As a new semester began at the University of Edinburgh, classroom debates buzzed with talk of global protests, climate justice, and international conflicts. Yet, one name was conspicuously absent from these discussions: Sudan. While Palestine, Gaza, and Israel dominated conversations, the catastrophic war ravaging Sudan remained shrouded in a profound and unsettling silence.
The Scale of Suffering in the Shadows
This silence persists despite a humanitarian catastrophe of staggering proportions. For 31 months, a brutal war has raged between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The human cost is almost incomprehensible. More than 11 million people have been displaced from their homes, with four million forced to flee across borders as refugees. The United Nations estimates that a shocking 30 million Sudanese—over half the population—now require urgent humanitarian assistance to survive. Tens of thousands of civilians have been killed, with satellite imagery even capturing the bloodstains of RSF massacres from space.
The RSF itself is a successor to the notorious Janjaweed militias, responsible for the genocide in Darfur two decades ago. Today, it stands accused of perpetrating widespread atrocities. Complicating the geopolitical landscape, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is widely believed to be a key supplier of weapons to the RSF, a charge the Gulf nation consistently denies.
Unpacking the Global Indifference
Why does such immense suffering fail to trigger the global outrage and mobilisation seen for other conflicts? The reasons are layered and deeply troubling.
Firstly, the framing of a clear villain, as with Israel or Russia in other contexts, is absent. The conflict is often wrongly simplified as a "tribal" or "chaotic" struggle, language that strips Sudanese people of political agency and turns deliberate violence into confusing background noise. Furthermore, there is no easily identifiable "underdog" for the world to champion, as nearly all armed groups are implicated in atrocities.
Secondly, digital invisibility and geopolitical caution play a major role. Unlike Palestinians, who have leveraged digital activism to globalise their plight, many Sudanese lack the infrastructure and collective digital visibility to broadcast their trauma in real time. The UAE's central role in global air travel and its financial influence over academic and cultural institutions also create a climate of fear. Criticising a key economic hub and donor feels professionally risky for many, muting potential scrutiny.
Ultimately, for many Western policymakers, Sudan is simply not deemed "important" enough. As long as the country's gold continues to flow into global markets, its people are not seen as economically or politically valuable to warrant meaningful intervention.
The Painful Core: A Hierarchy of Human Worth
Beneath these complex factors lies one of the strongest and most painful drivers of indifference: skin colour and systemic racism. The essay argues that Black African lives are simply not seen as worthy of the same outrage, solidarity, or global mobilisation as others. The world, it suggests, decided long ago which lives are "grievable" and relatable, and which can be abandoned to complexity and silence.
Since its independence in 1956, Sudan has endured over a dozen military coups, multiple civil wars, and the Darfur genocide. To outside observers, this history flattens the country into an endless loop of violence, rather than a pressing political emergency demanding a response.
The stark contrast is evident. There are no widespread boycott campaigns targeting the UAE, no mass divestment calls, and no encampments on university campuses for Sudan. This global apathy continues despite atrocities so severe they are visible from orbit. Until the deep-seated hierarchy of human concern is confronted, the people of Sudan will continue to suffer in the dark, their cries for help met with a resounding global silence.
