Restore Internet access in war-torn Sudan

It’s being called the forgotten conflict and the world’s largest hunger crisis. Sudan’s civil war has killed at least 15,000 people and more than 10 million — around one-fifth of the country’s population — have been forced to leave their homes, including 2 million people who have fled to neighbouring nations. Nearly three-quarters of Sudan’s health-care facilities have been destroyed, and 25 million people need humanitarian assistance, according to the World Food Programme.

The country’s scientific community is in no better shape, five years after a popular revolution in which academics and students helped to overthrow Sudan’s dictator of 30 years, Omar al-Bashir. Any ‘green shoots’ were short-lived, because two opposing military factions — Sudan’s official armed forces and a rival paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces — seized control from civilian leaders. Today, the groups are locked in a brutal fight for complete control of the country.

Sudan’s disastrous war — and the science it is imperilling

According to reports, nearly all of Sudan’s more than 100 universities have been extensively damaged, and most are closed. One year ago, the Sudanese National Academy of Sciences called on the international community for help with placing some of the nation’s students and scholars in universities outside Sudan. That has had some effect. The two largest charities that assist refugee researchers, Scholars at Risk, based in the United States, and the Council for At-Risk Academics in London, have been able to provide a limited number of Sudanese academics with access to universities abroad. Now the Qatar Research Development and Innovation Council in Ar-Rayyan is inviting postdocs displaced from Sudan, the Palestinian Territories, Syria and Yemen to continue their research at its universities. The deadline to apply for the first round is 12 November (see go.nature.com/4dkxxbr).

But overall, the appeal by Sudan’s national academy did not receive a large response, says Mohamed Hassan, a mathematician and president of the academy. Most of the nation’s students and researchers will not be able to leave, he adds, and need to be supported to continue their learning in Sudan.

Some universities have begun to offer online classes. In some cases, lecturers are based in locations in Sudan that are still relatively safe. Others are teaching from outside Sudan, including in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. But, as university leaders emphasized to Nature, such courses are of little use to students and researchers in Sudan without a key resource: Internet connectivity.

‘Armed groups entered the lab’: Sudan’s researchers flee violent military conflict

With much of the infrastructure destroyed or damaged, and the mobile broadband signal at the mercy of the warring parties, the country currently lacks reliable Internet connectivity. Satellite-based Internet — notably that provided by Starlink, a subsidiary of Elon Musk’s company SpaceX, and others, such as Eutelsat OneWeb — are all costlier and subject to the mercy of their owners.

A satellite dish is needed to access broadband through Starlink, in addition to a monthly subscription fee. “We just don’t have that kind of money,” one university leader told Nature. Starlink is not officially available in Sudan — a state of affairs that humanitarian organizations have said disproportionately affects civilians and aid groups.

What is needed is a commitment from the international community that it will ensure that conflict zones remain online — a concept called humanitarian connectivity. One option is that nations would compel firms, including satellite companies, to keep their services on and make them affordable in the event of conflict. Such an effort would be similar to how energy infrastructure is protected in times of war. Another option is for international donors to help universities to pay for Internet connectivity.

By ensuring online access, people in countries experiencing conflict can keep connected to each other and the outside world. That is important not just so that schools and universities can continue to offer some form of learning: it is also essential for humanitarian assistance and for financial transactions to continue, in situations in which there is little or no access to money through banks.

It is bad enough that, despite efforts, there are currently no peace talks and Sudan remains suspended from the African Union. At the very least, the international community must find a way to stop the country from becoming cut off from the outside world and ensure that it can stay online.