"By following the money and leveraging the power of financial intelligence we can effectively target, disrupt and dismantle the organized criminal networks that profit from this illicit activity and threaten the safety of  Canadians."

Sarah Paquet, chief executive officer, FINTRAC

Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre to drive Canada’s fight against extortion  Lexpert

 

According to a recently released report by the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC), comes the revelation that a more than sixfold increase in extortion cases have occurred in the first quarter of 2025. More extortion cases have been logged thus far in 2025 than in the preceding two years combined -- recognized as reflecting a dramatic increase in financial crimes committed in Canada over the past few years.

 

The Centre  handed off to police more than 100 such extortion cases since the start of the year, the majority  of the crimes having taken place in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario. Threatening phone calls reflect the most common communication between the criminals and their victims; the targets receive phone calls or encrypted social media messages containing threats if large sums of money are not paid. Such threats can reach the hundreds of thousands of dollars demanded.

 

The FINTRAC 100 extortion cases involved over 63,00 financial transactions from some 300 subjects frequently seen to be linked to money laundering and terrorist financing. Small and medium-sized businesses become targets of these schemes, reflecting sectors such as retail, transportation, construction, real estate and hospitality. Agents acting as bridges between criminal organizations and the  intended victim represent the usual scheme, with agents between 17 and 28 years of age with an Indian passport, registered as foreign students at community colleges.

 

Edmonton police say this fire inside a home under construction in the city's west end last January is believed to be linked to a known extortion scheme. (David Bajer/CBC)

 

When the transaction has been successfully extorted, the agent makes deposits at several financial institutions or money services businesses, then sends money on to individuals or companies located in India, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, or Kenya or Portugal. The FINTRAC analysis reveals the involvement of multiple crime organizations -- two well-known rival gangs included -- the Bishnoi Gang and Bambiha Gang, based in northern India.

 

These organizations are known for extortion and contract killing, whose crimes are mostly targeted at Indo-Canadian businesses and individuals. The proliferation of the digital world where the virtual currency market has emerged has spurred the extortion wave, leading to FINTRAC setting a new record in the sheer number of cases it tracked and sent on to police for potential criminal investigation.

 

Leaps in fraud, cyber ransomware, online child sexual exploitation and a range of similar online crimes frequently directly related to other financial crimes like money laundering and terrorist financing encompassed this wave of extortion. Canadians, according to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, were scammed out of $643 million in 2024, in online fraud. 

 

RCMP report on the Lawrence Bishnoi gang and its alleged ties to the government of India. Global News

 

* The Bishnoi Gang, led by Indian gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, is one of the most prominent and violent organized‑crime groups originating in northern India. The Bishnoi Gang is a transnational criminal organization with a presence in Canada and is active in areas with significant diaspora communities. The gang’s core criminal portfolio reportedly includes a variety of fraud schemes, human trafficking, narcotics trafficking, extortion, and targeted killings, which are described as its largest revenue sources both domestically and abroad. The group operates through a vast network of enforcers and international associates, including collaborators from other Indian crime syndicates, who help coordinate contract killings and other financially motivated crimes from outside India. The Bishnoi Gang creates a climate of insecurity for Canadians in diaspora communities as it targets them, their prominent community members, their businesses, as well as cultural figures within the community. The entity is also known as Bishnoi Group, Lawrence Bishnoi Group, and the Bishnoi Crime Group and was designated by the Government of Canada as a listed terrorist entity on September 29, 2025.

* The Bambiha Gang, named after deceased leader Davinder Bambiha, functions as a rival to the Bishnoi syndicate and has grown into a sprawling network of operatives involved in extortion, contract violence, and large‑scale protection rackets. The organization operates through a multi‑layered structure of regional commanders inside India and international coordinators based abroad (including Canada and the U.S.), enabling it to sustain operations ranging from violent attacks to coordinated intimidation campaigns. The gang reportedly forges alliances with other criminal syndicates to expand its influence and revenue streams, particularly in the lucrative extortion economy.

