15 million children require humanitarian support in Sudan,.but it's not really talked about

[TheTallgiraffe]

15 million children require humanitarian support in Sudan.Famine has been declared in 10 locations in Sudan, 12.4 million people have had to flee their homes, 150 000 people have died.

Obviously it's not a competition, but
this conflict doesn't get half as much attention on MN as the Gaza conflict. I wonder why this is?

www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjel2nn22z9o

news.un.org/en/story/2025/04/1162226

news.un.org/en/story/2025/02/1160526

Sudan: 15 million children require humanitarian assistance after two years of war

The number of children in need of humanitarian assistance in Sudan has doubled as the war between rival militaries enters a third year on Tuesday.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/04/1162226

(Yes I posted this earlier in News, but it only got two replies.)

I really hate all these “This terrible thing is happening to people in the world and I’ll use these people’s suffering to attack those who criticise Israel” posts.

Obviously it's not a competition, but
this conflict doesn't get half as much attention on MN as the Gaza conflict. I wonder why this is?

Because 1) it’s a civil war and 2) our state is not supporting either side.

Most of the posts (and articles) aren't about the type of war it is or whether our state is supporting it. They're about the suffering, the cruelty and starvation. That's the same regardless of the type or location of a conflict.

No Jews, no news.

Incredibly depressing

Because it doesn’t involve Jews

Obviously it's not a competition

So why are you making a comparison?

From my view its not talked about because it happens time and time again.People,me, grow weary of being expected to donate AGAIN and AGAIN it never ends. Its old news, however brutal that sounds. We do, to note have a lot of Sudanese men coming in by boats so in a way via tax reciepts we are supporting them whether we want to or not,presumming they are paving the way for family and children they left behind to join them?. We can't save everyone and right now Ukraine and Gaza seem the trendy options, thought I struggle with those two options for very different reasons.

Competition is not the same as comparison.

It's not trendy enough and worthy of signalling virtues. I wonder if all those signallers could point to Sudan on a map. They sure as hell couldn't have pointed to Gaza pre 7/10 - now they are experts on the region.

COMpletely agree with this. It is so extremely offensive to co-opt the suffering of the people in Sudan in order to point-score about the situation in Gaza.

As @StayTrueToo says, the Israeli attacks on Gaza are way more politically relevant here because the UK is supporting Israel in various ways, including supplying weapons, and it also actively involved in attempts to aid a peaceful solution.

Also, if you consumed news media in a more open way, you would likely realise that the Sudan conflict has been covered more than you thought.

Have you yourself commented much on Sudan? Or does it only become comment-worthy when you view it through the lens of the middle east conflict? If the latter, then you are guilty of the attention-bias that you are ascribing to others.

3. because it's muslims killing muslims.

I thought, oh good, a post about Sudan. Shine some attention and get a discussion going.

Now I see you want to use those poor people there to make a political point.

Despicable.

People are quite oddly selective in their virtue signalling I find.
You have a valid point OP.

There's a £120mil aid package that the UK is providing to Sudan. Many charities are collecting and distributing food aid in the region. This is not at all the same situation as in Gaza.

https://www.mediasupport.org/blogpost/silence-kills-the-state-of-media-in-war-torn-sudan/

This article is very interesting as it explains why news is not coming out of Sudan, to summarize there are few journalists left in Sudan and most are working in secret.

Only 12m out of 45 m people in Sudan use the Internet and here is censorship with social media. Again this means there is not wide spread news and social media images.
Now I will say I would not have been totally unaware of the conflict. Back in 2021 Trocaire (Irish charity) ran their Lenten fundraising appeal based on South Sudan which would have included an education pack that as a teacher I would have used with my class.

I posted this on the last thread comparing the two conflicts a few days ago.

Sudan isn't on the list of trendy causes du jour, and no one has told the "right on" crowd to get behind it. 🤷‍♀️ As you can see from some of the replies on this thread, they've all got very Big and Important Reasons why they don't actually care about humanitarian suffering. It's almost like... there's some other reason that people have latched onto Palestine as today's Big Deal.

Huge amounts of food have either been distributed or are waiting to be distributed. Enough for 3000 calories a day for each person in Gaza. The UN are refusing to work with GHF to distribute food as they say it will ' effect their neutrality'. So they would rather Gazans starve.

When food was distributed previously by UN agencies huge amounts of food were stolen by Hamas, stockpiled for themselves and their families and the rest sold to Gazan civilians - when they were supposed to get it for free.

Gazans who have got free food from GHF have expressed surprise at not having to pay for it.

Hamas has done everything it can to sabotage food distribution by GHF as the control of food to Gazans helps to maintain their control, as when as ensuring they could stockpile food for themselves. Hamas have stated openly that the suffering of their civilians aids their cause. They controlled citizens by access to services even before October 7th.

Is a government purposefully blocking aid from reaching the children in Sudan? Is that government an ally of the UK? Is the UK government helping that government even though they are purposefully starving children?

Is a government purposefully blocking aid from reaching the children

Yes, Hamas and UN agencies are doing this.

The way Hamas has been written out of this conflict is just biased and disgraceful.

The post was going so well until you mentioned Gaza. Your constant need to compare the two is becoming very tiring.

This might be of interest to anyone who wants to cut through the noise

I'll listen to multiple aid agencies and governments around the world rather than you random mumsnetter thanks.

You keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better.

I came on to say this.

For a long time Africa in general has been ignored. People just don't care. Its incredibly depressing as the situation in Sudan is a dreadful humanitarian crisis. So it is a good question to ask why the DO care about other areas.

Seriously? You seriously think that the behaviour of Israel attracts attention because of hostility to Jewish people? That is a massive reach. A million people demonstrated in London when the US, aided by the UK, invaded Iraq. What was that? Hostility to Americans and Brits? People don't like asymmetrical warfare. They don't like powerful nations carpet bombing less powerful nations. They don't like violations of international law dressed up as justice.