An east African country with a population of around 50m, engulfed in civil war since 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The RSF is led by Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.
The war has displaced more than 14m people and caused one of the world's worst famines. A forthcoming study in the Lancet Global Health estimates that in Khartoum state alone, between 12,600 and 58,700 people were killed by "intentional injuries" between April 2023 and June 2024, with countless others dying of hunger and disease. The RSF seized Khartoum, the capital, in 2023, forcing the SAF to retreat to Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast, which became the country's de facto capital and the centre of relief operations.
The SAF acquired armed drones from Turkey, Iran and China, which may have been decisive in dislodging the RSF from Khartoum in March 2025. Army 70, an armed group of exiled Tigrayans from Ethiopia's Western Tigray region, also helped the SAF retake the capital. The RSF has also been acquiring drones with the help of the United Arab Emirates, its key foreign backer, and has shifted towards asymmetric warfare, targeting civilian infrastructure across SAF-controlled territory from the sky—including Port Sudan's airport, a hotel and a power station starting in May 2025.
Foreign fighters have poured over Sudan's borders since fighting erupted in 2023. The UAE has sent arms to the RSF with the support of governments in Chad, South Sudan and Kenya. Egypt, a strong supporter of the SAF, has reportedly provided it with air support. Russia, Turkey and Iran have sold it weapons and drones. Eritrea has been training SAF units and allied Sudanese rebel groups; Sudanese aircraft have been spotted at the airport in Asmara, Eritrea's capital. Thousands of Tigrayans have fought alongside the SAF, including in Khartoum.
Khalifa Haftar, the strongman who rules eastern Libya, is an ally of the UAE like the RSF's Dagalo. Haftar's forces have helped the RSF smuggle fuel, cars and weapons into Darfur, according to the UN. The RSF also has training camps in southern Libya. A militia loyal to Haftar helped the RSF overrun the Chevrolet garrison in Sudan's Northern region in June 2025, some 100km south of the Sudan-Libya-Egypt triangle. The SAF's capture of the Chevrolet base at the start of the war had disrupted the RSF's supply lines from Libya; its return gave Dagalo a much-needed boost and hampered the SAF's ability to supply el-Fasher, the capital of Darfur, which has been under siege for more than a year.
Egypt may be reluctant to become more involved despite the RSF's advance towards its border, because the UAE bailed out Cairo's cash-strapped government with $35bn in 2024. If Haftar's forces get directly involved, Turkey, which has long opposed Haftar and competes with the UAE for regional influence, may ramp up support for the SAF.
A "quad" of America, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE has claimed to want to stop the war. In September 2025 the four countries issued a statement calling for a ceasefire and a post-war settlement involving neither the SAF nor the RSF, explicitly acknowledging that external military support served to prolong the conflict. Shortly before el-Fasher fell, Massad Boulos, President Donald Trump's Africa adviser, hosted officials from the three other countries at peace talks in Washington. Delegations from the SAF and the RSF, including Dagalo's brother, were there too—a signal that for the first time both sides might be open to a ceasefire. America is negotiating with each side separately for a 90-day "humanitarian truce". A diplomatic adviser to the UAE's president reiterated the emirate's commitment to the Quad statement and regretted the international community's inadequate past support for civilian governance.
The Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs) are a network of more than 700 small, decentralised mutual-aid groups delivering life-saving help since the civil war began in 2023. Forged from the "resistance committees" that helped topple Omar al-Bashir in 2019, they have helped more than 3m people. Most volunteers are young women. Elected council representatives serve eight months at most to prevent vested interests. Some 95% of donations go directly to volunteers, yet the ERRs have received less than 1% of international aid for Sudan.
The RSF is descended from the mostly Arab Janjaweed militias responsible for the first Darfur genocide 20 years ago, when hundreds of thousands of black Africans were chased from their lands. In January 2025 America accused the RSF of committing a second genocide in the region. Across Darfur, places that have fallen to the RSF since the civil war began in 2023 have been ethnically cleansed.
El-Fasher is totemic for the RSF, whose leaders—including Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo—largely hail from Darfur. During the siege the fiercest resistance the RSF faced came from self-defence militias drawn from the same ethnic groups that were targeted in the Janjaweed slaughter of the 2000s, who allied themselves with the SAF to defend the city. In a refugee camp on the outskirts, as many as 1,500 people may have been killed in a single RSF assault in April 2025. The RSF erected earth walls around the city centre to prevent people from fleeing. By October local activists were reporting an average of 30 deaths a day from violence, hunger and disease.
On October 27th 2025, following the 18-month siege, el-Fasher fell. Facing assault from three sides, the army and its local allies collapsed. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Sudan's army chief and de facto president, said his forces had retreated "to spare citizens". The UN said 26,000 civilians fled in 48 hours. Thousands of refugees arrived in Tawila, a town in western Sudan, telling of mass rape, abductions and streets lined with corpses. Many of the city's roughly 260,000 residents remain unaccounted for.
Having overrun el-Fasher the RSF embarked on a murderous rampage. Videos circulating online show its fighters executing unarmed men. The World Health Organisation says more than 460 patients and their companions were killed in a single massacre in a maternity hospital. Bodies lying in pools of blood around the city are visible from space. More recent satellite images suggest the corpses are being moved into mass graves.
The RSF also captured the town of Bara in North Kordofan on October 25th 2025, killing more civilians. With the dry season ahead the RSF may build on its momentum.
In March 2026 the RSF captured Kurmuk, a town in south-eastern Sudan on the border with Ethiopia, turning Blue Nile state—once remote from the fighting—into a pivotal battleground. The offensive showed the effectiveness of the RSF's alliance-building: it collaborated with local rebels and apparently staged the attack from deep inside Ethiopian territory. As of April 2026, more than 33m of Sudan's 50m people require aid; at least 19m face acute hunger; some 14m have fled their homes; and perhaps hundreds of thousands have been killed. The economy is in ruins and the state has all but collapsed.
Since being ousted from Khartoum the RSF has focused westwards, taking el-Fasher and intensifying attacks in the neighbouring area of Kordofan. If the RSF succeeds in taking parts of Kordofan, the country will probably end up divided: an RSF-dominated zone in the west and a SAF-controlled east, in addition to smaller fiefs controlled by other militia groups.
I fell asleep reading a dull book, and I dreamt that I was reading on, so I woke up from sheer boredom.