Report: SPT
Introduction
More than two and a half years after the outbreak of the devastating war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Sudan has become one of the most violent places in the world, with a humanitarian catastrophe described as the largest in modern history. Entire cities have been wiped off the map, whole communities displaced, and millions trapped between hunger, disease, and violence. Despite the magnitude and scale of the crisis, Sudan’s presence in international awareness both in the media and public opinion remains faint to the point of disappearance, as though the country is sliding into an abyss beyond the world’s sight.
This investigation raises a fundamental question:
How can a country experiencing the largest humanitarian crisis on earth become so marginalized in the global memory?
The Humanitarian Catastrophe
According to UN reports and humanitarian organizations, more than 11 million Sudanese have been displaced from their homes internally and externally making Sudan the world’s largest displacement crisis. Around 30 million people require urgent humanitarian assistance, while nearly 20 million face acute food shortages, with some areas on the brink of famine. Two-thirds of health facilities in conflict zones are out of service, and thousands of schools have been closed, destroyed, or turned into shelters as violence expands into Greater Kordofan and other states.
A Famine Forming in Silence
According to the United Nations’ Humanitarian Response Plan for 2025 announced by OCHA in cooperation with UN agencies and international and national organizations; 30.4 million Sudanese require urgent humanitarian assistance this year, representing roughly two-thirds of the population, with an estimated half of them being children. These individuals are spread across displacement camps and conflict zones, facing severe shortages of food and medicine.
The UN estimated the total cost of the plan at $4.2 billion, equivalent to $200 per person per year, or just 50 cents a day.
But the tragedy lies in the fact that only 30% of this amount has been funded so far, with just one month remaining in the year. This massive funding gap weakens the humanitarian response, effectively leaving around 20 million people to face hunger and death with little global attention.
A Collapsing Health and Education System
International bodies estimate that 60–70% of health facilities in conflict-affected areas have ceased to function due to destruction or lack of resources. Outbreaks of cholera, measles, malaria, and dengue fever have been reported, alongside warnings of a complete collapse of vaccination services in some states.
In the education sector, thousands of schools have been turned into bases for the army or militias, or have become shelters for displaced families. Others have been destroyed or closed, leaving an entire generation at risk of long term educational disruption.
Corruption Among Officials in Port Sudan
All of this unfolds amid widespread corruption within the army controlled government in Port Sudan. Humanitarian aid passing through the port is frequently diverted to fighters on the front lines or sold in markets, with only a fraction reaching those in need.
A senior port employee said that staff in the office of Finance Minister Jibril Ibrahim trade in humanitarian aid with his knowledge. He added that a network of security officers affiliated with military intelligence and the national security apparatus controls all incoming aid through Port Sudan Airport.
An example of this corruption appeared in a video posted by a Sudanese activist on TikTok, showing primary school students carrying UNICEF-branded school bags, saying they were forced to purchase them for 2,000 Sudanese pounds less than one US dollar.
Sudan’s Tragedy Outside Global Media Attention
Despite the statistics placing Sudan among the worst humanitarian disasters in the world today, this reality is not reflected in global media coverage, a discrepancy that raises important questions.
One of the most notable attempts to measure this “invisibility” came in a report issued by the Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC) titled:
Protection of Civilians Trends Report, which compared media coverage of three crises: Sudan, Gaza, and Ukraine.
According to the report, Sudan’s war received an average of around 600 news articles per month in 2024, compared to over 100,000 articles per month on Gaza and Ukraine.
In other words:
While Sudan endures the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis, it appears hundreds of times less in global media than other conflicts.
Who Is Responsible for the Media Blackout?
According to DataReportal 2025, Sudan has around 3.68 million social media users, less than 9% of the population. Despite this, Sudanese voices remain barely audible globally.
Hossam, a Sudanese activist and software engineer living in a Gulf country, says:
“In countries lacking press freedom, like Sudan and Egypt, many social media accounts are fake and state run to spread disinformation and control the narrative.”
Experts and developers who spoke to SPT say responsibility lies in a combination of algorithms, political interests, and silent forms of racism.
Platforms like Facebook, X, TikTok, and Instagram operate on a simple principle: posts with higher engagement receive greater visibility.
But in Sudan’s case, Hossam explains, the content often comes from local activists with limited resources, weak internet connections, and low-end phones. As a result, the content is low-quality and struggles to gain engagement, sinking into the depths of the algorithms.
Sudanese researcher Hassan Dakkin, based in Canada, highlights another factor:
“Sudan is absent from the world’s cognitive map. People don’t know its cities, its history, or its culture. Thirty years of Islamist rule destroyed arts, culture, and sports, and placed the country under isolation similar to North Korea.”
Hossam adds that the absence of independent media is at the heart of the issue:
“Media in Sudan is either controlled by the army or the RSF, while Islamists dominate propaganda on Facebook. The solution lies in supporting independent media. The international community must back this if it wants to help stabilize Sudan.”
Turkish scholar Zeynep Tufekci, a leading expert on algorithmic influence, writes in her well-known book Twitter and Tear Gas:
“Algorithms do not show tragedy. They amplify what provokes, not what matters.”
False and Misleading Information
One of the major reasons global audiences disengage from Sudan, according to Hossam, is the spread of fabricated news, images, and videos.
He says:
“After the fall of El-Fasher, many claims circulated. From my monitoring, around 90% of them were fake especially those regarding mass graves and the killing of women and children.”
He adds:
“There were indeed serious violations, but the exaggeration and fabrications harmed the victims and the cause, revealing what seemed to be a pre-planned campaign.”
Politics, Interests, or Racism?
Countries with political and economic influence have powerful lobbying and media networks that ensure greater coverage of their crises. Double standards in international politics also play a role in determining what receives attention.
However, some scholars in post-colonial studies point to implicit racism as part of the problem.
A Sudanese researcher living in Egypt, who requested anonymity, says:
“When the victims are Black Africans from sub-Saharan countries, their stories seem far less capable of moving public opinion in the Global North, despite the scale of suffering.”
But French researcher Juliette Etienne offers another explanation, telling SPT:
“Racism exists, certainly, but it’s not the only reason African wars are deprioritized. There’s a phenomenon known as Fatigue Narratives, where global audiences become less responsive to long running or recurrent crises, even when they are immense. These tragedies have been normalized.”
Conclusion
What is happening in Sudan today goes far beyond another African conflict added to the continent’s long list of wars; it is a moral test for the international system and for the “attention economy” that governs the digital world. If the world’s largest displacement crisis, the highest levels of food insecurity, and one of the most severe humanitarian catastrophes fail to secure a central place on the global agenda, and if a war of such scale is reduced to a few hundred articles per month compared to hundreds of thousands for other conflicts, this indicates that the hierarchy of empathy is not random, but part of a larger structure of algorithms, politics, and historical inequalities determining which victims are seen and which are left in the shadows.
For millions of Sudanese, this is not an abstract debate; it is the difference between a life saved… and a life that quietly disappears beyond the world’s cameras.
