Paramilitary forces in Sudan unleashed “a wave of intense violence…shocking in its scale and brutality” during their final offensive to seize the city of El Fasher last October, according to the UN human rights office. That clinical phrasing barely conveys what actually happened: a city starved, surrounded, and then assaulted in a way that left families fleeing through streets littered with bodies. It was not an isolated episode. It was the latest chapter in a campaign of atrocities that the world has chosen to observe rather than stop.
For nearly two years, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have used a simple formula to take territory: besiege, starve, terrorize, and empty. Communities in Darfur have endured killings at checkpoints, assaults on people trying to escape, and the systematic use of sexual violence to break social bonds. Markets, clinics, and water points have been destroyed or seized, turning daily survival into a negotiation with armed men. These are not the excesses of undisciplined fighters. They are the hallmarks of a strategy designed to make civilian life impossible.
And yet, despite the scale of the suffering, the world’s response has been a familiar blend of outrage and inertia. UN officials have issued increasingly urgent warnings. Humanitarian organizations have pleaded for access. Diplomats have expressed “deep concern.” But concern does not stop artillery fire, and statements do not open humanitarian corridors. Multiple mediation tracks—regional, Western, and Gulf-led—have produced meetings and communiqués but no sustained pressure capable of forcing a ceasefire. Meanwhile, weapons and money continue to reach the warring parties, often with the quiet blessing of states that publicly call for peace.
Perhaps the most troubling silence is that of the African Union. The AU’s founding documents commit it to act when mass atrocities threaten African populations. Sudan should have been the moment when the principle of “non‑indifference” meant something. Instead, the AU has remained on the margins—issuing statements, convening occasional meetings, but not leading a unified diplomatic effort or championing a credible path to accountability. In that vacuum, Sudanese civilians have been left without a continental institution willing to enforce its own norms. The AU’s silence is the starkest example of a broader pattern: institutions built to prevent mass atrocities have treated Sudan as someone else’s problem.
The question now is whether the world is prepared to do more than lament Sudan’s collapse. There are steps that can be taken immediately, and others that will require sustained political will.
First, the killing must stop. A monitored ceasefire—backed by coordinated pressure from states with leverage over the armed groups—is essential. Humanitarian access must be guaranteed, with real consequences for any commander who blocks aid or targets civilians. Targeted sanctions on individuals and networks enabling atrocities should be imposed and enforced, not merely announced.
Second, Sudan needs a single, African‑anchored peace process. Fragmented diplomacy has allowed armed actors to play mediators against one another. The AU should lead a unified effort that brings all civilian constituencies—especially those from Darfur—into the negotiations. At the same time, an independent accountability mechanism, potentially AU‑UN hybrid, must be established to investigate and prosecute atrocity crimes committed by all sides.
Finally, Sudan’s long‑term stability depends on dismantling the structures that made this war possible. The country cannot move forward while powerful paramilitary forces operate outside any national chain of command. Security sector transformation—real transformation, not cosmetic reform—must be part of any political settlement. And Sudan’s next political order must address the deep marginalization of its peripheries, which has fueled cycles of violence for decades.
The UN’s description of El Fasher as “shocking in its scale and brutality” is accurate. But what should shock us even more is how predictable it was—and how preventable it still is. Sudanese civilians are not asking the world to solve their politics for them. They are asking for the chance to survive long enough to rebuild their country. That is not too much to demand. The question is whether anyone with power is willing to act.
David M. Crane is a global leader in international criminal justice and the founding Chief Prosecutor of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone. He has spent decades shaping accountability mechanisms around the world, including serving as a driving architect behind the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine. Crane is a distinguished scholar of international law, a former senior U.S. national security official, and a leading voice on the rule of law, state responsibility, and the legal limits on the use of force.
