Staggering Death Toll in Sudanese Conflict

"This grim and chastening anniversary marks another year when the world has failed to meet the test of Sudan."

"Sudan is an atrocities laboratory: sieges, denial of food, weaponized sexual violence."

Tom Fletcher, emergency relief coordinator, United Nations 

 

"He [young man who came to the morgue] was looking for his father and his uncle for over a year. When he came to us, he found out they had both been shot dead in the street in the early weeks of the war. It broke him, he collapsed and cried for a long time." 

"We photograph every body. We check if there's anything in their pockets to help us identify them, and we mark the spot where we buried them."

Ali Gebbai, mortician, makeshift morgue, Khartoum 

 

"[Khartoum has turned into an open-air morgue]. That leaves a mark on society, it destroys human dignity and it normalizes death."  

"The safest place to keep the DNA samples is buried separately in the ground, and marked clearly. Or we'll exhume the bodies again later."  

Hisham Zein al-Abdeen, head of forensic medicine, Sudan's health ministry

This photo taken on April 18, 2026 shows Sudanese Ali Gebbai, a volunteer responsible for handling burial procedures for unidentified bodies in the capital, Khartoum, examines one of the unidentified corpses at the mortuary of Omdurman's Al-Nao Educational Hospital. (AFP)

 

 The war in Sudan has now officially passed its three-year anniversary, since the Sudanese military and he paramilitary Rapid Support Forces opposed one another, bringing the nation to a war that shows no sign of abating, with an estimated 200,000 Sudanese having been killed thus far. This conflict represents a poster of the world's largest humanitarian crisis. A conference in Berlin on April 15 to raise aid funds and call attention to the conflict, doesn't appear to have made much of a global impact on news reportage.

 

Entering its fourth year, widespread displacement, violence and hunger has burdened the population with no end in sight, while the world's attention remains fixed on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Israeli response in Gaza to Palestinian terrorism, and more latterly the joint U.S.-Israel aerial bombardment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz taking world headlines. 

 

Even so, the Iran conflict which has impacted rising fuel and fertilizer prices throughout the globe, has also compounded the severe food crisis experienced in Sudan. The Norwegian Refugee Council's latest report stated that the violence had "systematically eroded Sudan's food system -- field by field, road by road, market by market -- producing mass hunger."  

 

Photo: Southern Sudan city of Rabak after a drone strike hit several vehicles belonging to the Joint Forces, including some carrying weapons and ammunition, which caught fire. AP

 

The fierce fighting between the two antagonists -- both of which have been accused of vicious human rights violations, preying on helpless civilian populations -- have forced 14 million people from their homes. Arable fields  have been left untended as farmers abandon their growing crops in the face of danger from land mines and cross-fire from faceoffs by the two opponents. While harsh conditions for farming lead to a steep rise in food prices, incomes have declined and malnutrition stalks the land. 

 

Sudan's 50 million population is starved of food with over 10 million people suffering severe and extreme levels of food insecurity, while some 20 million more are confronted by shortages of basic foodstuffs in a  wartime economy. Millions of people sustain themselves with one meal daily in the two areas hardest hit by the conflict -- North Darfur and South Kordofan. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council report, desperately hungry people are left with little option but to eat foliage and animal feed for survival.   

 

 Destroyed section of Omduran, Sudan, AP

 

The ongoing crisis in Sudan is considered by aid agencies to represent the world's most critical, based on hunger and displacement. "Hunger and violence are reinforcing each other in a vicious cycle of desperation", stated deputy executive director Carl Skau, of the World Food Program.

 

Gold production and trade enables the warring competitors to finance their war with the abundant natural resources in gold that lie in deposits across the country. The conflict is also being supported by foreign powers supplying weapons to both sides. Sudan's economy has been destroyed, its health system collapsed 

 

Widespread violence against women is rife, most Sudanese children are without educational opportunities, and tens of thousands of children have died in this war. The civilian death toll is put at over 22,000 by the Sudanese health ministry, but some estimates see that number swell as  high as 400,000. 

 

As donors gather in Berlin, tens of millions in Sudan face famine, genocide and displacement   Health Policy Watch

 

 

"Wake Up And Smell the Durian!"

"It's that fabulous time of year again. Wake Up And Smell the Durian!"

"My mood is better, my mind clearer, I have more energy, easier to sleep, easier to wake up, I feel more stable emotionally."

"I feel like Jesus, who was not recognized for his knowledge and crucified on the cross for bringing knowledge and light to people."

Zhanna Samsonova, Russian blogger, aka Zhanna D'Art

 

"It was scary to look at her, to be honest. Her hands were thin, like those of my 12-year-old sister. But she was always very cheerful, like a child , she was happy when people praised her cooking."

"A few months ago, in Sri Lanka, she already looked exhausted, with swollen legs oozing lymph. They sent her home to seek treatment. However, she ran away again. When I saw her in Phuket, I was horrified."

"I lived one floor above her and every day I feared finding her lifeless body in the morning. I convinced her to seek treatment, but she didn’t make it."

Unnamed friend

Samsonova with a section of durian, the spiky, pungent fruit that’s a delicacy throughout Southeast Asia.

A young woman, a Russian blogger, a food-and-lifestyle influencer, aged 39 has been reported to have died of malnutrition. She was a vegan social media personality who posted videos of her raw tropical fruit diet. Which is rather confusing, since there was a reference by a friend of hers, of how pleased she was when the public expressed admiration for her 'cooking'. Nonetheless she had millions of followers on TikTok and other popular social media sites.

Clearly, her view of life and nutrition, on moods and healthy eating was intriguing to a good many people. Her claim was to have devoted her mealtimes completely to a raw vegan diet of her very own devising. She had been living and working for 17 years across Southeast Asia, known on social media as Zhanna D'Art. As though to imply her mode of eating was an art form. And perhaps it was in the sense of being performative, and drawing the attention of a wide, admiring public.

None of whom, at this juncture it should be hoped, is committed to emulating the eating style of this woman who has met such an untimely end. She had consumed, according to her claims, raw fruits for over a decade, exclusively. In 2022 one of her social media posts boasted that she had switched to a "fully fruit-based-low-fat" diet five years earlier. The staples in her diet were jackfruit and durian, the latter emitting a noxious odour such that it has been banned in public spaces across Asia.

 

She had latterly been seeking medical treatment in Malaysia, where she died last month. On June 10, she had celebrated the durian season in Thailand, claiming she totally avoided protein, salt and oil. And nor, informed a friend, had she space for water in her diet. Instead fruit and vegetable juice provided the liquid in her diet, aside from the liquid contained in the fruit she consumed. 

No official cause of death has yet been reported, while reports do state that the young woman was suffering from malnutrition and infections. According to her mother, she died of a "cholera-like infection", even as her friends cited malnutrition. One friend spoke of meeting up with her in Sri Linka several months back, and noting the visible infections on her legs. Zhanna D'Art noted on social media feeling ostracized, based on her diet, on visits to Russia.

Evidently there are some benefits to raw vegan diets that are sensibly balanced, leading to improved digestion  and less risk of contracting diabetes. However, if not well-planned there can be deficiencies in vitamins and minerals. Most particularly shortages in Vitamin B12, calcium and Vitamin D, imperative for good overall health. The essentials of good health were heavily compromised on this woman's restricted diet. Add to that an absence of protein and insufficient caloric intake and health issues come knocking.

 

"I started to heal myself [from COVID 19] with dry fasting. I have been practising this method for a long time."

"I overcame this infection despite my unconventional treatment, which many condemn."

 

Samsonova claimed she had been subsisting on a completely raw vegan diet for more than a decade. Photo by Instagram