The Sudan Civil War
Sudan is effectively partitioned. The SAF holds Khartoum, the east, and the north after recapturing the capital in March 2025. The RSF controls most of Darfur and large parts of Kordofan after taking El Fasher in October 2025. Fighting has shifted to Kordofan, where drone strikes hit markets, hospitals, and residential areas daily. The Yale Humanitarian Research Lab has warned that 2026 could be the bloodiest year of the war.
Situation Overview
Current State: Fragmentation
Sudan is effectively partitioned. The SAF holds Khartoum, the east, and the north after recapturing the capital in March 2025. The RSF controls most of Darfur and large parts of Kordofan after taking El Fasher in October 2025. Fighting has shifted to Kordofan, where drone strikes hit markets, hospitals, and residential areas daily. The Yale Humanitarian Research Lab has warned that 2026 could be the bloodiest year of the war.
The Bashir Era & Janjaweed Origins
President Omar al-Bashir weaponized Arab militias, the Janjaweed, to crush the Darfur rebellion starting in 2003, killing at least 300,000 people. The ICC indicted Bashir for genocide. Hemedti, the current RSF leader, rose as a Janjaweed commander before being formalized into the state’s paramilitary apparatus.
The Revolution & Fragile Transition
Mass protests toppled Bashir in April 2019. A power-sharing agreement between military and civilian leaders created a volatile transitional government. The Sovereignty Council paired army chief Burhan with RSF chief Hemedti as deputies under civilian Prime Minister Hamdok. Tensions over security sector reform grew immediately.
The October Coup
General Burhan dissolved the transitional government, arrested civilian leaders including PM Hamdok, and seized full control. Nationwide protests erupted. The coup killed Sudan’s democratic transition but the power-sharing fiction between Burhan and Hemedti continued, papering over the fundamental question: who would control the unified army?
Outbreak of War
Negotiations over RSF integration into the army collapsed. The sticking point: Hemedti wanted 10 years; the SAF officer corps demanded months. On April 15, explosions shook Khartoum as SAF and RSF forces clashed around the airport and presidential palace. Both sides blamed the other for firing first.
The Siege of Khartoum
Intense urban combat turned the capital into a ghost town. The RSF occupied residential neighborhoods while the SAF used air superiority to bomb from above. The RSF captured most of Khartoum, forcing Burhan’s government to relocate to Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast. Millions fled the capital as infrastructure collapsed.
Darfur’s Dark Descent
The war reignited ethnic violence in Darfur. In El Geneina, West Darfur, the RSF and allied Arab militias massacred an estimated 10,000–15,000 ethnic Masalit (UN Panel of Experts). Governor Khamis Abakar was assassinated by RSF militants. City after city fell. The pattern of ethnic cleansing spread across all five Darfur states, culminating in the fall of El Fasher in October 2025.
Famine & Humanitarian Catastrophe
Famine was declared in El Fasher and Kadugli. 24.6 million people face acute hunger. Both sides weaponize food: the SAF blocks aid trucks at the Chad border; the RSF loots convoys and aid warehouses. WFP staff have been killed, MSF forced to suspend operations. Sudan represents a disproportionate share of global humanitarian need while drawing only a fraction of global attention.
SAF Counteroffensive & Drone War
Turkish-made Akinci drones transformed the SAF’s capabilities. Egypt provided logistical support from a remote southern base. The SAF recaptured Khartoum in March 2025 and broke the RSF’s siege on El Obeid and Dilling. But the RSF responded with its own drone campaign, striking power plants in Port Sudan and oil infrastructure. The war entered a new technological phase.
Regional Proxy War & Partition
Sudan has become a full proxy war: the UAE arms the RSF; Turkey and Egypt back the SAF; Iran provides weapons; Saudi Arabia hedges. The RSF signed a constitution for a parallel government. The SAF filed an ICJ complaint accusing the UAE of genocide complicity. The UNSC imposed sanctions on RSF figures. De facto partition is solidifying along current front lines.
Timeline
Bashir toppled
Mass protests end Omar al-Bashir's 30-year rule; a fragile civilian–military transition begins.
Coup derails transition
Generals Burhan (SAF) and Hemedti (RSF) seize power jointly, ending the civilian government.
SAF–RSF war erupts
A power struggle over integrating the RSF into the army explodes into open war in Khartoum; the capital becomes a battlefield.
