In Sudan’s forgotten war, civilians have built their own lifelines

On Monday evening at The Conduit, Dr. Eva Khair opened a discussion on Sudan by warning that the language used to describe the country’s catastrophe has run out of scale. The International Rescue Committee now calls Sudan the largest humanitarian crisis ever recorded. More than 12 million people have been displaced. Nearly half the population, around 30 million people, needs humanitarian assistance. 

Yet outside specialist circles, Sudan remains a distant war, eclipsed by conflicts that command greater diplomatic attention and media coverage. As the civil war enters its third year, that neglect has become one of its defining features. 

The fighting began on April 15, 2023, when a power struggle between Sudan’s army and the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary force, erupted into open warfare. What was framed as a contest between two military leaders has since consumed the country.

Urban neighbourhoods have been shelled and looted, hospitals destroyed, crops burned, and civilians targeted in campaigns of terror. Estimates of the death toll vary widely, but the former United States envoy for Sudan has suggested that as many as 400,000 people may have been killed. 

Speakers The panellists at The Conduit were clear that civilian suffering is not incidental – . Iit is central to the war. “Killing civilians is not a by-product of this conflict,” Dr. Khair said. “It is a goal.” Both sides, she argued, seek to punish communities perceived as disloyal and to destroy the social fabric that might support civilian resistance. 

This is why, she insisted, Sudan’s crisis cannot be solved through humanitarian aid alone. “There needs to be a reimagination of how we do aid,” she said. “This is a political crisis being made every day, and we need political solutions.” 

Those solutions, she and other speakers argued, must include Sudanese civilians themselves, not only the men with guns who dominate international negotiations. At the centre of that civilian response are the Emergency Response Rooms, locally organized networks of volunteers that have become lifelines across much of the country. 

The Emergency Response Rooms, known as ERRs, emerged from Sudan’s long tradition of neighbourhood mutual aid. When state institutions collapsed under decades of authoritarian rule and then outright war, civilians stepped in. Volunteers organized food distribution, first aid, evacuations, community kitchens, and information sharing, often at enormous personal risk. 

According to the Khartoum State Emergency Response Room, their work goes beyond humanitarian relief to be an exercise in “the rebirth of civic life”. The rooms draw on Sudan’s culture of community support to maintain social cohesion, celebrate diversity, and practice principles of human rights and democracy. In doing so, they are laying groundwork not only for survival during the war, but for what might come after it ends. 

For many in the international aid community, this model is precisely what has been promoted for decades. The ERRs are locally led, volunteer-run, and deeply embedded in the communities they serve. They respond to needs identified by people who live there, in culturally appropriate ways. In the language of development policy, they are decolonial organizations in practice. 

“In Sudan, the political state controls the institutions,” Dr. Khair said. “That is why you end up with civil society taking care of health and education.” For decades, she noted, health and education received barely one percent of the national budget. “If you want to see where power is, look to the civilians and the Emergency Response Rooms. They are the ones who respond in the crisis.” 

Their work comes at a steep cost. Civilians are routinely targeted by armed groups. “The most dangerous thing to be in Sudan is a civilian, not a soldier,” Dr. Khair said. ERR volunteers are especially vulnerable because visibility brings risk. When territory changes hands, activists are often labelled collaborators. Some have been detained, tortured or killed. 

Despite this, she said, “the Emergency Response Rooms are keeping people alive. Nobody is recognizing the effort of Sudanese humanitarian workers trying to keep communities together.” 

Dame Rosalind Marsden, a former British ambassador to Sudan and now an associate fellow at Chatham House, argued that supporting these civic groups is one of the most constructive steps foreign governments can take. “My own view is the British government is doing quite a few good things by supporting Emergency Response Rooms,” she said. “It is essential to support all civic groups to unite in the broadest possible civilian front.” 

Such unity matters not only for humanitarian reasons, but for political ones. Marsden suggested that a sufficiently broad civilian coalition could force the international community to take Sudanese civilian leadership seriously in any future peace process. “If there is a broad enough group, the international community will take them seriously,” she said. 

That seriousness has often been lacking. Since the war began, diplomatic efforts have stalled, and international attention has drifted. Funding appeals for Sudan remain dramatically under-resourced. While officials issue statements of concern, the speakers noted, meaningful pressure on the warring parties has been limited. 

The result is a war that grinds on, largely out of sight, with civilians paying the price. The ERRs demonstrate that Sudanese society has not collapsed, even as the state has. They show a form of governance rooted in solidarity rather than coercion, and they challenge assumptions about who holds legitimacy in times of crisis. 

“This is a political crisis,” Dr. Khair said, returning to the theme she opened with. “And civilian groups need to be brought to the table.” 

You can donate to the Khartoum State Emergency Response Room here, and the Mutual Aid Sudan Coalition here.  

The event was in collaboration with Crisis Action. You can learn more about their work in Sudan and elsewhere here.