President Donald Trump said Wednesday the United States will immediately begin a new effort to end the ongoing war in Sudan, acting at the request of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, who met with him a day earlier.
“The crown prince would like me to do something very powerful having to do with Sudan. It was not on my charts to be involved in that,” Trump said during remarks at a U.S.-Saudi investment forum, referring to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who was in attendance.
Trump recounted that the crown prince raised the issue during their Tuesday meeting at the White House.
“He mentioned Sudan yesterday, and he said, ‘Sir, you’re talking about a lot of wars, but there’s a place on Earth called Sudan,’ and it’s horrible what’s happening,” Trump said, adding that Mohammed explained the conflict’s history and culture. “We’ve already started working on that.”
Sudan plunged into chaos in April 2023 when long-simmering tensions between the military, the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), and the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) exploded into open warfare.
The conflict has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. United Nations officials and aid groups have repeatedly warned of staggering hunger and documented widespread atrocities.
In a social media post Wednesday, Trump called Sudan “the most violent place on Earth” and “the single biggest Humanitarian Crisis.”
“Tremendous atrocities are taking place in Sudan,” he wrote, adding that food and doctors are “desperately needed.”
The U.S. has been involved in previous attempts to broker a peace. A group of nations led by the U.S. put forward a truce that the RSF agreed to in early November. At the time, Sudan’s ambassador to the United States, Mohamed Abdalla Idris, said the government was studying the American proposals.
Trump, who has styled himself as a “peacemaker,” suggested his administration would lead a multi-nation push to end the war.
“We will work with Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and other Middle Eastern partners to get these atrocities to end, while at the same time stabilizing Sudan,” he said in the post.