Sudan has been engulfed in civil war since fighting erupted on April 15, 2023, between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The violence shattered a short-lived peace that formed on the heels of recent coups and two civil wars, worsening an already precarious humanitarian situation. The country now experiences the world’s largest and fastest-growing internal displacement crisis. As the conflict rages on, neighboring countries have taken in more than four million refugees, risking broader destabilization across the Horn of Africa and Sahel regions.
What’s driving the conflict in Sudan?
The two warring parties were previously allies, having joined forces in 2019 to overthrow dictator Omar al-Bashir, who ruled for three decades before his ouster. The SAF’s leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, replaced him as de facto head of state. Burhan was backed by RSF General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, in orchestrating a second coup in 2021 that toppled Sudan’s interim government. But amid international pressure to transition to a civilian government, Burhan’s push to integrate the RSF into the national army triggered a violent revolt from Hemedti in mid-April 2023.
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International efforts to broker peace talks or establish a caretaker government have been unsuccessful. These have included negotiations led by the United States and Saudi Arabia that resulted in more than a dozen failed ceasefires, as well as unsuccessful peace plans proffered by the African Union and other regional blocs. An Egypt-led conference with Sudan’s neighbors in July 2023 established humanitarian corridors and a framework for political dialogue, but it did not resolve the conflict. Meanwhile, the Sudanese government suspended its membership in the Intergovernmental Authority on Development—a bloc of East African countries—in January 2024 over its outreach to RSF leader Hemedti. The government also restricted media access within Sudan. Today, negotiations remain at a standstill due to a lack of political will on both sides.
How bad is the humanitarian situation?
Sudan was already experiencing a grave humanitarian crisis before the conflict broke out, with nearly 16 million people facing severe food insecurity and an estimated 3.7 million internally displaced. The country was also hosting some 1.3 million refugees, the majority of which were from South Sudan.
“Sudan is in the grip of a crisis of staggering scale and brutality,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in February 2025. “A crisis that is increasingly spilling over into the wider region. And a crisis that demands sustained and urgent attention.” According to the UN refugee agency, more than twelve million people have been forcibly displaced since April 2023. Of them, more than 7.7 million are internally displaced within Sudan and an estimated 4 million are refugees who have fled to neighboring countries.
The conflict is destroying Sudan’s infrastructure. Air strikes and shelling have hit hospitals, prisons, schools, and other facilities in dense residential areas. The fear of disease is particularly acute, and health authorities have reported that outbreaks—including of cholera, dengue fever, and malaria—are increasing as a result of disruptions to basic public health services. At the same time, rising food and fuel costs are exacerbating food insecurity, with nearly twenty-five million people facing acute hunger and famine confirmed in ten areas of the country. The World Food Program says that without a cessation of hostilities, Sudan risks becoming “the world’s largest hunger crisis in recent history.” Meanwhile, the number of people killed in the conflict is unknown due to restricted media access, but researchers’ estimates vary between 20,000 and 150,000 fatalities.
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Where are refugees going?
As of June 2025, more than 863,000 people, or roughly 21 percent of Sudanese refugees, have headed west to Chad. Another roughly 780,000 refugees are South Sudanese who had previously fled to Sudan and have since returned to their home country due to this conflict. The remaining refugees have fled to the Central African Republic, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, and Uganda, adding to the sizable refugee and internally displaced populations in those countries.
Experts say Sudan is experiencing the world’s largest internal displacement crisis and that the total number of refugees will only keep growing as fighting continues. The majority of refugees are women and children, who are more vulnerable to sexual assault and gender-based violence. There have also been reports of ethnically driven mass killings and weaponization of sexual violence against the Masalit people, particularly in the West Darfur city of El Geneina. Both the SAF and RSF have been accused of war crimes, leading the International Criminal Court to open an investigation. In January 2025, the United States announced it had determined that the RSF had committed genocide in Darfur. As a result, the Joe Biden administration sanctioned Hemedti, barring him from entering the United States, as well as seven RSF-owned companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
How have neighboring countries responded?
