Opinion Sudan is ignored because the world decided long ago which lives can be abandoned to complexity, invisibility, and silence

Is it because racism runs deeper than we admit, with unconscious bias shaping whose suffering feels more “intelligible” or worthy of attention? Or maybe because, while the perpetrator in the case of Palestine is Israel, it still feels “safe” to criticise a state that is already condemned by much of West Asia (and beyond)? Or perhaps, because the people suffering in El Fasher are visibly Black, and Africa has long been treated as less human in the global imagination?

There are no boycott calls, no widespread BDS-style campaigns, no campus-wide protests, and no tents. No calls to divest from the UAE, no mass mobilisation; nothing close to the solidarity extended elsewhere, despite atrocities so severe that the bloodstains of civilians slaughtered by the RSF have been visible from space through satellite imagery.

In the 31-month war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), more than 11 million people have been displaced, with four million having fled the country as refugees. The UN estimates that 30 million people — more than half the population — now require humanitarian aid. Tens of thousands of civilians have been killed, though the true numbers are difficult to confirm. The UAE is widely thought to be supplying weapons to the RSF, an Arab militia and successor to the Janjaweed, which carried out a genocide in Darfur 20 years ago, though the UAE denies this charge.

The framing of Israel or Russia as acceptable villains in global security politics is absent in Sudan’s case. Unlike Palestinians, whose digital activism played an enormous role in making Gaza’s suffering impossible to ignore, the Sudanese do not have the same collective digital visibility or the infrastructure to broadcast their trauma in real time.

The UAE’s central place in global mobility is another major factor. Almost all major flights have layovers in the UAE, unlike Israel. This shapes who feels comfortable criticising whom. Even in academia, researchers often shy away from examining the UAE’s role in the conflict. The money, visibility, and soft power the UAE provides to academics, institutions, and influencers create a climate in which criticising Gulf monarchies feels risky and professionally dangerous. And to Western policymakers, Sudan is simply not “important” enough — its people not economically or politically valuable enough — to warrant meaningful intervention, as long as gold keeps flowing into global markets.

Since its independence in 1956, Sudan has experienced more than a dozen military coups, multiple civil wars, and the Darfur genocide. The RSF has been terrorising communities for more than a decade. To outside observers, Sudan becomes flattened into an endless loop of violence, not a political emergency demanding response. And yet one of the strongest forces driving the world’s indifference is painfully simple: Skin colour. Sudanese or Black African lives are just not seen as worthy of outrage, solidarity, or global mobilisation.

Western media resorts to language like “chaos,” “tribal conflict,” or “ancient rivalries” — terms that strip Africans of political agency and convert deliberate atrocities into background noise. There is no neatly packaged underdog, as nearly all the groups fighting are implicated in atrocities.

Beyond these complexities, Sudan is ignored because the world decided long ago which lives are allowed to be relatable and grievable, and which can be abandoned to complexity, invisibility, and silence. Until that hierarchy is confronted, the Sudanese people will continue to suffer in the dark.

The writer teaches at University of Edinburgh