FINTRAC Bulletin 

In the news today: Extortion schemes   (The Canadian Press)

 

 

Mexico City Settling Back Into the Cradle of an Ancient Lake Bed

"It [encroaching sea water] damages part of the critical infrastructure of Mexico City, such as the subway, the drainage system, the water, the potable water system, housing and streets."

"It' a very big problem."

"We have one of the fastest velocities of land subsidence in the whole world."

"To do long-term mitigation of the situation, the first step is to just understand [the subsidence issue to respond to its worst effects]." 

Enrique Cabral, researcher, National Autonomous University of Mexico 

 

"[By capturing details of the Earth from space, the project is also] telling us something about what's actually happening below the surface."

"It's basically documentation of all of these changes within a city."

"You can see the full magnitude of the problem."

NISAR scientist Paul Rosen 

Mexico City has been sinking for a century. A NASA satellite is watching it happen  ABC News

 

New satellite imagery confirms that Mexico City has been sinking by close to ten inches (nearly 25 centimetres) annually, ranking it as one of the fastest-subsiding metropolises on the globe. At about 7,800 square kilometres hosting 22 million people, the  capital of Mexico and surrounding cities were built over an ancient lake bed. At one time in the distant past there were canals which are now downtown streets.

 

Groundwater pumping and urban development have served to shrink the aquifer on which the city sits, which has led to over a century of Mexico City sinking, resulting in monuments and older buildings such as the Metropolitan Cathedral (built in 1573) visibly tilting. A chronic water crisis is also attributed to the contracting aquifer, a situation that will continue to become ever more serious.

 

David Bekaert/JPL-Caltech//NASA - PHOTO: New data from NISAR shows where Mexico City and its environs subsided by up to a few centimeters per month (shown in blue) between Oct. 25, 2025, and Jan. 17, 2026.

 

According to NASA, some parts of Mexico City are sinking at a rate of 2 cm monthly. The main airport and the monument commonly recognized as the Angel of Independence, among them. Over less than a century, a yearly subsidence rate of around 24 cm has been identified, amounting in total to over 12 metres.

 

A powerful satellite known as NISAR which can track real-time changes on the Earth's surface -- a joint initiative between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization -- has rendered estimates based on measurements taken between October 2025 and January of 2026. NISAR captures details of the Earth from space. 

 

The NISAR research team anticipates an opportunity over time to be able to zoom in on specific areas and eventually obtain measurements on a building-by-building basis. Researchers hope to apply the technology to track events such a natural disasters, fault line alterations, and climate change in regions such as Antarctica and other areas of the world.  

"This all allows us to build time series or snapshots on how the ground is moving over time."

"That compaction causes the ground surface to sink, and because it doesn't happen evenly, different parts of the city move at different rates."

"More broadly, my interest lies in mapping ground motion across coastal zones, where a large proportion of the world's population lives -- and understanding surface change is particularly important." 

David Bekaert, scientist, NISAR mission 

 

"The houses that are founded in [volcanic] rock are stable, but the houses in the middle between the rock and the lacustrine plain are already broken, most of them."

"In 2017, a taxi fell inside a fracture."  

"And what I saw in the Philippines is really terrible because they have two phenomena working together that is very bad for the population: subsidence and sea level rise. They are sinking 30 centimeters per year." 

"To have these tools and to realize the distribution of these differential rates –it's amazing. Things that we only learned by walking everywhere when we were young, it's different now. Technology is here to help us." 

Dora Carreón-Freyre, Mexico City-sinking researcher 

The NISAR satellite reveals the progressive subsidence in Mexico City, with areas sinking more than 2 centimeters per month.  Noticias Ambientales

 

Oops ... Cultural 'Misunderstanding'

"The fact that Mr. Govindbalunikam has been in Canada for more than 12 years demands that he would have been well aware of this country's cultural norms."

 "Any suggestion to the contrary -- especially for someone of Mr. Govindbalunikam's ability and experience -- would constitute willful blindness at the very least. As such, I reject the defence position that this case amounts to a 'cultural misunderstanding'."

"Simply put, the crime was of such a magnitude that giving this factor any meaningful weight would only serve to achieve exactly that which the Supreme Court of Canada cautioned against: It would create another, lighter sentencing regime for non-citizens."

