensic human rights thinktank reported how vehicles modified for paramilitary use was flowing into Sudan via Ethiopia And, as in war zones all over the world, drones have become a deadly factor in the fighting. France 24 reported on 14 April that UN aid chief Tom Fletcher claimed nearly 700 people had been killed by drones so far in 2026.

Fletcher said:

We need action now – to stop the violence, protect civilians, ensure access to communities in greatest danger, and fund the response.

This grim and chastening anniversary marks another year when the world has failed to meet the test of Sudan.

Sudan’s plight is truly hideous but it barely seems to register amid various other wars raging around the world. Yet it is an inescapable fact that the killing there is taking place on a scale which likely exceeds that in Gaza and, for example, Iran – so far, at least. Like those conflicts it is a result of centuries of imperial intervention by regional and global powers – not least, Britain. The horrors in Sudan should be reported with the same vigour.

Featured image via the Canary