It’s a good question. The obvious answer is that I was not comparing the current conflict with the most deadly conflicts since WW2, but with typical conflicts in Sudan and its environs over the past 20 years. I would guess Sudan has seen maybe 15k direct deaths so far (I believe official figures undercount Darfur and are far too low). Indirect deaths will be much higher due to the economic devastation from the war reaching Sudan’s capital. The conflict shows no signs of stopping, so we can expect the ultimate death toll to be higher.
I don’t have time to grab data, but only a small minority of conflicts enter the tens of thousands of battle deaths (which are easier to measure than civilian). By Wikipedia there are 62 conflicts since 1950 over 25k deaths. Total conflicts with 100 or more battle deaths is easily in the thousands, most of which you have never heard of like the Heglig War.
I expect that the death rate per month will decline over the course of the war until peace happens, at least in Khartoum and central Sudan. I don’t understand the Darfur dynamics that produce massacres there so I cannot speculate on that.
Strongly upvoted because of the interesting subject matter and the informative links.
From the figures I’ve seen this doesn’t rank as the top 3 deadliest per capita even among the low intensity conflicts post WW2.
So I’m a bit surprised here, do you think this will become very deadly?
It’s a good question. The obvious answer is that I was not comparing the current conflict with the most deadly conflicts since WW2, but with typical conflicts in Sudan and its environs over the past 20 years. I would guess Sudan has seen maybe 15k direct deaths so far (I believe official figures undercount Darfur and are far too low). Indirect deaths will be much higher due to the economic devastation from the war reaching Sudan’s capital. The conflict shows no signs of stopping, so we can expect the ultimate death toll to be higher.
I don’t have time to grab data, but only a small minority of conflicts enter the tens of thousands of battle deaths (which are easier to measure than civilian). By Wikipedia there are 62 conflicts since 1950 over 25k deaths. Total conflicts with 100 or more battle deaths is easily in the thousands, most of which you have never heard of like the Heglig War.
I expect that the death rate per month will decline over the course of the war until peace happens, at least in Khartoum and central Sudan. I don’t understand the Darfur dynamics that produce massacres there so I cannot speculate on that.