Burning with shame

15/4/2025

‘Today is a day of shame. Shame on the perpetrators on both sides of this terrible conflict who have inflicted unimaginable suffering on civilians. Shame on the world for turning away while Sudan burns. Shame on the countries that continue to add fuel to the fire.’ (Erika Guevara Rosas)

Two years to the day since the latest conflict in Sudan broke out with brutal ferocity, the UK and (some) other countries are finally paying attention to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. It’s a complex picture on the ground with geopolitical and ethnic tensions that create a devastating mix. While the world’s attention has been fixated on Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza, Sudan’s civilian population has suffered horrific atrocities at the hands of merciless armed groups.

Conferences are too often a forum for noble speeches, hand-wringing and hand-shaking, virtue signalling on a public stage and, behind it all, a pathetic substitute for tangible action. (It’s as if talking earnestly about an issue makes us appear, believe and feel like we’re actually doing something). In the meantime, the violence continues unabated with no relief whatsoever for vulnerable people on the ground. Today's event must make a difference. Sudan needs action now.

What can you do?

*Pray for peace and hope in Sudan.

*Contact David Lammy, UK Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs to urge follow-through from this Conference initiative.

*Write to your local Member of Parliament (MP) to advocate for urgent and tangible action on relief, security and peace in Sudan.

18 Comments

Faith

19/4/2025 05:05:19 am

Unless the people in Sudan chose peace over conflict they will not resolved any issue. Human LAW takes years and more lives before justice will be served. The world needs URGENCY to end all unnecessary pressure towards humanity for us to live in harmony! #NOW

Nick Wright

21/4/2025 06:00:38 pm

Hi Faith. Sadly, the ordinary people in Sudan have little choice in this matter. Until the warring parties and their international sponsors - or international institutions which are able to exercise influence over them - decide to act, the terrible suffering of ordinary people will continue.

23/4/2025 05:38:14 am

A serious LEADER with radical mind set and raging LOVE for the poor will be willing to find the actual hidden ground of tribal conflict and other various root caused of internal complications. Lastly bring JESUS in a positive action for people to commit to live in peace. If majority would agree to iron out small and huge indifferences in exchange of a peaceful, harmonious, progressive lives ahead, which a greener future for 🇸🇩. If I will be given a chance to lead . I will separate them into two. Be the
sheep's who would prefer peaceful lives with a sustainable living or Be the goats then have
3 times meals of guns and bombs until all of them perished. That's my simple solution but
needs fiery SPIRIT that will not be trapped in the net of corruption.

23/4/2025 10:28:05 am

Thanks Faith. I hear your passion!

Dr. Lara Okonkwo

23/4/2025 10:34:04 am

Nick, your blog’s emotionally charged rhetoric rightly underscores the global community’s moral failure but we must also examine the structural conditions perpetuating inaction. The crisis in Sudan is not merely a humanitarian tragedy; it is a case study in the failure of the international system to deal with non-strategic conflicts. Realpolitik continues to guide Western engagement. Sudan simply lacks the geopolitical capital of Ukraine or Gaza.

The UK-hosted conference marks a long-overdue shift in attention yet it risks being another iteration of performative diplomacy. Unless mechanisms of accountability, regional cooperation (particularly involving IGAD and AU) and sustained humanitarian access are institutionalized, the conference outcomes will likely fade into diplomatic oblivion. We require not just aid pledges but a multilateral security framework and empowered civil society inclusion.

23/4/2025 12:04:22 pm

Thank you, Lara, for helpfully outlining some of the complexities of this conflict and some of the issues that need to be addressed to resolve it. I agree with the risk of 'performative diplomacy', especially as the larger goals of the UK conference remain unachieved (https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/horn-africa/sudan/london-conference-puts-paralysed-sudan-peace-efforts-display).

Fatima El Nour

23/4/2025 10:36:21 am

Thank you so much for posting this, Nick. I haven’t heard from my cousins in Khartoum for over eight months. Every day I open my phone dreading the worst. This blog captures my anger and my fatigue. We scream into the void while global leaders gather in safe rooms with coffee and catered lunches discussing our suffering. Shame is not enough. Action means corridors for aid, safe zones for families and pressure on those fuelling the war. My people are not pawns in a geopolitical game. They are dying. Every. Single. Day.

