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Alex de Waal: Three Years Into the Sudan Civil War

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Location: Hesburgh Center for International Studies, Auditorium

After the 2021 coup in Sudan, the powersharing agreement between factions of the military government broke down in April 2023. These two armed groups have led the natural resource-rich country of 52 million people into a catastrophic humanitarian crisis and violence, with more than a quarter of the population displaced and subject to famine and massacres.

The conflict, broadly dubbed a civil war, raises questions about genocide by attrition and state intent, and the role of the international community in perpetuating the resource-driven warfare into a third year.

Aerial view of a winding brown riverbed dividing arid, undeveloped land from a dense town with a distinct street grid.
El Fashir (pictured) is the capital of North Darfur State in western Sudan. Following an 18-month siege, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces captured the city from the Sudanese army in October 2025, resulting in mass casualties, severe displacement, and international findings pointing to grave human rights violations. Credit: Google Maps.

Professor Alex de Waal, an anthropologist and the executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University, will join Professor Ebrahim Moosa to discuss the war and its broader implications for the rule of law and the international community. De Waal is a foremost authority on famine and has worked on the Horn of Africa since the 1980s as a researcher and practitioner.

This event is presented by the Keough School of Global Affairs' Contending Modernities research initiative and the Mirza Family Professor in Islamic Thought & Muslim Societies, in collaboration with the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and with co-sponsorship from the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion and the Africa Working Group at the Kellogg Institute.

Speakers/Panelists:

  • Ebrahim Moosa (moderator), Mirza Family Professor of Islamic Thought and Muslim Societies and Director of the Contending Modernities research initiative

  • Alex de Waal, Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation

Logo with "40 Years" and a globe with laurel leaves.