Darfur atrocities resume
RSF and allied militias carry out ethnically targeted mass killings in West Darfur (El Geneina); Janjaweed-rooted violence returns at scale.
World's largest displacement crisis
Over 12 million displaced internally and as refugees; the health and data infrastructure that would count the dead is itself destroyed.
Famine declared
Famine conditions confirmed in Zamzam camp and beyond; aid access is systematically obstructed by both belligerents.
Turkey–Egypt drone war
A Turkish/Egyptian-enabled SAF drone campaign helps Khartoum's recapture; the RSF mounts its own counter-drone effort.
SAF retakes Khartoum
The army recaptures the capital; the RSF consolidates in Darfur and the west, the country splits along front lines.
De facto partition solidifies
Sudan is effectively partitioned: SAF-held center and east, RSF-held Darfur and parts of Kordofan; a rival parallel government is announced.
Atrocities continue, attention does not
The world's deadliest current war grinds on with minimal coverage; mediation, sanctions and peacekeeping have all failed the conditions test.
Features & Deep Dives
Deep Dives
Feature Articles
- The gold that funds both sides of Sudan's war passes through the same Dubai trade
- The Masalit of Ardamata: a second genocide finished what 2003 started
- The Emirati cargo planes that don't exist on FlightRadar
- Algoney Hamdan Dagalo runs the gold. The sanctions arrived two years late.
- Abu Amama: the cancelled $6 billion port deal at the centre of Sudan's war
- The RSF is the Janjaweed with a Toyota fleet, and the 2003 playbook predicted El Fasher
Required Reading
- The Revolution No One Wanted: War in Khartoum, Alex de Waal (London Review of Books)
The definitive early account of the war by the world’s foremost Sudan scholar. De Waal traces Khartoum’s 200-year history as an outpost of imperial robbery and explains why the logic of kleptocracy made this war inevitable. - The War That Outgrew Sudan, Alex de Waal (Foreign Affairs)
De Waal’s most recent long-form analysis. Explains how the Biden administration failed to engage the UAE at the highest level, how the Quad diplomacy emerged under Rubio, and why the war has metastasized into a transnational conflict. - How the UAE’s Covert Arms Pipeline Fueled Sudan’s War, Declan Walsh et al. (The New York Times)
Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation. The NYT team analyzed flight logs, geolocated hundreds of videos, and tasked satellites to expose the transformation of an Emirati airbase into a drone hub linked to RSF attacks. - How ‘Trophy’ Videos Link Paramilitary Commanders to War Crimes in Sudan, Sanjana Varghese et al. (The New York Times (Visual Investigations))
Award-winning video investigation that untangled the RSF’s opaque command structure, using metadata, shadow angles, and terrain matching to identify specific commanders at massacre sites. - How the United States and Its Gulf Partners Are Enabling Mass Starvation, Alex de Waal (Foreign Affairs)
De Waal exposes how starvation is being weaponized by both sides with tacit international enabling. Argues that American and Gulf state inaction amounts to complicity in mass starvation. - Sudan Is Collapsing, Here’s How to Stop It, Alex de Waal (Chatham House)
A policy-oriented analysis. De Waal argues that the war is a vortex of transnational conflicts, and that regional rivals must find consensus to prevent an even worse calamity. - Sudan’s Deadly Divide: The RSF and SAF’s Reign of Terror, Cameron Hudson & Nada Dajani (Brookings Institution)
Comprehensive analysis of how both sides systematically target civilians. Documents the RSF’s Janjaweed-rooted atrocities in Darfur alongside the SAF’s airstrikes on civilian markets. - A Massacre Threatens Darfur, Again, Lauren Leatherby, Declan Walsh et al. (The New York Times)
Satellite imagery investigation revealing the RSF was using the same scorched-earth tactics from the 2000s Darfur genocide. Among the reporting that led to the U.S. genocide declaration. - Sudan: A Civil War of Choices, International Crisis Group (Crisis Group Reports)
Crisis Group’s ongoing reporting hub on Sudan. Their reports on the fall of El Fasher, the Kordofan campaign, and the failure of ceasefire diplomacy are among the most cited analytical work on the conflict. - As Starvation Spreads in Sudan, Military Blocks Aid Trucks at Border, Declan Walsh (The New York Times)
Investigation into how the SAF deliberately blocked humanitarian corridors into Darfur via Chad, weaponizing food access while the RSF looted aid convoys from the other direction.