Umit Bektas / Reuters
Since April 2023, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been engaged in a civil war rife with human rights violations and attacks on civilian infrastructure, leaving merely an estimated 20–30% of health facilities functioning as of April 2024. The involvement of multiple foreign powers has fuelled the crisis, with reports indicating the United Arab Emirates’ backing of the RSF and Iran’s backing of the SAF through weapons deliveries despite a recently renewed UN Security Council arms embargo against Sudan. Given the conflict’s complex nature, the calculation of a response from the international community has proven difficult. In late 2023, at the request of the Sudanese government, UNITAMS, the United Nations political mission to Sudan, first initiated in 2020 to support a Sudanese democratic transition, was terminated. In a similar show of apprehension for international involvement, the Sudanese government rejected a call for the deployment of an impartial international force for the protection of civilians by a UN fact-finding mission. This has limited the UN’s presence in Sudan to a humanitarian capacity, an effort which has proven to be daunting.