Sudan Files: The Unseen - Part 2
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The famine is confirmed. This episode is not about the numbers. It is about who built the architecture that produced them.
The RSF looted a WFP warehouse in Wad Madani in December 2023. The SAF imposed a de facto blockade on medical supplies in RSF-held areas. The Sudanese government suspended its participation in the international famine monitoring system in December 2024. Visa backlogs blocked international aid workers. The Jeddah process and the Geneva talks excluded the Emergency Response Rooms, the Resistance Committees and the 15 million displaced. The famine is the outcome. The architecture that produced it is a documented set of decisions made by named parties.
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RSF looting · WFP Wad Madani warehouse December 2023 · 7 million people unable to access aid August-September 202402 / 07
RSF and allied militias looted a WFP warehouse in Wad Madani in December 2023. By August-September 2024, 7 million people could not access humanitarian assistance.
Human Rights Watch documented in April 2024 that RSF and allied militias had repeatedly attacked and looted humanitarian infrastructure, specifically naming the World Food Programme warehouse in Wad Madani in December 2023. The RSF's presence and incursion into hospitals and widespread looting of aid prevented civilians from accessing assistance across multiple locations. OCHA reported that between August and September 2024, nearly 7 million people could not access humanitarian assistance due to access constraints including arbitrary denials.
The Welthungerhilfe analysis documented that the RSF not only looted warehouses but through its affiliated agency SARHO imposed travel restrictions and hindered humanitarian operations in RSF-controlled areas. Livestock were looted or forcibly taken on at least 85 documented occasions between April 15 2023 and November 30 2024, attributed mainly to the RSF and allied Arab militias across Darfur and Kordofan. At least 236 violent incidents at markets were recorded in the same period. ReliefWeb, January 2025.
Source: Human Rights Watch, Sudan April 2024 · OCHA Sudan humanitarian updates 2024 · ReliefWeb, Sudan crisis famine conditions report, January 2025 · Welthungerhilfe, Sudan famine analysis
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SAF blockade on medical supplies · MSF suspended Turkish Hospital · Zamzam camp halted February 202503 / 07
SAF imposed a de facto blockade on medical supplies in RSF-held areas. MSF suspended operations at the Turkish Hospital in Khartoum. Both MSF and WFP halted Zamzam camp operations in February 2025.
The SAF-aligned authorities imposed a de facto blockade on medical supplies entering RSF-controlled areas of Khartoum. Human Rights Watch World Report 2025 documented this directly. MSF suspended its activities at the Turkish Hospital in Khartoum following repeated violent incidents at the facility and ongoing obstruction by armed parties. This was not an isolated event. The ReliefWeb tracker documented that the MSF-supported Saudi Obstetrics and Gynaecology Hospital in El Fasher was hit by RSF shelling on January 4 2025, killing two people and injuring two health workers. It was the 14th attack on that facility since the conflict began.
In February 2025, both MSF and WFP were forced to halt operations in Zamzam displacement camp due to RSF attacks and heavy fighting. The famine in Zamzam had been confirmed in August 2024. The camp hosts approximately 400,000 displaced people. The first WFP convoy to reach Zamzam since the August famine declaration arrived only on November 23 2024, three months after the declaration. When it arrived, the RSF looted the convoy as it passed through Armel on the border between West and North Kordofan. ReliefWeb, November 2024.
Source: Human Rights Watch World Report 2025 · MSF Sudan operations documentation · ReliefWeb, Sudan famine conditions, January 2025 · Welthungerhilfe, Sudan famine analysis
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Visa backlogs · Travel permit denials · Technical agreement delays · Welthungerhilfe documented04 / 07
A backlog in visa issuance limited the capacity of humanitarian organisations. SAF-backed authorities delayed technical agreements and denied travel permits in Gedaref and Kassala.
