# Sudan is burning in indifference, and that should haunt us > Introduction: a war the West barely watches - Author: Maxime Marquette - Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co) - Section: Essay - Published: 2026-07-03 - Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/essai-le-soudan-brule-dans-lindifference-et-cela-devrait-nous-hanter ## Introduction: a war the **West** barely watches ### A **conflict** that has dragged on for years without real attention A detailed timeline documents the continuing escalation of the Sudanese **civil war** throughout 2026, including the fall of **el-Fasher** and the subsequent siege imposed by the **Rapid Support Forces** around the city of **el-Obeid**, according to a compilation of events published on **Wikipedia** and corroborated by the **Council on Foreign Relations**. I must admit this right away, with the honesty I always try to maintain in my writing: I devote far less attention to **Sudan** than to **Ukraine**, and this asymmetry troubles me deeply when I face it head-on. This piece is my attempt to correct, even modestly, that imbalance. ### Why this essay, why now The **Council on Foreign Relations** reports that the **Rapid Support Forces** encircled the city of **el-Obeid** at the end of June, with documented drone strikes and reports that at least twenty-two **civilians** were killed in a separate incident on June 10. These figures, however cold they look on paper, represent real human lives, **displaced** families, children growing up in the middle of a war that most Western media barely mention, if they mention it at all. *I ask this question plainly, of myself as much as of my readers: why does a drone strike on Kyiv make headlines for days, while an entire siege of a Sudanese city disappears into a brief wire report? This hierarchy of attention deserves to be questioned honestly.* *I have no comfortable answer to this question. I merely suspect that geographic and strategic proximity shapes our collective empathy far more than we would like to publicly admit.* ## The fall of **el-Fasher**, a bloody turning point ### A symbolic city fallen after a prolonged siege The fall of **el-Fasher**, capital of **North Darfur** state, represents one of the most significant developments of this **civil war** in 2026. After months of grueling siege, the **Rapid Support Forces** eventually seized control of this strategic city, according to the timeline documented on **Wikipedia**. This military victory by the **RSF** was accompanied, according to several human rights organizations, by documented atrocities against the civilian **population** trapped in the city during the siege, including targeted killings and massive forced displacement. ### A worrying precedent for still-besieged cities The fall of **el-Fasher** immediately raised fears of a similar fate for other Sudanese cities still under threat from the **Rapid Support Forces**, particularly **el-Obeid**, now encircled in turn according to the latest reporting from **Al Jazeera**. This repeating pattern of prolonged sieges followed by brutal takeovers illustrates a deliberate military strategy by the **RSF**, which appear to favor exhausting civilian **populations** as a method of weakening the resistance of Sudanese government forces in each targeted city. *I refuse to use softened words to describe what happened in **el-Fasher**. These are documented atrocities against **civilians**, full stop, regardless of the geopolitical complexity of the Sudanese **conflict**.* ## El-Obeid, the next city under threat ### An encirclement recalling the worst-case scenarios According to **Al Jazeera**, the **United States** expressed concern over the encirclement of the city of **el-Obeid** by the **Rapid Support Forces** at the end of June, a development that raises fears of a repeat of the tragic scenario previously seen in **el-Fasher**. This American concern, though belated and limited in its concrete scope, at least implicitly acknowledges the severity of the **humanitarian** situation unfolding around this city, where hundreds of thousands of **civilians** could find themselves trapped in a prolonged siege. ### An **international** community largely absent Beyond this American statement of concern, the concrete **international** response to this looming threat remains largely insufficient, with few substantial diplomatic or **humanitarian** actions to prevent a repeat of the deadly **el-Fasher** scenario. This **international** passivity contrasts painfully with the swift and determined Western mobilization seen in response to Russia's invasion of **Ukraine**, a difference in treatment that raises uncomfortable questions about the selectiveness of our collective compassion. *I must be honest about my own limits here: even I, a columnist who prides himself on closely following geopolitical news, discovered the scale of this **crisis** much later than I would like to admit.* ## The human toll of a war without end ### Numbers that are staggering Human Rights Watch's annual **2026** report on **Sudan** documents the catastrophic scale of this **humanitarian crisis**, with **millions of people** **displaced** within the country and hundreds of thousands more having fled to neighboring countries since the **conflict** began. These figures, however abstract they may seem in a report, represent one of the worst human displacement **crises** of our contemporary era, comparable in scale to other **humanitarian** disasters that receive markedly greater media attention. ### A **famine** taking hold in silence Beyond displacement, several regions of **Sudan** face documented risks of **famine**, according to international **humanitarian** organizations, a direct consequence of destroyed agricultural infrastructure and the impossibility of delivering **humanitarian** aid to active **conflict** zones. This **famine**, progressively taking hold far from Western cameras, may represent the most tragic aspect of this war: children dying of hunger not by climate accident, but as a direct consequence of human political and military choices. *I think of these Sudanese children every time I write about the abstract geopolitical stakes of this **conflict**. Behind every displacement statistic hides an individual tragedy we collectively choose to ignore.* ## Women and children, the first silent victims ### Gendered violence documented but barely covered Several humanitarian organizations on the ground report disproportionate violence against women and children in areas controlled by the **Rapid Support Forces**, including forced displacement, family separations, and detention conditions denounced by independent observers in **Sudan**. These accounts, gathered by organizations like **Human Rights Watch**, paint the portrait of a civilian **population** caught between two armed forces that, according to multiple converging reports, have both been accused of abuses against the very **populations** they claim to protect. ### An entire generation marked by this conflict Sudanese children growing up at the heart of this **civil war** already carry the psychological and physical scars of a conflict that, for many of them, represents the only reality they have ever known since birth or early childhood. This reality alone should be enough to justify a far more determined international mobilization than the one currently observed, regardless of the cold geopolitical calculations that unfortunately continue to dictate Western humanitarian priorities. *I think of these Sudanese children born in the middle of a civil war, who have never known anything but displacement and fear. This entire generation deserves better than our persistent collective indifference.