By: Chloe Ross Bohn
Edited By: Ali Gostanian
Last month, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, stated Sudan “is not getting the attention it deserves” and that race is the reason.
The Sudanese war is the result of a long-standing power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). After the 2018 revolution that removed autocratic President Omar al-Bashir, there was hope for a democratic transition. This led to the signing of the Constitutional Declaration in 2019, creating a civilian-military government.
However, a military coup in October 2021 led by the SAF stopped this progress. In December 2022, a plan was made to merge the RSF into the SAF, but tensions grew in March 2023 over how to accomplish this. On April 15, 2023, these tensions erupted into full-scale war between the SAF and RSF.
While this violence is a more recent manifestation of Sudan’s turmoil, the country was already facing a significant humanitarian crisis due to decades of political instability and economic hardship. Before the war began in 2023, around 15.8 million people already required humanitarian assistance, including food, water, shelter, and health care services. The ongoing conflict has only exacerbated these conditions, with almost 25 million people —over half of Sudan’s population—now in desperate need of aid, enduring critical food shortages.
Severely malnourished child at the Mother of Mercy Hospital in Sudan’s South Kordofan state. REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya
“Sudan has become the world’s largest displacement crisis,” explained Dr. Elshafie Mohamed Ahemd, Emergency Response Coordinator for International Rescue Committee (IRC) Sudan. Yet, the attention it receives is minimal, with media outlets and international actors largely turning a blind eye to the suffering.
“The ability to deliver aid is hindered by the lack of humanitarian access and funds,” he added.
This harrowing reality is scarcely reflected in global media coverage or the response from international donors. But why?
The World Health Organization (WHO) recently published their Sudan conflict and refugee crisis, Multi-country External Situation Report #4, which revealed shocking data: since the conflict began in April 2023, there have been 106 verified attacks on healthcare facilities, resulting in 183 deaths and 125 injuries. But these figures likely do not account for the many undocumented attacks that have occurred. The situation is further complicated by an ongoing cholera outbreak that has infected nearly 10,000 people and claimed 315 lives as of mid-September 2024, according to the report.
These statistics should prompt an immediate international outcry and flood of support. Yet, the silence is deafening.
Why does Sudan receive so little attention compared to other global crises? How often is the Sudanese conflict making headlines relative to other humanitarian emergencies like Ukraine?
Chloe Ross Bohn / SAIS Observer
An independent analysis of news coverage frequency across 15 major outlets—including The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Financial Times—shows a clear disparity. While crises in Ukraine and Palestine dominate the headlines, Sudan’s unfolding disaster barely registers.
This disparity is not simply a matter of media oversight or coincidence but reflects a deeper, more troubling systemic bias in the way international media—and by extension, the global community—prioritizes humanitarian emergencies. Racial bias could be at the heart of this imbalance, Dr. Ghebreyesus posits. Based on the data, it can be concluded that conflicts that disproportionately affect white populations seem to draw more attention, aid, and empathy than those impacting Black or brown lives.
“There is this, quite frankly, quite tired and racist idea that Sudan and Africa in general is this place where war is not only inevitable, but perpetual,” commented Kholood Khair, a Sudanese political analyst and founder of Confluence Advisory.
The IRC’s 2024 Emergency Watchlist ranked Sudan as the most urgent crisis in the world, followed by the Occupied Palestinian Territories, with Myanmar at number five. Ukraine, in contrast, was not even included in the top half of the country profiles. Yet, despite this ranking, Sudan remains on the periphery of global consciousness, a testament to the ways in which race and geography shape international priorities.
This disparity in attention is mirrored in the international response. According to the U.S. Foreign Assistance tracker, in the 2022 and 2023 fiscal years, the U.S. gave over $1.5 billion to Sudan — an amount that seems substantial until it is contrasted with the $29 billion that Ukraine received within the same time frame.
To put Sudan’s funding need in further context, the Council on Foreign Relations analyzed the UN interagency humanitarian response plans. Sudan faces a significant funding shortfall compared to Ukraine. In 2024, Sudan’s UN goal of $2.7 billion has only been 48% met, with $1.6 billion still needed. Similarly, in 2023, it fell short by $1.3 billion.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has received more support, meeting most of its 2023 target and securing $1.4 billion in 2024. Despite both crises, Sudan’s funding gap remains large, with far less attention than Ukraine.
The humanitarian needs of the Sudanese people, whose lives have been upended by violence, disease, and displacement, are no less urgent than those of Ukrainians. Yet the discrepancy in aid and attention reveals a world that continues to place greater value on some lives than others.
“I don’t know if the world really gives equal attention to Black and white lives,” Dr. Ghebreyesus remarked, voicing what many have long suspected but were perhaps too afraid to say. His words cut to the heart of a systemic issue — one that challenges the very principles of equity and compassion that the international humanitarian system claims to uphold.
It is important to clarify that this critique is not intended to undermine the suffering of the Ukrainian or Palestinian people, both of whom deserve the support they are receiving. However, the vast inconsistencies in the global response to different humanitarian crises expose an uncomfortable truth: the world seems to operate on a hierarchy of suffering and at the bottom of that hierarchy lay the people of Sudan and other nations where Black and brown lives are too often overlooked.
These disparities raise critical questions about the role that racism plays in global decision-making. Are we truly living in a world where all lives are valued equally, or are certain populations — based on race, geography, or economic interest — deemed less deserving of empathy and aid?
When millions of lives are at stake, as they are in Sudan, the international community’s failure to provide adequate attention and support is not just a humanitarian failure, but a moral one.