12/11 • SUDAN

The war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) began on 15 April 2023 and has continued to escalate with catastrophic consequences. What started in Khartoum has spread across the country, with Darfur — and especially El Fasher — as the brutal epicentre of the conflict.

The toll is staggering. Credible estimates now put deaths at tens of thousands, and Sudan remains the world’s largest internal displacement crisis — with around 11.6 million people displaced inside the country and 14 million+ displaced overall.

El Fasher fell to the RSF in late October 2025 after a long siege marked by drone strikes, scorched-earth tactics and ethnically-targeted killings. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were trapped during and after the assault; in the first days after the city’s fall, approximately 81,800 people fled toward the town of Tawila.

Famine has now been confirmed. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) declared famine (Phase 5) in El Fasher and Kadugli, with 20+ other areas in Darfur and Kordofan at extreme risk. Disease outbreaks, including cholera, are surging.

Sudan’s health system is also collapsing. According to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and other monitoring groups, dozens of health facilities have been attacked or looted, medical workers are being targeted, and trauma care is virtually non-existent in conflict zones.

The humanitarian implications are severe:

• More than 21 million Sudanese face high acute food insecurity.
• Tens of thousands of children are acutely malnourished;  approximately 14 million children are out of school.
• There are reports of widespread sexual violence (especially impacting displaced women and girls) with limited access to protection or services for victims.
• Education and opportunity is collapsing for a generation which is growing up amid war, hunger and trauma.

Despite this, global attention remains limited. The conflict rarely makes front-page headlines, aid appeals are critically under-funded, and humanitarian access continues to be heavily hampered by fighting and bureaucracy.

With no meaningful peace talks in sight, and senior figures on both sides showing no real willingness to compromise, the risk of state collapse and deepening regional instability looms large.