"The import of this phenomenon is somewhat lessened by the fact that Mr. Govindbalunikam continues to minimize the offence as a 'cultural misunderstanding'." 

Judge Michael Varpio, Ontario Superior Court of Justice

Manoj Govindbalunikam leaves the Sault Ste. Marie Courthouse after a sentencing hearing on Oct. 30, 2025. He was not wearing a mask during the hour-long hearing, but put one on as he was leaving the building.  Kenneth Armstrong/SooToday

 

On April 21, it was explained  at the trial of Manoj Govindbalunikan, 37, that the real estate broker had driven from Brampton where he lives as a permanent resident of Canada, to Thessalon, northern Ontario, with the intention to search for properties that might be for sale, in line with his real estate business. He was driving a yellow Chevrolet Camaro with black racing stripes, which would create an impression in the town, sufficient to draw attention that he was a stranger to the community, which bystanders would take casual note of.

 

His trip of August 15, 2023 included a sightseeing tour of the Thessalon River, where he approached a nine-year-old boy fishing at the river's edge. He struck up a conversation with the child, offering him a fidget spinner toy, while informing the boy that he was in the presence of a realtor. The boy left the area with his fishing gear, and Govindbalunikan just happened to be driving by when he stopped the boy to offer him a drive home, which the boy accepted. 

 

They started out from the Thessalon curling club where the boy was convinced that he should leave his bicycle and fishing gear there, both of which he could pick up at a later time, since there wasn't room in the vehicle for them to be transported. They drove to the nearby Sinton Tavern where an ice cream cone was bought for the boy. The boy was known to several people in the tavern who became suspicious since they failed to recognize the man with the boy.

 

"They got into their pickup truck and drove to the victim's residence. They spoke with the victim's father who indicated that he did not know anyone who had a yellow Camaro. The victim's father asked the pair for a ride to the location where they last saw the victim", Justice Varpio explained to the court. Mr. Govindbalunikam was enroute to the address the boy had given  him and once it was reached, the boy asked to be let out of the vehicle.

 

India-origin realtor convicted in Ontario court for abducting minor. Indian Express

 

While Mr. Govindbalunikam slowed down, he failed to stop and continued past the boy's home. Soon afterward the boy's father saw the Camaro driving down Federation Street and the couple driving the pickup truck pulled up beside the Camaro. "The father approached the driver's side of the Camaro. He observed the victim in the front passenger seat eating ice cream. As the father approached, Mr. Govindbalunikam pulled away."

 

That's when he father reeached into the vehicle to stop its further progress. Mr. Govindbalunikam explained that as a realtor he was looking for area houses, giving the father his business card. In turn the father told the realtor in no uncertain terms that he should leave the community, ordering his son to exit the vehicle. A day later, Ontario Provincial Police arrested Mr. Govindbalunikam.  

 

His cellphone was seized and found to contain a number of photos including one of himself and the boy alongside the Thessalon River, and another of the boy eating his ice cream cone in the Camaro. 

 

Having arrived in Canada in 2012, Mr. Govindbalunikam was granted permanent resident status in 2017. His professional education includes an aerospace engineering degree from India and a master's degree in  aerospace engineering from the University of Toronto. He was employed at one of the largest aerospace companies in Ontario from 2019 to 2023 but was dismissed and then laid off when a periodic criminal record check by the company revealed a record of malfeasance. 

 

At trial, Govindbalunikam apologized to the boy and his parents, explaining that his intention was to be  helpful in offering the boy a ride back home.  Justice Varpio decided on a sentence of 18 months in prison and three years' probation. Despite that the Crown had asked for a term of 18 months in jail, the lawyer representing Mr. Govindbalunikam argued for a conditional discharge which would enable her client to avoid deportation, since a jail sentence of six months or longer would make him inadmissible to Canada and mark him eligible for deportation..   

 

 

 

The Russian Roulette of Ultra-Processed Foods

"To put our findings in perspective, a 10 percent increase in ultra-processed foods is roughly equivalent to adding a standard packet of chips to your daily diet."

