A genocidal militia is winning the war in Sudan

A distracted world has paid little attention to Sudan since war broke out in Africa’s third-largest country in April. The West is focused on Ukraine’s counter-offensive, China’s war games and the war in Gaza. African leaders, preoccupied by their own domestic problems, have shown all the urgency of a camel crossing the Sahara.

The consequences of neglect are becoming starker. The conflict between erstwhile bedfellows—the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group, and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the regular army—is destroying the state they seized together in 2021, in a coup aimed at preventing a transition to democratic government. The IMF forecasts that Sudan’s economy will shrink by nearly a fifth this year. The war is deepening geopolitical rivalries in north-east Africa and the Persian Gulf.