(Bloomberg) -- Essam Ahmed was fixing mobile phones at a stall in the bustling Al Aylafun market on the east side of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, when war broke out in the North African country last April. Now the market is in ruins — along with most of the city — the country has been torn apart and he’s living in a makeshift displacement camp 300 miles from home.

“My entire life has been flipped upside down,” he said. “And I see that the world has totally forgotten about Sudan.”

One year into Sudan’s civil war, the brutal conflict has destroyed the North African country’s social fabric and sparked both the world’s biggest displacement crisis and threatens the largest hunger crisis. Yet it remains almost completely absent from the global conversation consumed by the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.

International donors have committed nearly 1,000 times as much aid to Kyiv as they have to Khartoum; foreign legislatures routinely debate support for Israel and the suffering of innocent Palestinians. Few comment on the 50 million Sudanese caught between a brutal rebel militia that helped perpetrate the Darfur genocide and a venal military aligned with Islamist elements from the former regime.

The war began on April 15 last year, when the Rapid Support Forces militia and Sudan’s army turned on each other. They’ve since fought a brutal war for control of the mineral-rich country that’s killed almost 15,000 people, left the capital in ruins and drawn accusations of war crimes.

Half of Sudan’s people need food assistance, 11 million are displaced and the prospect of widespread famine looms in a conflict that has destabilized the region and drawn in foreign powers including the United Arab Emirates and Iran. 

“When the war started everyone thought the war would not go on for a long time,” said Mohaned al Nour, a human rights lawyer working in the UK and a member of the Sudanese Professional Association, a pro-democracy trade union. “Unfortunately now the feeling is the war will never end.”

Read More: What’s Behind the Fighting in Sudan and What It Means: QuickTake

The difference between how Sudan is prioritized compared with other major conflicts is most evident in terms of aid.

International donors, mostly western, have committed $132 billion to Ukraine — excluding military support — since the start of the war, according to the Ukraine Support Tracker at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. That compares with $1.5 billion in total humanitarian assistance pledged by international donors for Sudan in June last year, while the UN has raised only 5% of the $2.7 billion it estimates it needs this year.

Read More: We Can’t Bear to Think About Sudan and Haiti: Andreas Kluth

Donors plan to gather in Paris again on Monday for another high-level pledging conference.

While Western powers focus elsewhere, Middle Eastern states have taken a more active role in Sudan. The United Arab Emirates is a key backer of the RSF, supplying it with weapons and funding, according to a leaked UN report. The UAE denies any involvement. Meanwhile, Iran has supplied combat drones to the army, according to Western diplomats.

“The rise of the Gulf, the main contenders of Sudan’s capture, and competitors vying for influence have a say and stake in the type of intervention granted to the country,” said Raga Makawi, a Sudanese activist and researcher who fled the conflict and is now living in London. “There is intervention, but just of the type that makes things worse.”

On the ground, Sudan’s complex patchwork of allegiances and rebel armies are only making things more complicated, with well-armed militia groups taking sides, Islamists joining the army’s ranks and ordinary civilians taking up arms.

That volatile mix has raised fears that even if a cease-fire is struck between army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo  — a longshot given repeated attempts brokered by the UAE, Saudi Arabia and others have failed — fighting will continue unabated. 

Complex and shifting internal dynamics have also created strange alliances. 

Sahkr-Abdin Taha, 24, is among many young Sudanese who previously fought the army to end the military’s decades’ long grip on power five years ago that have now joined its ranks. He’s willing to do anything to prevent the RSF from taking power.

“We have traditionally had clear disputes with the leadership of the army,” said Taha, who belonged to a group called Activists Without Borders, but joined the 9th Airborne Division in July after he was appalled by reports of RSF atrocities. But “we managed to defeat the RSF in all these battles and I’m happy and proud of that.”

Taha serves alongside Islamist militias that have been integrated into the army, raising fears of a revival of extremism that long plagued a country that hosted Osama bin Laden, implemented harsh Shariah-inspired laws and was designated a state sponsor of terrorism by the US during the 30-year rule of dictator Omar al-Bashir. Rebel groups from Darfur have also backed the army in recent weeks.

“People underestimate how proxies and splinter groups have dragged this war on,” said Amged Farid, a former adviser to ousted Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok. “A cease-fire, even if possible, would not result in peace.”

While Dagalo has been positioning himself as a noble statesman on trips abroad, his forces at home are accused of committing war crimes including rape, targeting of civilians and looting. The US has also accused the army of war crimes.

While Dagalo has been positioning himself as a noble statesman on trips abroad, his forces at home are accused of committing war crimes including rape, targeting of civilians and looting. The US has also accused the army of war crimes.Last month, World Food Programme Executive Director Cindy McCain called the war in Sudan “the forgotten crisis,” a sentiment echoed by US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

Last month, World Food Programme Executive Director Cindy McCain called the war in Sudan “the forgotten crisis,” a sentiment echoed by US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield.“There is no food, we have no access,” McCain said. “And our ability to be able to fund, it just isn’t meshing — we don’t have enough money.”

For Sudanese like Kholood Khair, an independent analyst who fled Khartoum early in the war, the idea that the conflict is forgotten is a function of those very same leaders’ indifference.

“There is an astounding and bizarre trend of decision-makers, such as McCain and Thomas-Greenfield, sounding the alarm on Sudan, but essentially doing very little to solve the problem in their respective positions,” said Khair. “If Sudan is a forgotten crisis, then prioritize it.” 

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