"In clinical terms, this translated to consistently lower scores on standardized cognitive tests measuring visual attention and processing speed."

"Food ultra-processing often destroys the natural structure of food and introduces potentially harmful substances like artificial additives or processing chemicals."

"These additives suggest the link between diet and cognitive function extends beyond just missing out on foods known as healthy, pointing to mechanisms linked to the degree of food processing itself."

Dr. Barbara Cardoso, Department of Nutrition, Dietetics and Food, Victorian Heart Institute, Monash University, Australia 

Adding ultraprocessed foods may add to risk of dementia  Getty Images

 

A  diet high in ultra-processed foods (UPFs), according to a new study from Monash University in Australia, may increase the risk of developing dementia. Published in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring, the study analyzed over 2,100 Australians for their diets and cognitive health. The study group was comprised of dementia-free adults between ages 40 to 70 from November of 2015 to December of 2023.

 

A daily increase of as minimal as 10 percent of ultra-processed foods in an intake alongside healthy whole foods was demonstrated to be linked to a drop in attention span, irrespective of an otherwise healthy overall diet. Based on the average food intake of the Australian population, a 10 percent increase in UPF corresponds, according to the study, to approximately 150 g/day.

 

Ultra-processed foods contain ingredients such as preservatives, emulsifiers, sweeteners, fats and artificial colouring, all of which alter the composition of whole foods with their addition as they go through multiple processing techniques such as moulding and extrusion. These food products include potato chips, energy drinks, hotdogs, fast food and  candy, among many others.

 

According to research in Canada conducted by the Heart and Stroke Foundation, close to half of people's daily caloric intake represent ultra-processed foods. Higher UPF consumption, the new study affirms, is linked to an increase in risk factors for developing dementia. Health conditions such as high blood pressure and obesity are also included as health risks due to the consumption of UPFs.  

 

Ultra-processed foods. Credit:Lauri Patterson/Getty Images

 

Each 10-precent increase in UPF intake was associated with lower attention scores and higher dementia risk even among people who adhered otherwise to a healthy Mediterranean-style diet, according to the study results. A direct association between UPFs and memory loss however, did not result from the study findings, which noted that attention span signals many vital brain functions such as learning and problem-solving.

 

Ultra-processed food consumption has been associated to date, with over 30 adverse health outcomes, noted the research out of Monash University. The recently published study results add to a growing body of research that link UPF consumption to adverse brain health. 

 

Harald Walker / Stocksy United

 

Dangerously Psychotic Yet He Lives Free To Reoffend

"He reported not having consumed alcohol beforehand but did use crystal methamphetamine, along with two or three joints of cannabis."

"He reported hearing voices both with and without the use of crystal methamphetamine, but they became worse when he used the substance."

"Counsel for all parties agreed that Mr. Pillar represented a significant threat to public safety [and that his ban on] the non-medical use of alcohol or other intoxicating substances [should be dropped]."

"[In the years before the stabbing he was the subject of] multiple Community Treatment Orders, during which Mr. Pillar continued to use drugs and alcohol and was non-compliant with his prescribed medication and appointments."

"The history also includes several attempts at mental health diversion for various criminal charges. His reported symptoms, when unwell, included command auditory hallucinations to kill both men and women, but chiefly women." 

Ontario Review Board

 

"In a significant legal decision, the Ontario Review Board lifted a drug ban for Richard P. Pillar, who was found not criminally responsible for a violent incident in Windsor. On September 28, 2016."

"At approximately 11 a.m., 83-year-old Rina Campagna was attacked and severely injured by Pillar near a bank."

"The attack, which occurred in Windsor, Ontario, left Campagna with the loss of an eye. Pillar, who suffers from multiple mental health disorders, was under the influence of drugs at the time."

UL Lawyers Professional Corporation 

Photograph of assaulted 83-year-old woman being taken to hospital by paramedics. Photo: Postmedia

 

Found not criminally responsible after stabbing an 83-year-old stranger in the eye, an Ontario man has had his drug ban lifted, despite that he had used crystal methamphetamine and smoked two or three joints of cannabis beforehand. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, social anxiety disorder and substance use disorder, Richard P. Pillar, with his anti-social personality disorder and borderline intellectual functioning was found, at trial, not criminally responsible of aggravated assault after his attack on Rina Campagna.

