By Stella Henretta

The University of Maryland’s Sudanese Student Organization held a vigil on Wednesday honoring and remembering Sudanese individuals the war in Sudan affected.

The vigil commemorated the ongoing conflict, which began on April 15, 2023, when the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces each sought political control over Sudan.

Years later, violence still plagues the nation.

Matthew De Leon, a freshman information science major, attended the vigil to show his solidarity with the Sudanese people. De Leon said Sudan is suffering through a genocide that media has treated as background noise. He believes that people must call out the brutality so that Sudanese individuals can live without fear. 

“What I hope for this vigil is that it brings more awareness to the genocide in Sudan … and that we make it a national issue that doesn’t just go away after a blip; we want it to be [sustained], we want it to be up on the news,” De Leon said.

Founder and former president of the Sudanese Student Organization, Awad Abdallah, attributed the general public’s lack of information about the war to the media’s neglect. Although the North African nation remains tightly wound in one of the worst international humanitarian crises, news outlets across the world have underreported on the conflict, failing to accurately depict the genocide’s severity.

“With Sudan, I feel like not as many people are speaking out on it,” the junior public health science major said. “I feel like people can see [the vigil] and learn about what’s going on in Sudan, and just be aware of what’s going on all around.”  

Many demonstrators hope that the vigil will bring awareness of the extent to which Sudanese people are suffering and remind bystanders of the necessity of conversing about conflicts like these, said freshman public health science major Malak Fadlalla. The SSO public relations officer said that it is important to talk about situations occurring around the world, as knowing one’s history is vital and can impact the future. 

“With that said, we believe that an event like this can serve as a reminder to reflect on the privilege we have as individuals living in America and to remember that it is imperative to support and empathize with people across the world who can’t say the same,” Fadlalla said.

The vigil was also a reminder that people the war affected are human beings like everyone else, junior public health science major Akunna Okonkwo said.

“I feel like we’re so out of touch when it comes to politics and policy. We’re all focused on statistics, but we forget that we’re all people at the end of the day,” Okonkwo said. 

She said being around people the war in Sudan affected has shown her that its victims are living people with real faces.

“People might think of a religious cover, people might think of a racial cover, but at the end of the day, we’re all trying to focus on a humanitarian right and the humanitarian cause of supporting the Sudanese people,” Okonkwo said. “Everything that we’re talking about is tied to communities that can’t speak for themselves.”

De Leon believes that the responsibility to stop the harm that is being perpetrated against the Sudanese people lies partially on the United States.

“I’ve always lived by the value that nobody’s free until everybody’s free,” De Leon said. “Even if the United States had everything and had enough resources to take care of its people, we would still not be free because the Sudanese people are going through oppression.”

Featured Image: Sudanese flags line the edge of Hornbake Plaza during the Vigil for Sudan on April 15, 2026. Photo by Paige Trendell.