Sudan at War With Itself: Civilian Devastation in the Civil War

ABSTRACT A civil war is raging in Sudan between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) along with militia groups. Beginning on April 15, 2023, and continuing at least to this writing (October 15, 2025), civilian noncombatants have been subjected to bombings, beatings, torture, shootings, rape, and murder on a large scale. Since the war began, 61,000 war‐related deaths (including preventable starvation and disease) in Khartoum State alone from April 2023 to June 2024. More than 12 million Sudanese are forcibly displaced, which is more than any other country. Additionally, 24.8 million people need humanitarian assistance as of May 14, 2024. Of course, the task of transiting to peace is enormous. One dimension of this task is the prosecution of perpetrators of human rights violations. Toward that goal, we present the findings of a research project carried out in 2024 that was commissioned by the United States Department of State and contracted by MITRE (an NGO in the United States). Known is the Sudan Conflict Observatory (SCO), the project's objective was to document, preserve, analyze, and disseminate evidence of possible war crimes, mass atrocities, and other gross human rights abuses committed by combatants during the current conflict in Sudan. The purpose of such documentation was to provide evidence for future possible prosecution of violators of International Humanitarian Law (IHL). Researchers of SCO sought to address the following questions: What is the evidence of such assaults on civilians?; Who are the perpetrators of such assaults?; and How can such assaults be documented for purposes of possible prosecution of perpetrators? The primary objective of this article is to present portions of the findings of SCO. These findings reveal the following conclusions: (1) Three forms of civilian devastation represent normalized tactics by SAF and RSF: (a) indiscriminate attacks on civilians, (b) systematic destruction of health care facilities, and (c) gender‐based violence. (2) The evidence of such attacks suggests multiple violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) regarding the rules of warfare. (3) Additionally, these attacks represent practices of systemic dehumanization in which civilians are cast as eliminable and so are subject to total domination.