Calls for Sudan ‘Ceasefire Now’ Grow as 300+ Children Killed, Wounded in 2026 Alone

“Children are not incidental victims; they are directly affected, facing forced recruitment, sexual violence, unlawful detention, torture, and a lack of medical care,” Amnesty International USA stressed.


A starving Sudanese 3-year-old weighing less than 12 pounds lies inside the severe acute malnutrition ward at the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Paris Hospital in Tawila, Sudan in this photo published on May 27, 2026.
(Photo by Giles Clarke/Avaaz via Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Jul 06, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Demands for a ceasefire in Sudan’s three-year civil war mounted this week amid reports that more than 300 children have been killed or injured in the northeastern African nation this year alone, mostly by drone strikes.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said Modaysu that “children across Sudan continue to bear the brunt of a war that is becoming increasingly deadly, with at least 330 children reported killed or injured during the first six months of 2026. Darfur and Kordofan states continued to record the highest levels of child casualties.”

“The situation in and around al-Obeid, and more broadly across North Kordofan, is particularly alarming,” UNICEF continued. “Since May 2026, drone strikes and other attacks have reportedly resulted in more than 35 child casualties in the state, including at least 18 children killed and more than 17 injured. The affected children ranged in age from just 2 months to 17 years. According to reports, drone attacks accounted for 60% of these casualties, highlighting the growing impact of this method of warfare on children and families.”

“Repeated drone strikes and shelling have also damaged civilian infrastructure, including homes, schools, health facilities, water systems, and markets; disrupted supply routes; and placed essential services under increasing strain,” the agency added. “With an estimated 500,000 civilians at risk in and around al-Obeid and across North Kordofan, any further deterioration could expose even more children to death, injury, displacement, and other grave protection risks.”

Amnesty International USA said Monday that both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) rebels “have committed numerous human rights violations, including deliberate attacks on civilians.”

“Ethnic targeting has resulted in assaults on non-Arab communities, with women and girls subjected to sexual violence and exploitation,” Amnesty added. “Children are not incidental victims; they are directly affected, facing forced recruitment, sexual violence, unlawful detention, torture, and a lack of medical care.”



On Monday, the United Nations Human Rights Council approved a measure proposed by five European countries—Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom—condemning escalating RSF-led violence in and around al-Obeid.

While both the SAF adnd RSF have committed documented human rights crimes, an independent United Nations panel released a report earlier this year detailing allegedly genocidal crimes committed by RSF rebels during last October’s offensive in Darfur, where thousands of people were killed and others tortured, raped, and starved during the capture of el-Fasher.

The UN experts found that “genocidal intent is the only reasonable inference that can be drawn” from RSF’s actions.

The ceasefire demands from UNICEF and Amnesty follow similar calls from governments, including France and the United Arab Emirates, as well as other UN agencies.

On Friday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned that “another human rights catastrophe is unfolding” in al-Obeid.



“Civilians have been subjected to siege-like conditions for 18 months, battered by relentless drone attacks as the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces battle for control over areas surrounding the city,” Türk noted.

“Some people are selling their belongings to finance their escape from the city,” he continued. “For many, the exorbitant cost of transport and constant attacks on vehicles along exit routes, make leaving impossible.”

“We have documented patterns of summary executions, abductions, torture and ill-treatment, sexual violence, and looting along the routes taken by displaced people across the Kordofan region,” Türk added. “This is not a drill. It is a red alert that needs to land on the desks of heads of state and government around the world.”

Since April 2023, Sudan’s conflict has killed at least 59,000 people, displaced around 13 million others, and fueled famine in different parts of the country of approximately 52 million inhabitants. More than 30 million Sudanese are also in need of humanitarian assistance.

Sudan’s Proxy War: Gulf Rivalries, Resource Extraction, and the Fragmentation of a State

By Majid Maleki Meighani

July 5, 2026

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

Image by Doyle of London/Wikimediacommons, licensed via CC BY 4.0

Introduction: From Civil War to Regional Systemic Conflict

Sudan’s ongoing war is often described as an internal power struggle between rival military factions. While domestic rivalries are central to the conflict, this framing risks obscuring the broader regional and global dynamics that increasingly shape and sustain it.

What is unfolding in Sudan can also be understood as a case study in how regional competition, resource extraction, and global geopolitical interests intersect in fragile postcolonial states. The conflict is not only internal; it is embedded in wider networks of political economy and external engagement that have developed over decades.

Rather than a conventional civil war, Sudan represents a fragmented conflict environment in which domestic power struggles and external influence are deeply intertwined.

Regional Rivalries and the Externalization of the Conflict

A key dimension of the war is the involvement of regional actors, particularly Gulf states, whose competing interests have contributed to the internationalization of the conflict.