Welthungerhilfe documented that SAF-backed authorities imposed bureaucratic and administrative obstacles to humanitarian access. In Gedaref and Kassala, humanitarian operations were constrained through delays in signing technical agreements, denial of travel permits and interference in beneficiary targeting. A backlog in visa issuance limited the capacity of humanitarian organisations to deploy staff. The SAF-aligned authorities also denied authorisation to the UN to use a key border crossing with Chad from February 2024. The crossing was only opened for three months in August 2024 following US-led talks in Geneva.
The Sudanese government's obstruction of international humanitarian access has a documented precedent. Human Rights Watch noted in April 2024 that SAF's unlawful obstruction of aid follows decades of hostility and routine obstruction under former President Omar al-Bashir. The pattern is not new. It is a continuation of a documented policy of using humanitarian access as a political instrument, now practised by both armed parties simultaneously against different civilian populations.
Source: Welthungerhilfe, hunger in Sudan 2025 · Human Rights Watch, Sudan April 2024 · ReliefWeb, Sudan crisis famine conditions January 2025
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IPC suspension December 2024 · Sudan government denied famine · Monitoring system removed from inside05 / 07
December 2024. The Sudanese government suspended its participation in the IPC famine monitoring system, accusing it of issuing unreliable reports.
On December 23 2024, the Sudanese government suspended its participation in the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the international standard for measuring and declaring famine, accusing the organisation of issuing "unreliable reports that undermine Sudan's sovereignty and dignity." The IPC had declared famine conditions in North Darfur's Zamzam camp in August 2024. The government's suspension of participation removed Sudan from the famine monitoring system at the moment the system was documenting the worst outcomes. The famine continued whether the government participated in measuring it or not.
The authorities also downplayed the state of food insecurity and denied famine in public communications, while simultaneously blocking the humanitarian access that would have allowed aid to reach famine-affected populations. The combination of denial, obstruction and suspension of monitoring created a documented architecture: the mechanism producing the famine, the mechanism blocking the response to it, and the mechanism preventing the documentation of it were all operated by or with the cooperation of named parties to the conflict.
Source: ReliefWeb, Sudan famine timeline 2024 · Welthungerhilfe, hunger in Sudan 2025 · IPC famine declarations 2024
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Jeddah process · Geneva talks · SAF and RSF at the table · No civilian seat · ICG documented exclusion06 / 07
The Jeddah process. The Geneva talks. SAF and RSF at the table. No seat for the Emergency Response Rooms. No seat for the 15 million displaced.
The August 2024 Geneva talks convened by the United States included Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE as mediators and the SAF and RSF as the two negotiating parties. The talks were structured to produce a ceasefire agreement between the two armed parties. The Emergency Response Rooms, the Resistance Committees, the Sudan People's Aid Network and the civilian population they represent were not represented at the table. ICG and the Sudan Humanitarian Fund documented the systematic exclusion of civilian voices from both the Jeddah process and the Geneva talks.
The consequences of this exclusion are documented. Ceasefire agreements negotiated without civilian representation have consistently failed to protect civilians in Sudan. The Jeddah process produced a series of ceasefires, none of which held. The Geneva process produced a temporary opening of one border crossing for three months. The 26,000 ERR volunteers who are keeping the civilian population partially alive had no voice in either process. The architecture of the negotiation excludes the architecture of the survival.
Source: Arab Center DC, Sudan Timeline March 2026 · ICG Sudan documentation · Sudan Humanitarian Fund reporting · OCHA Sudan April 2026
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The question. Not a claim. Series continues next week.07 / 07
The warehouse looted. The convoy blocked. The visa denied. The famine confirmed. The monitoring system suspended. The negotiating table that excluded the displaced. What is the name for a famine that is documented as man-made and is still called a crisis?
Sudan Files: The Unseen continues next week. Part 3 of 4: The Forgotten Precedent. The Responsibility to Protect was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2005 in direct response to Darfur. Twenty years later the same region, the same armed formations, the same pattern. The UN said genocide again. What does that tell us about what was actually built in 2005?
Some stories are buried on purpose. We dig.
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