 

Walking unaccompanied to a Windsor bank on September 28, 2016, the elderly woman was accosted by Pillar from behind, and brought to the ground. Her assailant took hold of the woman's head and with a knife, stabbed one of her eyes. Ms. Campagna was left with severe injuries that included loss of the injured eye, pointed out the independent tribunal tasked with reviewing the status of individuals found not criminally responsible for violent crimes they commit. 

 

Witnesses at the scene recounted seeing Pillar discarding his clothing as he fled the area. An arrest took place within the day. Pillar had been bound by two probation orders which prohibited him from weapons possession, at the time of the attack on the woman. Neither victim nor attacker were known to one another. Pillar informed authorities that he deliberately withheld taking his antipsychotic injection two weeks previous to the attack. "He wanted to see what it was like if he did not take the medication", the ORB decision noted. 

 

In this Sept. 28, 2016, file photo, Windsor police, paramedic and fire emergency response crews converge in the 1300 block of Ottawa Street following a brutal stabbing attack on an elderly woman. Photo by Jason Kryk /Windsor Star

 

"I no longer feel safe and secure doing my daily routine like shopping, visiting people or going to church."

"[I've missed important family events], because I thought I looked like a monster. I don’t feel good about myself anymore."

"I say no to a lot of friends asking me to come over because I am afraid to walk alone and I have a hard time talking in a group back and forth with one eye and double vision."

"And I am so scared that if he ever gets out he might come back to attack me again."

Victim Impact Statement, Rina Campagna  

The day previous to Pillar's attack on Ms. Campagna he had made a failed effort  to attack another pedestrian, but his aim was deflected. He was given a discharge by the ORB in March of 2025 with conditions attached, that he report to a  hospital at least twice monthly, "abstain from intoxicants, submit samples for analysis [and] refrain from the possession of weapons". At the time Pillar had lived for four years in the community with no recorded hospital readmissions.

 

Now 37, Pillar lives alone in a subsidized one-bedroom apartment in St. Thomas, Ontario. The psychiatric medical team that has been overseeing his conditions advised the Review Board that they're in the process of preparing Pillar to be discharged from the forensic system, and recommends a removal of the 'abstain' clause from his disposition. 

 

Mental health issues and criminal behaviour marked Pillar's early life, beginning when he started using alcohol at age nine, cannabis at age 11, cocaine at age 14, and crystal methamphetamine at age 25. In April 2017, in pretrial detention, he struck a correctional officer, stating that voices instructed him to hit correctional staff. Months following his hospital admission as a result of the stabbing, he attacked a nursing station where a female staff member had retreated when he became angry.  

 

Police investigate area on Ottawa Street where Richard Pillar stabbed an 83 year-old woman in 2016. (CBC File)

 

"He ... continued to fixate on the [female medical] staff member, stating that he wanted to kill her. He also threatened to stab someone in the eye and kill them if he gained weight from his injection of antipsychotic medication."

"He was placed in seclusion and later tried to grab a female staff member through an opening in the seclusion room door."

"[A resurgence of symptoms], resulting from medication ineffectiveness of non-adherence, substance use, or all three, is likely to have very serious consequences."

"That history, including but not limited to the index offences, involves acting on command hallucinations directing him to harm or kill people."

Ontario Review Board 

Mexico's Disappeared

"What we want is to find the disappeared. And we are reinforcing the institutions of the Mexican State to better prevent and respond to this tragic crime."

"We reaffirm our commitment. We will continue searching for all missing persons until we find them."

"Our obligation is to continue looking for everyone, for every person."

"And, at the same time, to eradicate this crime. There should be no more disappeared in Mexico."

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum

 

"The idea that forced disappearances don’t happen, or that most disappearances are related to voluntary absences, minimizes the responsibility of the state."

