Crisis in the Shadows

MILLIONS DISPLACED, FAMINE SPREADING—YET SUDAN'S TRAGEDY UNFOLDS FAR FROM THE WORLD'S GAZE

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Invisible anguish is especially wretched. That has been Sudan's lot during two years of brutal civil war—slaughter that has claimed some 150,000 lives and forced almost a quarter of its population of 50 million to flee their homes.

Yet this forgotten war has received scant attention from an international community preoccupied with carnage in Ukraine and Gaza, and rising tensions in East Asia. That Sudan's plight remains largely hidden is what struck Pulitzer Prize–winning photographer Moises Saman when he spent almost two weeks in Darfur, and Sudanese refugee camps in neighboring Chad, in July and August.

A veteran of covering conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, and Syria, Saman hitched rides on U.N. planes and trudged along mud tracks to reach this arcane frontier at Africa's beating heart. By embedding with the international NGO Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders, he photographed maimed civilians, grieving mothers, and children conjuring games from the trash of people who have nothing to spare.

“What makes this conflict unique is the fact that it’s in the shadows,” says Saman. “This huge civil war is having such deep humanitarian consequences but has not been given the attention it deserves.”

It’s a conflict that officially began in April 2023 when a vicious power struggle erupted between Sudan's armed forces and its powerful Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group.