In Sudan, ‘never again’ has proved untrue: UNHCR chief

After the bloody civil war in Sudan’s Darfur region 20 years ago, the world said “never again.”

And yet it is happening again, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi told AFP in a sobering interview.

Since April 2023, a war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has left tens of thousands of people dead and created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.

The violence, with its “ethnic connotations,” is reminiscent of what happened 20 years ago in Darfur, Grandi says. Women have been raped, children forcibly recruited, and there is gruesome violence against people who resist.

In 2003, dictator Omar al-Bashir unleashed the Janjaweed militias on non-Arab communities in Darfur. An estimated 300,000 people were killed and close to 2.5