Sudanese civil war (2023–present)

• 1. Introduction

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  The Sudanese civil war began on the 15th of April 2023, when the Rapid Support Forces attacked Sudanese Armed Forces bases across the country, including the capital Khartoum and its airport. Within hours, bridges and roads were sealed off, internet services collapsed, and the headquarters of Sudan TV changed hands twice in a single day. By the time the dust settled on that first week, a country of more than 40 million people had been plunged into a conflict that would force 12 million from their homes and send 3.5 million fleeing across international borders.

  At the center of this war stand two generals. On one side, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan commands the internationally recognized Sudanese Armed Forces. On the other, General Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, known by the nom de guerre Hemedti, leads the Rapid Support Forces. Both men helped stage the October 2021 coup that toppled Sudan's transitional government. Less than two years later, they were trying to kill each other.

  How did two architects of the same coup end up fighting the most devastating war Sudan has seen? What transformed a paramilitary group born from the killing fields of Darfur into a force capable of seizing a capital city? And what does it mean for Sudan, for the region, and for the millions of people caught between two armies that the international community has struggled to stop?

• 2. Hemedti and the RSF's Origins

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  When the War in Darfur erupted in 2003, president Omar al-Bashir faced a rebellion by non-Arab tribes in the region's fractured west. His response was to arm a collection of Baggara Arab militias drawn from camel-trading tribes active in Darfur and parts of Chad. These fighters, known as the Janjaweed, perpetrated mass killings, mass rapes, pillage, torture, and the systematic destruction of villages. Their attacks were directed primarily at the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa peoples. The resulting death toll from the initial phase ran to approximately 300,000 killed and 2.7 million displaced.

  In 2013, al-Bashir reorganized the Janjaweed under a new name: the Rapid Support Forces. He placed them under the command of the Janjaweed's own commander, Hemedti. That same year, Bashir sent RSF fighters to crush an uprising in South Darfur. He also deployed them to Yemen and Libya, where the force developed a working relationship with the Russian private military outfit Wagner Group. A 2017 law formally granted the RSF the status of an independent security force, and Hemedti personally received several gold mines in Darfur as patronage from al-Bashir.

  By the time the Sudanese revolution forced al-Bashir from power in 2019, RSF forces had grown into the tens of thousands and came to possess thousands of armed pickup trucks that regularly patrolled the streets of Khartoum. Al-Bashir had allowed the RSF and other armed groups to multiply deliberately, as a practice known as "coup-proofing" , preventing any single faction within the armed forces from accumulating enough power to threaten his rule. The strategy had an unintended consequence: it handed Hemedti a private army capable of challenging the state itself.

• 3. The Coup and the Breaking Point

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  In April 2019, following eight months of sustained civil disobedience, the Sudanese military including the RSF removed al-Bashir and established the Transitional Military Council. That June, TMC security forces that included both the RSF and the SAF carried out what became known as the Khartoum massacre, killing more than a hundred demonstrators and raping dozens more. Hemedti denied orchestrating the attack.

  Under international and African Union pressure, the military agreed by August 2019 to share power in an interim civilian-military unity government, headed by civilian Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and with elections planned for 2023. That arrangement lasted two years before al-Burhan and Hemedti jointly seized power in an October 2021 coup, halting Sudan's transition to democracy and reconstituting the governing council as a military junta under al-Burhan.

  The fault lines between the two generals appeared quickly. Al-Burhan began restoring old-guard Islamist officials who had dominated the Bashir government. Hemedti read this as a direct threat: those same elites were hostile to him because of his ethnic background as a Darfuri Arab. His public expression of regret over the October 2021 coup signaled that the alliance was already fraying.

  By February 2023, tensions broke into the open as the RSF began recruiting members across Sudan and building up forces in Khartoum. A deal brokered on the 11th of March led to a brief withdrawal, but negotiations quickly stalled over a fundamental dispute: the RSF demanded a 10-year timeline for its integration into the regular army; the SAF insisted on two years. Neither side could agree on which chain of command RSF officers would answer to. On the 11th of April, RSF forces deployed near Merowe and refused orders to withdraw, and on the 13th of April their mobilization was declared illegal by the SAF. Two days later, the shooting started.

