Why Does the World Not Care About the Genocide in Sudan?

As a Sudanese writer and OkayAfrica’s North Africa correspondent, I take my responsibility to cover Sudan’s ongoing counterrevolutionary war and genocide very seriously. 

I have written about Sudan through food, films, activism, mutual aid, folktales, tech, and lots of music. Every article includes the line “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis,” and yet I continue to meet people who, after two and a half years, have not even heard of the war.

It can get extremely frustrating, especially in my chosen home, Egypt, where people are acutely aware of the genocide of Palestinians and widely disinterested in the genocide of Sudanese. I keep asking myself what it will take for them to care and why they still choose to be oblivious.

So when Sudanese author and activist Yassmin Abdel-Magied posted a video on her Instagram, asking the same question and offering a framework she called “The Battle of Narrative,” I had to call her and find out more. 

In the video, she reads an excerpt from her Substack essay The Battle of Narrative which she identifies as the crucial distinction between how people relate to the wars in Sudan and Palestine. 

The world is angry about what is happening in Palestine, because they can see with their own eyes that their media and politicians are lying to them while implicating them in atrocities that are funded by their taxes. The battle of narrative between Palestine and Israel can be boiled down to good vs. evil, moral vs. immoral. People choose the position that makes them feel like they’re on the right side of history. 

“Sudan’s challenge is different. There is no battle of narrative. There is an utter lack of narrative,” writes Abdel-Magied. “People are ‘already against this,’ but it doesn’t seem to matter enough. […] Sometimes, a dark, shameful part of me wishes there was a battle of narrative I could engage in. Maybe it would mean Sudanese lives mattered enough to fight about.”

She wrote this text after attending an interview with Egyptian Canadian author Omar El Akkad ahead of the release of his book, One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, in London. The event was packed, and all his books sold out. 

“I remember being very conflicted. The thing I couldn’t stay present for was: I just cannot imagine the same space existing for Sudan,” Abdel-Magied tells OkayAfrica. “I was frustrated at my own inability to put my own feelings aside, because [the Palestinian cause] is something I cared about all my life.” 

After two and a half years of constant war, many Sudanese, especially in the diaspora, are sharing their anger online, calling out the double standard of boycotting Israel, but not the United Arab Emirates, which has been accused by Sudan of supporting the rebel Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Sudanese are also calling out the lack of interest in what is conveniently dubbed “the forgotten war” by most Western news outlets. Their explanation is often anti-Blackness and a general disinterest in Africa. 

“That just can’t be possible, right?” asks Abdel-Magied. “Or maybe it’s possible, but I don’t want that to be the only answer. What else is going on here that is leading people to feel like what is happening [in Gaza] is changing their entire existence in a way that just does not apply to Sudan?”

The evil in the case of Israel-Palestine is embodied by the usual suspects: the state, the media, and the establishment. The narrative is that Israelis are stealing the land from Palestinians, and this narrative can be contested. 

When I probe the problem of Sudan’s narrative on my Instagram story, people respond: “We’re not ‘Arab’ or ‘African’ enough, so both regions don’t really know much about us.” “We are the source of our own agony.” “Sudan doesn’t really tell its own story well, so the world doesn’t hear much about it. We need a rebrand.”

Essentially, the genocide and destruction taking place in Sudan have a complicated history that requires a nuanced understanding. It does not fit neatly into the Western binary of good vs. evil, but it perfectly fits with the world’s understanding of Africans being simple people who like to kill anyone outside their tribe. 

With that in mind, what does it mean to be a writer, journalist, or activist witnessing a genocide that remains unchallenged by advocacy efforts or existing narratives? 

“It's difficult to do any writing about Sudan in a way that doesn't make people feel bad, because usually I'm annoyed, disappointed, or resentful,” says Abdel-Magied. “And people understand that they are part of that, but they don't do anything about it.”

So how can we, how can I, continue to try, knowing that we do not currently matter enough to get people’s attention?

“I no longer write for the other, I write for us,” says Abdel-Magied. “I write to record. What Sudan is going through is so fundamental that if we don’t do that, names, stories, and history will be lost, and then really no one will know.” 

There’s hope in this archiving. If we keep these stories alive, it is because we believe that there will be an after when they will be cherished again. As writers and journalists, we might have to accept that we do not have the power to end this genocide right now, but that does not make our work futile. 

“You are creating a reality when you write. The act of caring enough about something to write about it works against invisibilization,” says Abdel-Magied. “It’s a rejection of erasure.”

As our readership and audience, you too might feel like you cannot stop this genocide, but you can still be a witness to it and support those who are trying to save lives by first and foremost keeping your eyes on Sudan.