* ## Regional actors and their murky interests ### A conflict fueled by outside powers This Sudanese civil war is not unfolding in a geopolitical vacuum: several regional and international powers stand accused of providing material, financial, or logistical support to the various warring factions, turning **Sudan** into a new theater of proxy geopolitical rivalries. This outside interference considerably complicates any prospect of a negotiated resolution to the conflict, with each regional power having its own strategic, economic, or security interests in seeing one or another of the warring Sudanese factions prevail. ### An international responsibility largely dodged This **international dimension** of the Sudanese conflict should logically prompt greater diplomatic pressure from major Western powers to end the outside interference fueling this war, but that pressure remains largely insufficient given the scale of the resulting humanitarian **crisis**. I cannot help but notice that this same international community nevertheless knows how to quickly mobilize severe, coordinated sanctions when its own direct strategic interests are at stake, as we saw against **Russia** after its invasion of **Ukraine**. *Here is an uncomfortable truth I must name: our collective outrage seems proportional to the geographic and strategic proximity of a conflict, not to the actual scale of the human suffering it causes.* ## What this silence says about our collective priorities ### An implicit hierarchy of Western compassion This striking contrast between the massive Western mobilization for **Ukraine** and the relative indifference toward **Sudan** reveals an implicit hierarchy in our geopolitical priorities, where geographic, cultural, and strategic proximity appears to largely determine the scale of our collective empathy. I do not claim this hierarchy is purely cynical or devoid of legitimate justification: Russia's invasion of **Ukraine** directly threatens the European security order in a way the Sudanese conflict, however tragic, does not threaten in the same manner. ### A necessary reflection on our own moral limits But this strategic justification is not enough, in my view, to fully excuse the near-total silence surrounding this Sudanese tragedy in Western public debate and in my own columns, which focus overwhelmingly on the Ukrainian conflict. This reflection forces on me a form of humility I do not often express in my usually more pointed writing: I have no simple solution to offer for correcting this attention asymmetry, other than to keep naming the problem whenever the opportunity arises. *I include myself in this criticism, without indulgence. This piece is my attempt, probably insufficient, to correct an imbalance I myself have perpetuated for too long in my work as a columnist.* ## What the **West** could concretely do ### Underused diplomatic and humanitarian levers Despite this relative media indifference, the **West** has concrete diplomatic and humanitarian levers it could mobilize more actively to respond to this Sudanese crisis, including increased humanitarian aid funding and sustained diplomatic pressure on the regional powers fueling this conflict. These levers, though imperfect and insufficient to resolve so complex a conflict on their own, could at minimum ease some of the worst humanitarian consequences of this war, particularly by facilitating food aid access to the most vulnerable populations. ### A moral responsibility beyond mere strategic calculations I continue to believe, despite my own cynicism sometimes displayed toward the cold geopolitical calculations that dominate international relations, that there exists a minimal moral responsibility that should transcend the direct strategic interests alone of major Western powers. This moral responsibility, if taken seriously, would justify a markedly greater Western mobilization than the one currently observed in the face of a humanitarian crisis as vast as the one now striking **Sudan** and its millions of **civilians** displaced or threatened by famine. *I close this section with a simple but, I believe, essential conviction: the value of a human life should never depend on its geographic proximity to our own Western strategic interests.* ## Conclusion: an uncomfortable mirror ### What **Sudan** reveals about our contradictions This timeline of the Sudanese escalation, rigorously documented by sources like **Wikipedia** and the **Council on Foreign Relations**, acts as an uncomfortable mirror revealing the deep contradictions of our Western humanitarian engagement, selective and unevenly distributed according to geopolitical criteria that have little to do with the actual scale of human suffering. I do not claim to resolve this contradiction in this piece, nor to offer a miracle solution to a conflict of such considerable geopolitical complexity. I simply wish, humbly, to name a silence that troubles me and that, I suspect, should trouble my Western readers as well. ### A call not to look away The fall of **el-Fasher** and the growing siege of **el-Obeid** deserve our attention, our outrage, and ideally a far more substantial Western diplomatic and humanitarian mobilization than the one observed so far in response to this tragedy, which continues to worsen amid near-general indifference. I will continue, in my future writing, to try to correct this attention asymmetry, which strikes me as morally unjustifiable, even though I know a single essay will never be enough to undo years of collective silence in the face of this Sudanese war. **By Maxime Marquette, columnist** ## Columnist's transparency note ### Editorial stance I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies. I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events. ### Method and sources This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here. **Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies. **Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations. When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**. ### Nature of the analysis The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted. My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors. This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text. ## Sources ### Primary sources - [Timeline of the Sudanese civil war (2026) — Wikipedia, 2026](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Sudanese_civil_war_(2026)) - [Power struggle in Sudan — Council on Foreign Relations, 2026](https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/power-struggle-sudan) ### Secondary sources - [US raises concern as RSF forces encircle Sudanese city of el-Obeid — Al Jazeera, June 22, 2026](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/6/22/us-raises-concern-as-rsf-forces-encircle-sudanese-city-of-el-obeid) - [Sudan — Human Rights Watch World Report 2026](https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2026/country-chapters/sudan) - [A timeline of key events in Sudan — Arab Center Washington DC, 2026](https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/a-timeline-of-key-events-in-sudan/) - [UN envoy warns of growing risks in El Obeid as Sudan conflict drags on — UN News, June 25, 2026](https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/06/1167810) --- Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/essai-le-soudan-brule-dans-lindifference-et-cela-devrait-nous-hanter