New Study Reveals Sudan War Death Toll Far Higher Than Previous Estimates

New Study Reveals Sudan War Death Toll Far Higher Than Previous Estimates

A new study has significantly raised the death toll from Sudan’s ongoing war, revealing that more than 60,000 people have died in the Khartoum region alone in the first 14 months of the conflict.

A report released Wednesday by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s Sudan Research Group claims that illnesses and malnutrition are becoming more common causes of death rather than overt acts of violence.

Of the 60,000 deaths, 26,000 were the direct result of the violence, while the remaining casualties are attributed to starvation and disease.

Abdulazim Awadalla, programme manager at the Sudanese American Physicians Association, supported the estimate, suggesting that the real toll may even be higher due to the widespread effects of malnutrition. “Simple diseases are killing people,” he added, citing weakened immune systems as a contributing factor.

These new figures far exceed previous estimates, such as the 20,178 deaths reported by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) project, which monitors crisis zones.

A Brutal New Phase

A power struggle before a planned transition to civilian rule set off the war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in April 2023.

Both sides have been accused of committing war crimes, including targeting civilians, and the conflict has led to widespread displacement.

The violence has also created what the UN calls the world’s largest hunger crisis, with 11 million people displaced and nearly 25 million—half the country’s population—requiring humanitarian aid.

“This is one of the most disturbing wars of the 21st century,” said Justin Lynch, an independent consultant on Sudan, who described it as entering a “new phase of brutality.”

Undetected Deaths

As the war continues, tracking the full death toll has been challenging due to communication breakdowns and the destruction of record-keeping systems. With internet and phone services frequently disrupted, many deaths have gone unreported.

The study used a method called “capture-recapture,” which compares data from multiple independent sources to estimate unrecorded deaths.

The technique, previously used for crises such as the 2019 Sudanese protests and the COVID-19 pandemic, revealed that many deaths have gone largely unnoticed.

Maysoon Dahab, a co-director of the Sudan Research Group, explained, “Our findings suggest that deaths have largely gone undetected.”

While the study’s methodology has faced some scrutiny, experts like Paul Spiegel from Johns Hopkins University have praised it as a crucial attempt to highlight the severity of the crisis.

Official Responses

Sudan’s Ministry of Health has reported far fewer deaths than the study suggests, with its official tally standing at 5,565 war-related fatalities. Both the Sudanese army and the RSF have blamed each other for the civilian death toll.

The army accused the RSF of deliberately targeting civilians, while the RSF pointed to airstrikes and artillery shelling from the Sudanese army as the primary causes of death in Khartoum.

As the war drags on, the humanitarian impact continues to escalate, with the true toll of the conflict becoming increasingly difficult to quantify.

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