• 4. The Battle for Khartoum

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  Hemedti directed his forces in those first days to capture or kill al-Burhan. RSF units fought their way to the headquarters of the Sudanese Armed Forces and placed it under siege, trapping al-Burhan inside his own command post. He remained pinned there for months. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Hemedti accused al-Burhan of scheming to restore deposed leader Omar al-Bashir to power, and called for the international community to intervene.

  The SAF countered with airstrikes and artillery bombardments, causing significant damage to infrastructure throughout the capital but failing to break the RSF's hold on key positions. By June 2023, RSF fighters had seized the National Museum of Sudan and the Yarmouk Military Industrial Complex. In July, an SAF column sent to lift the siege of al-Burhan's base was ambushed and defeated; the RSF claimed to have killed hundreds of soldiers and captured 90 vehicles along with the column's commander.

  On the 24th of August, a special SAF operation extracted al-Burhan from his besieged headquarters. He flew directly to Port Sudan and held a cabinet meeting there, beginning the long process of relocating the recognized government to that Red Sea city. On the 19th of May he had already formally removed Hemedti from his post as deputy in the Transitional Sovereignty Council, replacing him with former rebel leader Malik Agar.

  By late October 2023, the RSF controlled most of Khartoum. The destruction of the Shambat Bridge, which connected Khartoum North to Omdurman across the Nile, severed a critical RSF supply route and gave the SAF a strategic advantage. But the RSF responded by fighting a week-long battle for the Jebel Aulia Dam, capturing it on the 20th of November and securing a new crossing point over the Nile that the SAF could not easily destroy without flooding the capital. A London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine report later estimated more than 61,000 deaths in Khartoum State alone between April 2023 and June 2024.

• 5. Darfur and the Masalit Genocide

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  While Khartoum burned, the war's most lethal chapter was unfolding 1,000 kilometers to the west. In Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, ethnic clashes beginning in the last week of April 2023 killed at least 1,100 people in the first weeks alone. A Masalit tribal leader told the Sudanese news outlet Ayin Network in July 2023 that more than 10,000 people had been killed in West Darfur, and that 80 percent of Geneina's residents had fled. The governor of West Darfur, Khamis Abakar, was abducted and killed by armed men in June 2023 - hours after he went on television to accuse the RSF of genocide and call for international intervention.

  By October 2023, the SAF in Darfur was running out of supplies due to RSF-imposed sieges. On the 26th of October, the RSF captured Nyala, Sudan's fourth-largest city, by seizing the 16th Infantry Division headquarters. Zalingei followed without a fight, and Geneina fell after the SAF's 15th Infantry Division withdrew to Chad. Those left behind were taken prisoner; witnesses later reported up to 2,000 people massacred in Geneina's satellite town of Ardamata.

  El Fasher, the last major government-held city in Darfur, endured a siege that lasted well into 2025. The RSF launched a major offensive beginning the 11th of April 2025, with ground and aerial assaults striking El Fasher and surrounding displacement camps including Zamzam and Abu Shouk. By the 13th of April, RSF forces claimed control of Zamzam camp after fighting that left over 200 civilians dead. The United States formally determined on the 7th of January 2025 that the RSF and its allied militias had committed acts of genocide. El Fasher fell on the 28th of October 2025, with General al-Burhan confirming the SAF's withdrawal. The WHO reported more than 460 patients and their companions were killed inside the city's last functioning hospital. Estimates of the total death toll from the El Fasher massacre range between 60,000 and 150,000, with satellite analysis indicating the RSF disposed of tens of thousands of bodies through burial and incineration. A UN investigator later told the broadcaster DW that the atrocities bore the hallmarks of genocide.

• 6. The SAF's Counteroffensive

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  By late 2023, the military picture looked bleak for the SAF. RSF forces had expanded from their Khartoum stronghold into Gezira State, crossing the Blue Nile to seize the major city of Wad Madani in December 2023. The fall of Wad Madani widened the frontline dramatically and opened large parts of central Sudan to potential RSF offensives. By January 2024, the war's economic costs had surpassed all prior armed conflicts since Sudanese independence in 1956.

  The tide began to shift in February 2024, when SAF forces made gains in Omdurman for the first time since fighting began, relieving a 10-month siege of their own forces in the city centre and taking control of the Al-Hilal Stadium. On the 12th of March, the SAF defeated an RSF counteroffensive and seized the headquarters of the Sudan National Broadcasting Corporation. These were the first areas in Sudan where the SAF had carried out a sustained offensive operation.

