To Meddle or to Mend

Sudan’s war shows why home must be protected, not just borders / Heritage, Memory, and the Right to Stay

Image by Fethi Belaid

Too often, the global debate on migration begins at the edge of someone else’s land, with fences, checkpoints, and quarrels over who should be let in or kept out. But displacement does not begin at the border; it begins when home itself is shattered. The people of Sudan are not leaving because they want to. They are leaving because belonging has become dangerous, identity has been weaponised, and the simple act of staying has turned into a fight for survival.

No Safe Haven

Since April last year, Sudan has been convulsed by a devastating conflict between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The scale of destruction, displacement, and death is almost beyond comprehension. More than 150,000 lives have been lost, over 14 million people displaced, and tens of millions more left in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. This is one of the worst humanitarian crises of the 21st century, and yet it remains dangerously neglected by much of the world.

For those still inside Sudan, the daily landscape is one of dread. People walk their own country in turmoil, haunted by the absence of loved ones, or the gnawing uncertainty of those still missing. In Sudan today, identity itself has become dangerous. The war has turned ethnicity, skin tone, and community ties into reasons for persecution.

The RSF, descended from the Janjaweed militias that terrorised Darfur in the 2000s, has been accused of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. Mass graves have been discovered. Sexual violence has been used as a weapon of war. Civilians are targeted not for what they do but for who they are. Meanwhile, the army’s own suspicions mark others as collaborators, leaving entire groups under threat whichever side controls their region.

Belonging, which should be the anchor of identity, is now a source of mortal risk.

The Desperate Flight South

For many, survival has meant flight. South Sudan itself, one of the poorest countries in the world, scarred by its own civil war, has become the destination for hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees.

At Renk, a remote border town, UN-run transit centres are overwhelmed. Since fighting broke out, more than half a million people have crossed into South Sudan. Exhausted families arrive with little but their memories of home. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has mounted a vast effort to prevent Renk from becoming a permanent camp: over 1,200 flights have carried people onward, more than 100,000 have endured three-night journeys by boat along the Nile, and others have been taken by road where possible. Yet the scale of arrivals far outstrips resources, and funding is running out.

Starvation and Siege

The situation in Darfur is particularly dire. El Fasher, the last army-held city in the region, has been under RSF siege for more than 16 months. 260,000 civilians are trapped, cut off from aid and facing starvation. Elsewhere, darker-skinned and non-Arab communities are targeted for their very existence.

The echoes of the Janjaweed atrocities of the early 2000s are unmistakable — the same logics of racial persecution, the same cycles of impunity, and the same global indifference.

Migration and Misunderstanding

What is happening in Sudan should force us to rethink how we talk about migration in the West. Politicians often reduce the issue to border controls, deterrence, or suspicion of asylum seekers. But what choice do people truly have when home is turned into a battlefield, when culture and memory are uprooted, when family, music, language, and traditions are left behind under duress?

The displaced people of Sudan did not want to leave. They carried within them not only grief but also attachment: to land, to heritage, to art and community. Leaving is not liberation; it is loss. And yet, too often, the global debate ignores this truth.

If leaders in wealthy nations are serious about addressing so-called “illegal immigration,” then the answer lies not in fear-mongering or fortress politics but in addressing the causes of displacement at their roots. People will not risk everything to cross seas and borders if their homes are safe, their rights protected, and their futures possible.

So many conflicts, Sudan included, are worsened by external meddling, by the interests of foreign powers who fuel division for their own gain. What if, instead of meddling, there was mending? What if the same energies were spent on supporting peace, rebuilding homes, and ensuring dignity where people already belong?

To Mend, Not to Meddle

Today, Sudanese people find no safe haven: not in their homes, not in their streets, and not even across the border. The war has stolen belonging itself, turning identity into danger and leaving entire generations adrift.

Neglect is complicity. To turn away is to permit the erasure of communities and cultures, to allow displacement to grow, and to keep fuelling the very migration crises that Western governments claim to fear.

If we truly want to stop people being forced from their homes, the task is clear: stop the reasons they have to leave. Protect the memories, heritage, and hopes that anchor them to their land. Make the external meddling into external mending.

Sudan’s suffering is not distant. It is a mirror held up to our global responsibilities.

The choice before the world is clear: continue to meddle from afar, or step in to mend. Governments, international agencies, and donors must move beyond temporary fixes at borders and invest in safety, stability, and dignity where people live. Protect homes, safeguard heritage, and support communities in conflict zones before displacement becomes inevitable. Only by addressing the root causes of flight can we hope to stop it — and honour the right of every person to remain in the place they call home.

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