"Limiting the number of missing persons to 43,128 minimizes the magnitude of a crisis that has a human face and that won’t be solved through administrative searches."

Centro Prodh human rights group

 

"We are reverting once again to the idea that only those with case files at the public prosecutor’s office will be considered."

"There is deep mistrust of the prosecutors’ offices; there is significant collusion between these offices and criminal groups – that’s common knowledge."

Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo, Mexican anthropologist 

Mothers gather outside Banorte Stadium before the Mexico v Portugal match in Monterrey on 28 March, asking for justice for their missing loved ones. Photograph: Franco Uriel Pérez Ramírez/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

 

Volunteer search teams last year discovered an abandoned ranch where inexplicably a multitude of shoes were found. To the search teams this was evidence of an extermination camp operated by a drug cartel. When charred human remains were found there as well, Mexican authorities went into denial mode, insisting that the Izaguirre ranch in Jalisco, western Mexico, was actually a training camp for new recruits of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the most powerful of Mexico's many criminal groups.

 

Dissatisfied with the outcome of the investigation, volunteers returned to the site to continue searching for answers and another disturbing discovery was revealed. There, they found a septic pit stuffed with human teeth and bone fragments. Yet another discovery consolidating the inescapable reality of an ongoing grim chapter in Mexico. Over 133,000 people have vanished across the country and Mexican authorities have gone out of their way fruitlessly to solve the situation, then resorted to minimizing it and finally denying its existence.

People hold pictures of missing persons in front of the National Palace during the commemoration of the International Day of the Disappeared in Mexico City, on 30 August 2019. Photograph: Rodrigo Arangua/AFP/Getty Images

 

The fact that Mexicans have been struggling with, in an ongoing effort to stem the tide of the disappeared -- or at the very least comprehend how and why it is occurring -- hoping for a clue that might direct them toward prevention focuses on the reality that tens of thousands of people have disappeared in the past several decades, and the suspects causing these sudden absences in civil society are organized crime, aided and abetted by colluding government officials. 

 

President Claudia Sheinbaum has sworn to pursue justice until such time as the mystery of these wholesale disappearances has been brought to a conclusion. The rate at which the government has moved in an effort to solve the frighteningly deadly situation has been glacial and ineffective in the opinion of government critics. Societal condemnation of government has placed new pressure on the president for the urgent need of greater progress.

 

According to government statistics, homicides have dropped by 41 percent under this administration, while the number of missing persons has more than doubled since 2015. Prosecutors have been mandated by the president to open an investigation once a disappearance report has been received. A nationwide emergency alert system was launched to respond to missing person reports. Nonetheless controversy has followed these initiatives.

 

A person runs along the Sunday bike route in front of a section of the metal guardrail at the so-called “Roundabout of the Disappeared,” plastered with photographs of missing persons, in Mexico City.

(Yuri Cortez/AFP via Getty Images)

 

An audit to review the national disappearance registry was ordered in the wake of the Izaguirre ranch discovery, with a goal to ensure accurate data collection. Created in 2018, the registry merged lists from state prosecutors, search commissions and volunteers, an assimilation difficult to analyze. "There were no standards, no methodology", stated security official overseeing the effort, Marcela Figueroa. The total of 130,000 entries were divided into three groups by Ms. Figueroa's research team. Given the lack of information, argued the government, searching for one set of the missing would be impossible.

 

One third of the entries were categorized as individuals who had been reported missing, but who had been found to have married, filed taxes or received vaccinations. Of the remaining 43,600 people of whom nothing had been heard from after being reported missing, sufficient information exists to enable continued searches. This conclusion drew mixed reactions from the concerned public with some researchers claiming government failed to make its data public and as such, verifying the audit's accuracy was not possible.  

"I want to give a vote of confidence."

"The problem is they can show whatever figures they want, but if there's no evidence to back them up, it's going to be really hard to defend what they're doing." 

Fernando Escobar, researcher, Common Cause, Mexico 

Forestry workers scrape soil looking for evidence of human remains during a massive, multi-agency search through Cumbres del Ajusco National Park, which sits south of Mexico City. (Jorge Barrera/CBC)

 

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