For a year, the bodies have piled up-and still the world looks away

One year ago this week, Sudan descended into war. The toll so far is catastrophic.

- Nesrine Malik

Thousands are dead, and millions are displaced, with hunger and disease ravaging all in the absence of aid. The UN has called the situation "one of the worst humanitarian disasters in recent history", afflicting about 25 million people.

The Sudanese people are suffering what has become the largest displacement crisis in the world.

The war was both sudden and a long time coming. The short history is that of a country where, following a promising 2019 revolution that overthrew the dictator Omar al-Bashir, the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a powerful militia, ejected civilians from a powersharing agreement between the three parties and then could not come to an agreement themselves. Their partnership broke down in April last year, and the RSF moved quickly, taking over the capital city, Khartoum. It then spread through the rest of the country, looting, assaulting and murdering civilians.

The army - which established the RSF in the first place from remnants of the infamous Janjaweed troops it partnered with in Darfur to help it suppress rebellion in the region - has so far been unable to prevail against its own creation. The result is a fluid situation, with gains and losses for both parties, no discernible frontline and millions of Sudanese people caught in the middle.