"There are extreme levels of suffering across the country, the needs are growing by the day, but the humanitarian response is deeply inadequate."

This is how the head of Doctors Without Borders, Christos Christou, recently described the impact of the war that broke out in Sudan a year ago.

The conditions are appalling in refugee camps in some of the hardest hit areas, he said. There's not enough drinking water, food or other aid, and hygiene facilities are non-existent. "I urge international organizations to scale up their response," Christou wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on April 8.

According to the United Nations, about a third of the country's population, or 18 million people, are facing acute hunger. Most of these people are in areas where aid agencies have little or no access, UN agencies have said.

Fighting in Sudan has been ongoing since April 2023, with two large military groups facing off against one another. These are the Sudanese Armed Forces, or SAF, which has about 200,000 personnel and is headed by General Abdel Fattah Burhan; it works more like a regular army. The other is the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, which is estimated to have 70,000 to 100,000 personnel and is headed by Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti.

The conflict began last year after a proposal — part of Sudan's democratic transition, that would have seen the RSF absorbed by the SAF — worsened tensions between the two factions. The growing political ambitions held by RSF........

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