As Sudan’s brutal civil war marks its third year, world leaders gathered in London on Tuesday (15 April) to confront what many now call the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet.
Hosted by the United Kingdom, Germany, France, the European Union, and the African Union, the one-day summit aims to raise urgent funds for Sudan, where violence has killed tens of thousands and displaced over 13 million people. Notably absent from the talks were representatives from Sudan’s warring factions — the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — both accused of war crimes. The conflict, which erupted in April 2023 after a breakdown in power-sharing between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, has splintered the country and plunged it toward famine.
British foreign secretary David Lammy, announcing €140 million in aid, denounced the “brutal war” that the world must no longer ignore. Germany pledged €125 million, while aid organizations warned that nearly 25 million Sudanese face severe hunger. Two years of “a ruinous war” in Sudan had left civilians “trapped in a relentless nightmare of death and destruction,” said the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric.
The RSF continues to hold much of Darfur and Sudan’s south, while the army recently reclaimed Khartoum. With no peace talks on the table, the London summit has focused on immediate relief and preventing regional spillover. Aid agencies like Oxfam warned that neighboring nations, already fragile, risk deeper instability from Sudan’s escalating crisis. As civilian suffering intensifies, international actors are under growing pressure to not only fund humanitarian relief — but forge a path to peace.