  The SAF retook Wad Madani on the 11th of January 2025 from three fronts, following a series of successful operations across Gezira State. On the 20th of March 2025, SAF forces announced they were within 500 metres of the Presidential Palace in Khartoum; they captured it the following day. By the 26th of March they had retaken Khartoum International Airport and Jebel Aulia, and al-Burhan proclaimed the liberation of Khartoum. On the 20th of May, the SAF announced that Khartoum State had been cleared of RSF forces entirely. On the 11th of January 2026, Sudan's military-led government returned to Khartoum from Port Sudan, where it had been based for nearly three years. Prime Minister Kamil Idris announced it would begin restoring services to a city badly damaged by mass displacement, looting, and the near collapse of basic services.

• 7. Humanitarian Catastrophe

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  UN Under-Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs Tom Fletcher described Darfur as the "epicenter of human suffering in the world". Sudan faces one of the most severe humanitarian crises on record, with 25 million people suffering from severe food insecurity and four million children acutely malnourished. Of those children, 770,000 are at imminent risk of death from famine confirmed in several regions.

  The displacement figures are staggering by any measure. Twelve million people have been forcibly displaced, with 3.5 million fleeing the country as refugees. Half the population requires urgent humanitarian assistance. Hospitals have closed en masse, disease outbreaks have spread through displaced populations, and education has largely ceased in conflict-affected regions. Humanitarian supply convoys have been looted, and aid workers have been targeted directly.

  Sexual violence has been widespread throughout the conflict, with the RSF and allied Arab militias held primarily responsible. The Galgani massacre of the 15th of August 2024 killed at least 108 people, including at least 24 women and children. The 2024 eastern Gezira State massacres beginning the 20th of October killed at least 300 people and wounded at least 200 more. A spokesperson for the Sudanese Red Crescent said in the early days of the war that the casualty count "was not small"; the true toll remains deeply uncertain. A November 2024 report by Le Monde estimated the war may have killed over 150,000 civilians through bombardments, massacres, starvation, and disease, with a US Senate hearing in May 2024 suggesting the real figure could be between 10 and 15 times higher than official counts at the time.

  The U.S., UK, EU, and Canada imposed sanctions on entities linked to both factions for ceasefire violations and human rights abuses. The UAE has been found to have violated those sanctions by shipping Chinese weaponry to the RSF; the RSF largely funds its operations through gold exports to the UAE.

• 8. Foreign Hands

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  Analysts describe the Sudanese civil war as shaped as much by external actors as by the two generals at its center. Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates have all exercised influence over the conflict, contributing to dynamics that resemble a proxy war.

  A June 2024 Amnesty International briefing found that recently manufactured weapons and ammunition were being imported into Sudan in large quantities from China, Russia, Turkey, Yemen, the UAE, and Serbia, breaching a Darfur arms embargo. Both sides were found to be using Chinese-manufactured advanced drone jammers, mortars, and anti-material rifles. The RSF was also reported to be using armoured personnel carriers manufactured in the UAE.

  In October 2025, SAF forces recovered boxes of arms, ammunition, and medicines supplied by the UAE from an area previously held by the RSF in southeast Sudan. The RSF primarily funds its operations through gold exports; in 2025, after Ethiopia and Kenya declared support for the RSF, both countries published quarterly gold production figures that were double those of the previous year.

  Diplomacy has made little headway. The Treaty of Jeddah signed on the 20th of May 2023 between the SAF and RSF committed both sides to protecting civilians and relief workers, but did not include a ceasefire. Negotiations were suspended indefinitely in December 2023. Talks in London, Washington, and Geneva in early 2025 failed to produce a lasting agreement. By September 2025, the United States together with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE presented a formal "Quad" peace plan proposing a three-month humanitarian truce followed by a nine-month political transition; the SAF demanded RSF withdrawal from civilian areas as a precondition, and growing strains between Saudi Arabia and the UAE complicated the roadmap further. The conflict in neighboring Chad, Libya, and the Central African Republic continues to spill into Sudan, and fighting along the Sudan-Libya border intensified in June 2025 when the RSF and the Libyan National Army under Khalifa Haftar struck directly into Sudanese territory, with the RSF occupying the entire Sudan-Libya border by the 16th of June 2025.