The Unfolding Genocide in Sudan

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

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4.2 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 16 June 2025

⏱️ 21 minutes

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Summary

The New Yorker recently published a report from Sudan, headlined “Escape from Khartoum.” The contributor Nicolas Niarchos journeyed for days through a conflict to reach a refugee camp in the Nuba Mountains, where members of the country’s minority Black ethnic groups are seeking safety, but remain imperilled by hunger. The territory is “very significant to the Nuba people,” Niarchos explains to David Remnick. “They feel safe being there because they have managed to resist genocide before by hiding in these mountains. And then you start seeing the children with their distended bellies, and you start hearing the stories of the people who fled.” The civil war pits the Sudanese Army against a militia group called the Rapid Support Forces. Once allies in ousting Sudan’s former President, the Army and the R.S.F. now occupy different parts of the country, destroying infrastructure in the opposing group’s territory, and committing atrocities against civilians: killing, starvation, and widespread, systematic sexual violence. The warring parties are dominated by Sudan’s Arabic-speaking majority, and “there’s this very, very toxic combination of both supremacist ideology,” Niarchos says, and “giving ‘spoils’ to troops instead of paying them.” One of Niarchos’s sources, a man named Wanis, recalls an R.S.F. soldier telling him, “If you go to the Nuba Mountains, we’ll reach you there. You Nuba, we’re supposed to kill you like dogs.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the political scene. I'm David Remnick.
0:08.3	Early each week, we bring you a conversation from our episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour.
0:15.5	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:23.9	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Your news feed is undoubtedly filled with the
0:29.8	crises in Los Angeles and Washington. From abroad, it's likely filled with stories from the
0:35.1	Middle East and Ukraine. But the Civil War in Sudan, which the State Department is called a genocide,
0:42.3	receives relatively little attention.
0:45.6	Recently, the New Yorker published a brilliant report from Sudan
0:48.6	by a longtime contributor, Nicholas Nyarkos.
0:52.3	The Civil War pits the Sudanese army against a militia group
0:56.0	controlled by a billionaire general. The groups were formerly allies, but now they occupy different
1:02.8	parts of the country, destroying infrastructure in the opposing groups' territory, and committing
1:08.0	atrocities against civilians, atrocities that are directed in particular
1:12.7	against members of Sudan's black ethnic groups. At least 9,000 civilians have been killed in the last two
1:20.1	years. Over 5 million people have been displaced. That's all according to Human Rights Watch.
1:26.3	And I want to mention that our story today addresses widespread sexual violence carried out by soldiers.
1:32.6	It may not be appropriate for some listeners.
1:35.4	Our writer Nicholas Nyarkos did his reporting from a refugee camp deep in Sudan's Nuba Mountains.
1:43.7	Nick, the war in Sudan is something that has not been covered nearly enough,
1:48.0	and you did a remarkable piece in The New Yorker, and you were recently there.
1:53.0	How did you get there, and what did you see?
1:58.0	I joined up with a Human Rights watch team and flew to South Sudan, and then we took
	...

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