23/4/2025 12:11:58 pm

Hi Fatima and thank you for sharing so powerfully and painfully from personal experience. I can only imagine how it must feel for you, your family and the people of Sudan. I hope you will hear from your cousins soon...

James M. Atim

23/4/2025 10:39:23 am

Nick. Reading this blog from Malakal where I’ve been stationed for 11 months, I felt a bitter echo of conversations we have daily with displaced Sudanese crossing the border into South Sudan. The suffering is real, raw and relentless. South Sudan (hardly a stable host)is absorbing tens of thousands of traumatized refugees, many of them children separated from families and some arriving with bullet wounds or signs of sexual violence.

While your blog captures the global apathy, I urge policymakers to also recognize the regional spillover effect. South Sudan’s own fragile peace risks unraveling under the strain. Camps are overrun and local tensions are rising over resources. The recent conference in London offered a flicker of hope but only if it results in regional burden-sharing, emergency funding for border regions and support for NGOs doing the work governments won’t.

This isn’t just about Sudan. It’s about a regional collapse if the world keeps dragging its feet.

23/4/2025 12:18:38 pm

Hi James and thank you for sharing such an insightful and important perspective from South Sudan. Yes, the causes and consequences of these crises are often regional (or beyond) rather than, or as well as, internal. (I attended an update on a humanitarian crisis in South Sudan this weekend: https://www.nick-wright.com/blog/a-different-lens).

Alice Denham

23/4/2025 10:41:05 am

Hi Nick. You raise painful but necessary truths. The world cannot remain silent as Sudan’s civilian population endures atrocity after atrocity. That is precisely why the UK convened the conference: not as a substitute for action but as a catalyst.

We must match moral rhetoric with operational commitment. Britain is working closely with our partners to push for unfettered humanitarian access, ceasefire negotiations and sanctions on spoilers of peace. Aid agencies must be supported and Sudanese civil society voices need amplification, not sidelining.

Sudan’s tragedy is a test of our shared humanity and of our resolve to do more than simply mourn from afar.

23/4/2025 12:20:26 pm

Thank you, Alice - and well said. I too hope that worthy words translate into tangible action and actual results on the ground.

Peter Ladu

23/4/2025 10:43:15 am

I ran from war in South Sudan when I was 12. Now I am 19 and studying because someone helped my family when the world noticed us. I read this blog and feel the same sadness I felt then. When adults fight and children lose everything. But I also know that help can change a life. Sudanese children now need the same support. The conference may be words but words can lead to money and money can lead to schools, medicine and peace talks.

We must not give up. I hope the world is listening this time.

Peter Ladu

23/4/2025 12:22:58 pm

Hi Peter. Thank you for sharing such a powerful personal testimony of - and call for - hope!

Kendi Muthoni

23/4/2025 10:44:37 am

Hi Nick. I’m tired of leaders acting like “talking about stuff” = “doing something.” I just watched clips from the Sudan conference and it was all suits, smiles and statements. Meanwhile, kids my age in Darfur are fleeing bombs and burying siblings. Why does it take TWO YEARS for the world to even notice? We need less panel discussion, more protection. And where are the African youth voices in all this? Sudan deserves better. And so do we.

23/4/2025 12:24:46 pm

Hi Kendi. I hear your frustration. 'Kids in Darfur are fleeing bombs and burying siblings.' I agree. It's horrific.

Prof. Moses K. Tesfaye

23/4/2025 10:47:38 am

Nick, Sudan's conflict while horrifying in its scale and brutality is rooted in decades of marginalization, military dominance and fragmented statehood, conditions intensified, not created, by the current crisis. The UK's renewed engagement is welcome but must avoid the trap of treating Sudan as a sudden disaster rather than a long-neglected systemic failure. Conferences are not inherently ineffective. What matters is whether they integrate grassroots actors, prioritize political transition and avoid external prescriptions. Let us recall the international response to South Sudan’s civil war: billions pledged, little oversight and a fragile peace. We must not repeat that mistake. Sustainable peace in Sudan requires localized peacebuilding, transitional justice and empowerment of civilian-led governance, not merely humanitarian band-aids. Thank you for writing this.

23/4/2025 12:27:50 pm

Hi Moses and thank you for sharing such helpful insights into some of the wider systemic complexities behind the current conflict. I agree that, unless these broader and deeper contextual and cultural factors are addressed, efforts at peace-building are likely to be fragile or ineffective.