Sudan war has led to 11,000 missing people

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has announced that more than 11,000 people have gone missing in Sudan since the outbreak of war three years ago, with thousands of cases still lacking information about the victims’ fate, according to Middle East Monitor and agencies on April 15th.

Since the Sudan war started in April 2023, the number of missing person cases has increased significantly; the war is being fought between Sudanese government forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which receives UAE funding. 

Over the last year, the number of missing persons cases has increased by 40%, but the documented figure represents only a small fraction of the crisis’s true scale.

Additionally, the war has led to the forced displacement of millions of people, with many seeking refuge in countries throughout Africa and abroad.

Poverty levels have also soared in the same timeframe, with over 70% of the population living below the poverty line in conflict-affected areas, such as Darfur and Kordofan.

Sexual violence as a weapon of war against civilians has been a central feature of this war, and many of these acts are being committed by men with arms.

Due to the civil war, it has been difficult to track and prevent sexual violence because of the sheer amount of acts of violence that are involved in a war; people are also likely afraid to speak up against the perpetrators, who are often from paramilitary groups.

The influx of arms into Sudan from countries including Kenya and the UAE, and the continuity of drone attacks that have been happening in Sudan and in neighbouring countries, suggest that the civil war will not end soon.  

In October 2025, human rights activists warned that atrocities committed amid the civil war could be a “continuation of the Darfur genocide.”

An estimated 300,000 people were killed between August 2003 and March 2004 when pro-government forces, known as Janjaweed, or “Devils on Horseback”, committed ethnically-motivated violence against non-Arab Sudanese residents. 

Reportedly, the RSF are viewed as the Janjaweed’s successors, with the UN warning in June 2025 that the risk of genocide occurring in Sudan was “very high.” 

Middle East Monitor and agencies, Maghrebi.org