Sudan's silent suffering, one year into generals' war

Most aid groups have left Sudan, where the health system has all but collapsed and the economy is in dire straits. [File, AFP]

More than 8.5 million have had to flee their homes to seek safety elsewhere in Sudan or across borders in neighbouring countries.

The war "is brutal, devastating and shows no signs of coming to an end", said veteran Sudan expert Alex de Waal.

But even if the violence stops now, "the state has collapsed, and the path to rebuilding it is long and fraught", de Waal said.

Before the bombing and pillaging began, Sudan was already one of the world's poorest countries.

Yet the UN says that by January, its humanitarian response scheme had only been 3.1 percent funded and can barely reach one of every 10 people in need.

'Milestone of shame'

"Before the start of the war, there were dozens of international organisations responding across the country," according to Christos Christou, international president of medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

"Now, there are almost none."

The health system has all but collapsed, and most agricultural land -- the leading employer and once touted as a model for African development -- is out of commission, researchers have said.

Gibril Ibrahim, finance minister in the army-aligned government, said in early March that Sudan had lost "80 percent of its income".

Worsening food crisis in Sudan. [File,AFP]

Sudanese analyst Mohammed Latif agreed, telling AFP a win "is impossible" at this point for either side.

"Their troops are tired and their supplies drained," Latif said.

There has, however, been no shortage of abuses against civilians, rights groups say.

"What is happening is verging on pure evil," Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, said earlier in the war.

Most recently, the army has taken over homes in Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman, according to a pro-democracy lawyers' committee, after similar seizures by the RSF earlier in the fighting.

The lawyers' committee, like other volunteer groups across Sudan, has spent the past year painstakingly documenting violations including summary killings, the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, and the forced conscription of children.

The ICC, currently investigating ethnic-based killings primarily by the RSF in Darfur, says it has "grounds to believe" both sides are committing atrocities.

International mediation efforts yielded only truce announcements that were quickly violated.

Desperate civilians in Sudan have to rely on volunteers for food, evacuations and emergency care.[File, AFP]

A UN Security Council call last month for a ceasefire also failed to end the war, as did Western sanctions.

The war is "a vortex of transnational conflicts and global rivalries that threaten to set a wider region aflame", said de Waal.

Both sides have sought regional support, experts say, and the United Arab Emirates has been painted as the RSF's main foreign backer, though its leaders deny it.

Washington has signaled talks could restart around April 18, but army-aligned prosecutors have since moved against civilian leaders the international community had looked to as potential partners.

Still, according to de Waal, "it should not be difficult to reach a consensus across Africa and the Middle East that state collapse is in no one's interest".

Against those complex realities, Amer Sohaiel, a displaced man taking shelter in Darfur's Abu Shouk camp, has a simple hope, "that God will help us achieve peace this year".