It’s been just over a year since Sudan erupted into conflict, forcing 8 million people from their homes and 5 million people toward famine.
It started as an internal power struggle between two rival generals — Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo of the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group, and Abdel Fattah al-Burhan of the Sudanese Armed Forces. But it has devolved into a complex humanitarian crisis — the fallout of which, according to testimony given on Wednesday to U.S. lawmakers, has remained invisible to the rest of the world.
“We don’t have a credible death count. We literally don’t know how many people have died, possibly to a factor of 10 or 15,” Tom Perriello, the U.S. special envoy for Sudan, told a senate hearing on Wednesday. “Because of telecom blackouts, and because of the rampant harassment, abuse and detention of civil society actors, we have not always gotten a complete record.”