Sudanese refugee camp in Chad. Photo: Henry Wilkins, VOA. Public Domain.

I met up with two Sudan experts last week. Over a year ago I was lucky enough to travel with one of them to the region, meeting over two dozen key Sudanese civilians. Last week the other expert introduced me to the head of a humanitarian group still working out of Sudan, a man not only deflated like everyone else by the continuing conflict, but also by sudden, savage US aid cuts. (‘I’m scared,’ he admitted.) Since the latest fighting began in 2023, the US has slashed over 83% of its USAID programmes. Clinics have shut. Soup kitchens have vanished. Preventable deaths have soared. And yet, Sudanese health workers carry on—without supplies, without pay.

Even if people really don’t believe the US should be bailing out non-Americans anymore, no time was allowed by the Americans for an alternative rescue plan.

Reacquainting myself with all this was dispiriting. Here however is an update of a conflict so seldom reported. In early July this year, Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) intensified attacks on El-Obeid, a key supply city briefly reclaimed by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in February. Artillery strikes on July 10–11 killed at least four civilians and displaced 700 households. Densely populated civilian areas—especially where internally displaced people (IDPs) shelter—are being hit hardest.

On July 11, the US-derided International Criminal Court (ICC) told the UN Security Council that war crimes and crimes against humanity are being committed in Darfur. This includes systematic rape, bombings, kidnappings, ethnic cleansing, and starvation. Most atrocities are attributed to the RSF targeting non-Arab communities, though SAF has also carried out indiscriminate aerial bombardments of civilian areas.

In late June, a strike on Al-Mujlad hospital killed over 40 people,........

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