Through America suffers her blind, and irreverent children who believe the differences of their disputes are irrecoverable, for the last two and a half years mass-killings have gone on in a civil-war in the nation of Sudan. So savage is this conflict that over twelve million people have been forced to take refuge in other parts of Sudan, and 4 million have fled to other nations to avoid what is only described as wanton violence and total crimes against humanity. (AP News)

Involved are the internationally recognized government, and their army: the Sudanese Armed Forces (SRF), and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). It's not the first time that horrid violence has swept through Sudan; in the early 2000’s there was a genocide committed in the Darfur region where over 200,000 people were killed. Recently though with this current and notably extreme civil war, AP News has described it as the “worst humanitarian crisis in the world,” as 25 million people are facing extreme hunger. And, yet again in the Darfur region of Sudan the Rapid Support Forces have (publicly denied, reported by NPR) committed the Ardamata Massacre, the Misterei Massacre, the ongoing El Fashir Massacre. The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies reported that these massacres over the last three years target non-Arabs by Arab militias and the RSF, also reporting that non-Arab men, boys, and even male babies have been targeted and killed, while non-Arab women and those much younger have been subject to targeted rape and brutal sexual violence.

General Mohamed “Hemedti" Hamdan was sanctioned by (then) Secretary of State Antony Blinken for his “involvement of gross violations of human rights in Darfur, namely the mass-rape of civilians by the RSF under his control.” Further United Arab Emirate companies have been sanctioned for providing support and weapons to the RSF.

With over twelve million Sudanese who have been displaced, compared to the 750 thousand who have been displaced in Gaza from the Israel-Hamas conflict, the scale of the horror cannot be understated. It is not that the non-game Palestinians of Gaza aren't deserving of aid or pity, the scale and actors are different. The Rapid Support Forces and their contemporary militias have been caught stacking tens of thousands of bodies in mass graves.

Where in Gaza 1.8 million people are facing extreme levels of hunger, 24.6 million in Sudan are facing the same level of starvation, with 600,000 facing the highest level on the scale ‘catastrophic hunger,’ which is nearly the total number of Gazan's who have been displaced.

Over a year ago in May 2024, Tom Perriello, U.S. envoy to Sudan said that over one hundred and fifty thousand people had died in the conflict since it began a year prior in 2023. In a one-year period, the Sudan Research Group of London found that in one state in Sudan, over 61,000 people died. The European Agency for Asylum reports that most deaths from this conflict go entirely unreported, because of the sheer size of the country of Sudan and the mountainous terrain.

150,000 dead in a one-year period would put it on par with the deaths from the first year of war in Ukraine (as per Congress.gov, who estimated 100,000 Russian deaths, and 11,000 civilian deaths) and Ukraine itself had said it lost 31,000 in the first year. The three-to-one Russian-to-Ukrainian deaths is similar across many analysts of the war.

As an American I have seen many, many demonstrations even in Omaha against Israel for their crimes, but where are the protests for what is happening in Sudan? If the crime of mass-hunger and war is deserving of attention, where are the protests against the Rapid Support Forces? Let me not sound like I support everything that Israel is doing in Gaza, but for the sake of the people of Sudan – the hundreds of thousands of non-Arab men and boys and babies who face the barrel of a gun and an unmarked grave, and the women and young girls who face systematic rape and sexual violence – earnest attention and aid should be allocated to Sudan.

Austin Petak is an aspiring novelist and freelance journalist who loves seeking stories and the quiet passions of the soul. If you are interested in reaching out to him to cover a story, you may find him at austinpetak@gmail.com.

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