Children and women hardest hit in Sudan War
Three years after war erupted in 2023 between Sudan’s two main militias - the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) - workers, women, children, and the poor have suffered most. A power struggle between generals who toppled the civilian government in October 2021, after the 2018 revolution, has become a war on society.
Millions had mobilised in that revolution: workers striking and rebuilding unions, women leading, and over 8,000 resistance committees coordinating action - foundations that enabled emergency response networks to emerge on day one of the war and sustain millions.
The destruction is immense: hundreds of thousands killed and millions displaced. Workplaces, farms, and markets have been destroyed, driving mass hunger as famine looms and food systems collapse. Starvation and displacement are used as weapons of war. In Darfur, this has taken the form of ethnic cleansing and genocidal violence, with mass killing, forced displacement, and organised terror against entire communities.
Children are among the hardest hit: millions are out of school, facing hunger, disease, and trauma, with an entire generation being shaped by war and loss.
Women face systematic sexual violence - rape, gang rape, sexual slavery, and abduction - used to terrorise and displace communities. For working-class women holding families together under impossible conditions, this is compounded by the collapse of healthcare, education, and basic services.
Both SAF and RSF are responsible for these crimes. Both are enemies of Sudan’s revolution, targeting activists, trade unionists, grassroots organisers, and anyone who says NO to war.
This is a counter-revolutionary war sustained by arms and political backing from Western and regional powers, including the UK. While fuelling mass displacement, these same states close their borders to Sudanese refugees, block student visas, and deepen racist immigration policies.
Yet the revolution has not been defeated. Across Sudan and in exile, resistance committees, emergency response rooms, trade unionists, activists, and women’s organisations continue to organise under extreme conditions, support communities, and sustain the struggle for civilian rule and social justice.
For the international labour movement, Sudan is not a distant crisis. It shows how imperialist war devastates working people. Real change will not come from deals between armed elites, but from the independent organisation of Sudan’s working class and international solidarity.
We must oppose arms sales, end complicity, dismantle racist policies, and stand in active solidarity with Sudan’s workers and revolutionaries.