Sudan’s civil war has left at least an estimated 62,000 dead—but the true figure could be far higher

[Pelican Press 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Sudan’s civil war has left at least an estimated 62,000 *****—but the true figure could be far higher

Credit: The Conversation

The

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

has often been overlooked amid higher-profile conflicts raging across multiple continents. Yet the lack of media and geopolitical attention to this 18-month-long conflict has not made its devastation in terms of human lives any less stark.

Since fighting broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, both of which had been part of a power-sharing military government, the country has seen the displacement of

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

and the carving up of the country by geography and ideology.

And while we may never know the exact ****** toll, the conflict in Sudan is certainly among the deadliest in the world today.

As scholars of

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, conflict and

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

and

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, we are keenly aware of how fraught it can be to estimate mortality in war for a slew of practical and political reasons. But such estimates are of critical importance: They allow us to understand and compare conflicts, target humanitarian aid for those still at risk, trigger investigations of war *******, bear witness to conflict and compel states and armed groups to intervene or change.

The difficult work of counting the *****

A profound humanitarian crisis is occurring in Sudan, characterized by

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

and the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, complicated further by flooding in the northern states.

Considering a ****** toll in such a conflict includes counting not only those who are ******* as a direct result of *********—itself a difficult thing to determine in real time—but also those who have ***** by conflict-exacerbated factors, such as the absence of emergency care, the breakdown of vaccination programs and a lack of essential food and medicine. Estimating this latter ****** toll, called indirect mortality, presents its own challenge, as the definition itself varies among researchers.

In congressional testimony, U.S. special envoy to Sudan Tom Perriello

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

when noting there had been anywhere between 15,000 and 150,000 deaths in Sudan—an exceedingly wide range that was attributable, in part, to the complexity of determining indirect mortality.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

(ACLED), a nonprofit specializing in conflict-related data collection,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

an average of more than 1,200 direct conflict deaths per month in Sudan, with nearly 19,000 deaths in the first 15 months of the conflict. This figure is similar to the 20,000 deaths

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

by the Sudan Doctors Union and the 19,000

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

the Sudan Protection Cluster, a centralized group of U.N. agencies and NGOs that used World Health Organization data.

ACLED

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

of deaths from traditional media, reports from international NGOs and local observers, supplemented by new media such as verified Telegram and WhatsApp accounts. The Sudan Doctors Union, on the other hand, gives on-the-ground estimates of conflict deaths.

When available, distinct data sources such as surveys, civil registers and official body counts can make an estimation more accurate. However, this data is often available only in retrospect, after the cessation of conflict. It is therefore critical to use both the available data and precedents from previous conflicts to capture a reasonable estimate of the human costs of an ongoing conflict.

A 2010 article in The Lancet estimated that there are

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, based on data from 24 small-scale surveys conducted in Darfur from 2003 to 2005. As such, using ACLED’s data of 18,916 direct deaths, we estimate that in the current Sudan conflict, there are an additional 43,507 indirect deaths—or more than 62,000 total deaths.

We believe our estimate is very *************. When estimating mortality in the ongoing conflict in Gaza, a different group of scholars,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, used a multiplier of four indirect deaths for every direct ****** to estimate the overall mortality there.

Meanwhile, a

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

showed an average of 5.8 indirect deaths for every direct ****** across 13 armed conflicts from 1974 to 2007.

Using that latter multiplier, the number of indirect deaths in Sudan would jump to nearly 110,000—meaning the total deaths in the region amount to 130,000—double our estimate.

This range is wide, but it acknowledges how difficult it can be to estimate indirect deaths and how they can vary significantly with the shape of a conflict.

The Sudanese conflict in context

For all the tremendous loss of life these numbers reflect, they surely underestimate the true human costs of the conflict.

Sudan

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

and

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

before the fighting started. And compared with other ongoing conflicts such as in

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

and

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, there was already a more precarious baseline, with

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

and lower life expectancy.

Since the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

began, there have been

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

of

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, forced disappearances,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, deliberate blocking of food and medicine, and other forms of

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

.

Much of the ********* is ethnically targeted, and the Darfur region—where a

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

—has suffered disproportionately.

The destruction of civilian infrastructure and

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

are preventing medicine, food, clean water and vaccinations from getting to in-need populations.

Health care workers and facilities, not only in at-risk Darfur but also throughout the country,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

. Nearly 80% of medical facilities have been rendered inoperable. And at least 58 physicians

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, in addition to the many that were

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

.

Given the persistent targeting of health care systems and

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, indirect deaths in Sudan are likely to grow as hospitals shut down, even in the capital Khartoum, due to bombardments, ground attacks and a lack of critical supplies.

The costs for Sudanese children are especially alarming. Thirteen children **** per day in Zamzam camp in North Darfur, according to Doctors Without Borders, mostly due to

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

.

And nearly 800,000 Sudanese children will

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

through 2024, a condition that requires intensive care and supplemental nutrition merely to prevent ******. Even before the conflict, children were severely threatened

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, including basic preventive care such as early immunization.

Finally, the transmission of communicable *********

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, where there has been widespread population displacement, malnutrition, limited water and sanitation, and lack of appropriate sheltering.

In August, a

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

led to a

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

of more than 31 deaths per 1,000 cholera cases. And instances of such ******** effects are likely to be underestimates in a country lacking health care ************ and monitoring.

The limitations of estimations

The massive internal displacement of

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

in Sudan complicates the estimation of ****** tolls, as shifting populations make establishing baselines nearly impossible.

Moreover, there is typically a

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

during conflicts.

So establishing a concrete estimate of the true impact of armed conflict

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

after the cessation of hostilities,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

.

Even then, estimates will require assumptions about direct deaths, indirect-to-direct ****** ratio and the quality of existing data.

But as scholars working at the intersection of public health and human rights, we believe such work, however imperfect, is necessary for the documentation of conflict—and its future prevention. And while there are many current global conflicts that require our urgent attention, the conflict in Sudan must not be lost in the mix.

Israa Hassan, a physical medicine and rehabilitation resident at Texas Rehabilitation Hospital-Fort Worth and

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, contributed to this article.

Provided by
The Conversation

This article is republished from

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

under a Creative Commons license. Read the

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

.

Citation:
Sudan’s civil war has left at least an estimated 62,000 *****—but the true figure could be far higher (2024, November 2)
retrieved 2 November 2024
from

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#Sudans #civil #war #left #estimated #deadbut #true #figure #higher

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up