The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have both developed strategic relationships with different elements of Sudan’s military and economic structures. These relationships are often interpreted as part of broader regional competition over influence, security priorities, and access to strategic corridors along the Red Sea.

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which have become a central actor in the conflict, are widely reported to be embedded in Sudan’s gold economy and informal cross-border trade networks. Various investigations and reports have suggested that these networks intersect with external financial and logistical channels connected to regional actors, including Gulf-based intermediaries.

At the same time, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) maintain closer institutional ties with Saudi-aligned regional security frameworks. These overlapping relationships have not created direct control over the conflict, but they have contributed to its persistence by embedding local actors within wider regional systems of support.

Sudan’s Strategic Position and the Political Economy of Gold

Sudan’s geopolitical importance is shaped not only by internal fragility but also by its location along the Red Sea corridor and its resource base, particularly gold.

Over decades of military rule and economic restructuring, state capacity has been weakened and formal economic institutions have partially fragmented. In this context, survival increasingly depends on informal extraction networks, especially in peripheral regions.

Gold extraction has become a key pillar of these networks. These flows are not purely domestic: they are integrated into transnational trade circuits, where regional financial hubs—particularly in the Gulf—play an intermediary role in processing, trading, and circulating value.

This does not imply a single centralized command structure. Rather, it reflects a fragmented political economy in which armed groups, intermediaries, and financial centers each occupy different positions within a broader system of extraction and circulation.

External Powers and the Internationalization of the War Economy

Western governments have consistently called for ceasefires and humanitarian access in Sudan. At the same time, they remain structurally connected to regional security arrangements and arms transfers that shape the broader environment in which the conflict unfolds.

This tension between humanitarian diplomacy and strategic partnership reflects a broader pattern seen in other regional conflicts, including Libya and Yemen, where external involvement has contributed to both containment efforts and the reproduction of instability.

In parallel, emerging global actors such as China and Russia have expanded their engagement in Sudan, primarily through infrastructure projects, resource agreements, and arms-related cooperation. Rather than resolving instability, these engagements have added additional layers to an already fragmented conflict economy.

From Political Transition to Military Fragmentation

The 2019 uprising against Omar al-Bashir briefly opened a period of political transition and raised expectations of civilian governance. However, the absence of durable institutional restructuring, combined with the entrenched power of military and economic networks, left the transition highly vulnerable.

The 2021 coup and the outbreak of full-scale war between the SAF and RSF in 2023 marked the collapse of this transitional process. Since then, Sudan has experienced a deepening fragmentation of authority and increasing competition over territorial, economic, and logistical control.

War as an Economic System

One of the defining features of the current conflict is the extent to which it has become economically self-reproducing.

Gold extraction, smuggling routes, taxation systems imposed by armed actors, and external financial flows have together created a war economy that operates with a degree of autonomy from any unified political project.

In this context, violence is not only a means of accessing political power. It also functions as a mechanism of economic accumulation. This dynamic makes the conflict particularly difficult to resolve, as multiple actors derive material benefit from its continuation.

Conclusion: Fragmented Sovereignty and Prolonged Instability

Sudan illustrates a broader transformation in contemporary conflict dynamics, where internal wars are increasingly shaped by external networks of influence, extraction, and finance.

Sovereignty in this context remains formally intact but is practically fragmented. The distinction between internal and external conflict has become increasingly blurred, as domestic actors are embedded in transnational systems of support and accumulation.

The future of Sudan will depend not only on military developments on the ground, but also on whether these intersecting networks of extraction and external involvement can be meaningfully restructured.

Without such a transformation, any political settlement is likely to remain fragile, and the cycle of fragmentation may persist in new forms.Email

Majid Maleki Meighani

Majid Maleki Meighani, (sometimes writing under the name Majid Maleki), is an Iranian political analyst, writer, and translator. He was imprisoned for his political activities. His work focuses on critical analysis of Iran’s labor movement, the political left, anti-imperialist critiques of geopolitics, and social movements in West Asia and the Global South. His analysis is grounded in direct fieldwork and interviews within local communities. He has translated into Persian Walter LaFeber’s Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America and the collection Voices of the Arab Spring. He has been a contributor to ZNetwork, Tribune Zamane, and Akhbar-e Rooz. You can access his full body of work on his author page on ZNetwork.

Hamad Gamal: The War Was Started to Crush the Sudanese Revolution

Nelson Pereira

 July 7, 2026

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Hamad Ganale, photo by Nelson Pereira.

As the UN warns of the imminent threat of another large-scale massacre in Sudan, activists from the Sudanese democratic movement in exile denounce a war launched to end the popular revolution that began in December 2018. They argue that the war is supported by foreign powers eager to control the country’s resources and not interested in enabling a democratic transition in Sudan.

