Crisis in the Shadows

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

- CHARLIE CAMPBELL

A woman cooks in the shadows of a former orphanage while children move through adjoining rooms, now converted into living quarters for families displaced from Khartoum. The abandoned compound on the outskirts of AI Junaynah, in West Darfur state, shelters dozens who fled Sudan's civil war.

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.

Two Sudanese boys rest on a rocky hill overlooking the vast sprawl of Aboutengue refugee camp, home to tens of thousands who fled Sudan's West Darfur region. The camp, near Chad's eastern border with Sudan, became a haven after fighting erupted in 2023. Many here belong to the Masalit ethnic group, which bore the brunt of targeted attacks and mass killings by militias aligned with the RSF.

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.