The Alliance for Peacebuilding’s Statement on the Second Anniversary of the Sudanese Civil War
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 15, 2025
CONTACT
Nick Zuroski | nick@allianceforpeacebuilding.org
Washington, DC, USA — On the second anniversary of the devastating war in Sudan, the Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP), a network of 235 organizations working in 181 countries to build sustainable peace, calls on the U.S. and international community to take urgent, coordinated action to protect civilians, facilitate an immediate and unconditional ceasefire and inclusive peace process to end the conflict, and promote justice and accountability for the grave violations of international law committed since April 15, 2023. We also urge the international community to rapidly scale efforts to de-escalate the profound atrocities occurring in North Darfur, restore telecommunications, document human rights abuses, and ensure the delivery of unimpeded humanitarian assistance to address the increasingly dire crisis as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) carry out targeted assaults on civilians in and around El-Fasher, Zamzam, and Abu Shouk.
In April 2023, violent conflict broke out between the RSF and Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). In the two years since, Sudan has become the world’s largest and most devastating humanitarian and displacement crisis, with more than 30 million people in need of aid and almost 13 million people displaced from their homes. Famine has been confirmed in parts of the country and is likely to spread further. Death toll estimates from the conflict vary widely from at least 27,000 to 150,000, but the actual total is likely significantly higher. The RSF and SAF have both committed atrocities against civilians, including the use of targeted attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, such as hospitals and schools, and continue to perpetrate widespread and horrific sexual and gender-based violence. The U.S. has determined that members of the SAF and the RSF have committed war crimes, and that the RSF and allied militias have committed crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.
Since Friday, the conflict took an even darker turn when the RSF attacked displacement camps around El-Fasher, leaving hundreds of civilians dead and targeting aid workers in the region. Approximately 400,000 people have been displaced from the Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps, a conservatively estimated 1.5 million people are facing imminent risk of grave atrocities, and a lack of telecommunications access has created significant barriers to facilitate civilian evacuation, coordinate assistance, document atrocities, and gauge the scale of needs.
Given the dramatic escalation of violence in North Darfur in recent days, compounded by the failure of bilateral and multilateral donors to provide sufficient assistance to civilians and funding cuts to frontline responders by the U.S., the international community must take an urgent, coordinated, and multisectoral approach to the crisis in Sudan. The United Nations, U.S. and other governments must immediately announce new accountability measures following the violence in North Darfur, as well as apply diplomatic and financial pressure on allies of the conflict parties enabling the harm against Sudanese civilians. The UN must promote accountability for the ongoing violations of international law by renewing the mandate of the UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan, enforcing the UN arms embargo in Darfur, and issuing new sanctions and other enforcement mechanisms against actors that violated UN Security Council Resolution 2736 that called on the RSF to halt the siege of El-Fasher. In all efforts to broker a ceasefire and peace agreement, the international community must elevate by key principles of the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Agenda and WPS Act, and ensure the meaningful inclusion of women, girls, and women-led civil society, as well as take concerted action to address the disproportionate impact of the conflict on women and girls. And the international community must follow through with its pledges to provide robust assistance to Sudan and ensure unobstructed aid and fully resourced conflict and atrocity prevention programs that protect the Sudanese people from the war’s destruction.
With the conflict entering a frightening new phase—as militias attack displacement camps and threaten the lives of suffering and displaced civilian populations—and the potential for the largest mass casualty event in recent history, the world must rally in support of civilian protection, inclusive peacebuilding, and the protection of the freedom and dignity of all Sudanese people.
The Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP), named the “number one influencer and change agent” among peacebuilding institutions worldwide, is an award-winning nonprofit and nonpartisan network of 235 organizations working in 181 countries to prevent and reduce violent conflict and build sustainable peace. AfP cultivates a network to strengthen and advance the peacebuilding field, enabling peacebuilding organizations to achieve greater impact—tackling issues too large for any one organization to address alone.