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War-torn Sudan faces the grim prospect of becoming another failed state as civil society disintegrates under the weight of widespread violence and a proliferation of armed groups, according to Jan Egeland, Head of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).
Speaking to the BBC, Egeland warned that the country’s two primary warring factions—the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF)—are being joined by smaller “ethnic armies,” resulting in widespread looting and atrocities against civilians.
“The parties are tearing down their own houses and massacring their own people,” he said, describing the dire humanitarian situation in Sudan as the worst on record.
Sudan’s civil war, now in its 19th month, has displaced over 10 million people and driven the nation to the brink of starvation. The World Health Organization (WHO) recently reported that hunger is widespread, with soup kitchens shutting down due to underfunding.
Egeland described the response to the crisis as woefully inadequate, saying, “Remaining sources of aid are simply delaying deaths instead of preventing them.”
Read More: Sudan civil war widens, as Darfur’s JEM rebels join central army against RSF
Starvation has reportedly been weaponized in the conflict, and food security experts fear up to 2.5 million people could die from hunger by the end of the year.
Egeland criticized the global community for failing to respond effectively to the crisis. “The world is failing Sudan completely,” he said, urging European nations to invest in aid, protection, and peace to avert a potential refugee crisis.
Despite the alarming scale of the crisis, peace talks between the RSF and the army have yielded no progress.
Thousands have been killed since the conflict began, with rights groups warning of possible ethnic cleansing and genocide.
“The war will stop when these warlords feel they have more to lose by continuing fighting than by doing the sensible thing,” Egeland stated .
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