“War was the last resort chosen to crush the revolution, after several attempts to manipulate the revolutionary movement failed,” says Hamad Gamal, a Sudanese activist exiled in France.

The popular protests succeeded in overthrowing dictator Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. The army, however, remained in power, initially forming alliances with civilian parties, but ultimately regaining total control through a military coup on October 25, 2021.

“By choosing to sign an agreement with the counter-revolutionary military forces rather than pursuing the revolution to its conclusion, the Forces of Freedom and Change bear direct political responsibility,” Hamad emphasizes. “The military coup and the current war are the culmination of this flawed trajectory.”

For the Sudanese activist, the agreement reached by the military with the Forces of Freedom and Change was nothing more than a strategy to hijack the revolution. “It was at this point that we saw the first attempt to confiscate the revolutionary mobilization.”

However, the democratic forces understood that this was a move against the revolution and against the revolutionaries and did not abandon their demand for a democratic transition. A sit-in was organized in front of the army headquarters in Khartoum. But on June 3, 2019, soldiers and militiamen violently dispersed the protesters, killing more than 130 people.

“At that point, the revolutionary force agreed to sign an agreement with the army. But while the activists saw this agreement as a transition to a phase of stability, the army saw it as a new opportunity to hijack the revolutionary movement,” explains Hamad.

Determined to thwart the objectives of the democratic front and thus undermine the credibility of a civilian solution, the army realized that, despite the obstacles, civilians were achieving more or less significant results on the ground. The military then decided to stage a coup on October 25, 2021, seizing total power. “This coup triggered a second phase of mobilization. People once again took to the streets en masse to protest the coup, but also to continue the revolutionary work. This time, however, with much more radicalism, with much more determination,” underlines the Sudanese activist.

“After the failure of all attempts to discourage popular mobilization, from hijacking to obstruction and even the coup itself, the military understood that the people remained determined to resist, despite the repression, and decided to subject Sudanese civil society to the horror, to the extreme experience of war,” details Hamad Gamal. “Putting a country to fire and blood is the most effective way to stop a revolutionary mobilization.”

On April 15, 2023, war broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), one of the militias created in the 2000s by Omar al-Bashir to suppress local rebellions, even though an agreement to integrate this paramilitary group into the army was expected. The war shattered the hopes of a civil and democratic revolution and forced many activists involved in the revolution into exile.

For Hamad Gamal, this is primarily a counter-revolutionary war, waged by two armed structures created by the dictator al-Bashir: the army and the RSF paramilitaries. It is also a proxy war, since each side in this conflict is supported by foreign powers eager to control the country’s natural resources and strategic position.

While the Sudanese army receives both military and diplomatic assistance from Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is accused of providing military support to the RFS paramilitary militias, notably through mercenary forces. This support is linked to the UAE’s interest in controlling the Sudanese gold trade, as Dubai is a hub for gold illegally mined by the Rapid Support Forces.

Since the beginning of the conflict, the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF have committed numerous human rights violations, including deliberate attacks against civilians. According to the United Nations, the war has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 12 million, including nearly one million in Chad. More than 30 million people are in need of humanitarian aid, and extreme famine is affecting the Darfur and Kordofan regions.

As the city of El-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, has been besieged by the RSF paramilitaries for several months and violence continues to escalate, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, issued a “red alert” on July 3, describing it as “a new human rights catastrophe” in Sudan.

El-Obeid, a city of half a million inhabitants, hosts approximately 100,000 refugees displaced by violence elsewhere in the country.

Mukesh Kapila, former UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, warned that the dramatic situation in El-Obeid could have an even more serious outcome than what unfolded in El-Fasher in 2024-2025.

El-Fasher was besieged for over a year and a half by the Rapid Support Forces before falling under their control. Civil society organizations had been warning for months about the famine gripping the city and the mortal danger faced by its inhabitants, but their pleas went unheeded by the international media. In December 2025, a whistleblower revealed that warnings about a possible “genocide” in El-Fasher had been removed from a risk assessment conducted by the British Foreign Office to protect the UAE.

The RSF militia’s capture of the city in October 2025 was accompanied by mass killings of the inhabitants, among the worst atrocities committed since the start of the war. It is estimated that over 60,000 people were killed in just a few days.

“The Sudanese people fought for universal values ​​and suffered violent repression and a war ignored by the international community due to commercial interests involving many countries,” Hamad emphasizes. “The companies whose governments participate in this neocolonial system now have a duty of solidarity towards Sudan,” the Sudanese activist concludes.

Hamad Gamal is a Sudanese activist exiled in France, Hamad Gamal is the co-founder of Sudfa Media, a Franco-Sudanese media platform created in the context of the revolutionary mobilization in Sudan. He co-directed, with Sarah Bachellerie, the documentary film “Jusqu’au bout!” which shows the efforts of Sudanese exiles to keep the revolution alive from exile.