Many of Sudan’s neighbors are struggling to handle the influx of refugees while addressing their own domestic challenges. “The consequences of the war in Sudan will not be contained within its borders,” CFR Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies Michelle Gavin wrote in May 2024. Five of the seven countries bordering Sudan have suffered internal conflict in recent years, and refugees who previously fled violence and famine in Ethiopia and South Sudan are now returning to their home countries alongside Sudanese nationals.
In addition, concerns over foreign influence have grown as the conflict escalates. Egypt has close ties to the SAF, while Russia-backed Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar has sent military supplies to the RSF. In February 2025, Russian state news reported that Sudan’s foreign minister had confirmed the country had reached a deal for Russia to establish a naval base on Sudan’s Red Sea coast. The Sudanese army and U.S. lawmakers have also long publicly accused the UAE of providing military supplies to the RSF, which Abu Dhabi has denied.
The crisis has also presented a looming threat to regional economic cooperation on Nile River water resources and several major oil pipelines that cross through Sudan. Climate change has contributed to devastating drought and floods, which have heightened migrant displacement and stifled access to natural resources. The country’s ports along the Red Sea are also in a precarious position amid attacks on vessels by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. The SAF has reportedly benefited from using Iranian drones, though both Tehran and Khartoum deny having any direct connection.
UN experts say Sudan’s neighbors need far more assistance. The Central African Republic has called for more aid as its own internal conflict has rendered it ill-equipped to handle incoming refugee flows. Chad closed its land border with Sudan immediately after fighting broke out but continues to aid refugees that make it across, though Chad itself is in need of humanitarian assistance. In 2024, the Adré border crossing in eastern Chad was reopened to facilitate the delivery of aid to Sudan’s Darfur region.
While Egypt’s border remains open, crossings are often delayed, and migrants there face immense challenges that reportedly include threats of deportation and mass arbitrary detentions. Several countries in the Horn of Africa and Sahel regions—including Chad, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Kenya, and South Sudan—have participated in peace talks in the hope of stemming these issues at their source.
What have international organizations done?
A constellation of agencies, funds, and programs, collectively known as a UN Country Team , has been in Sudan for years. In 2024, the United Nations and its humanitarian partners provided $1.8 billion in support to nearly sixteen million people in Sudan. Several other organizations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross and various Islamic relief agencies, are also supplying aid, augmenting the work being carried out by local Sudanese aid groups.
Despite their efforts, the conflict has forced the United Nations and aid organizations to temporarily halt or scale back in-country operations. In December 2023, the RSF captured the capital city of Wad Madani in Gezira state, further hampering aid delivery from the critical hub. That same month, the World Food Program suspended assistance in Gezira due to escalating violence, though the agency has since resumed its work. Other organizations, such as the International Rescue Committee, have found it difficult to reach those in need in areas that are experiencing heavy fighting, such as the city of al-Fashir in North Darfur.
Meanwhile, funding shortfalls persist. The United Nations’ 2025 humanitarian response appeal for roughly $4.2 billion worth of aid for Sudan is only 14 percent funded; previous years’ appeals fell far short of the amounts requested. The funding situation grew more dire in February 2025 when U.S. President Donald Trump announced major cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development, which had been critical in providing billions of dollars of humanitarian aid to Sudan. The funding shortfall is “a crisis of responsibility” in which “the cost of inaction will be measured in suffering, instability and lost futures,” said Filippo Grandi, chief of the UN refugee agency.
Will Merrow created the graphics for this In Brief.
In Brief
What Is the Extent of Sudan’s Humanitarian Crisis?
More than two years into the civil war in Sudan, at least twelve million people have been forcibly displaced, but experts say the country’s devastating humanitarian crisis is still not getting the international attention it deserves.
Sudan has been engulfed in civil war since fighting erupted on April 15, 2023, between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The violence shattered a short-lived peace that formed on the heels of recent coups and two civil wars, worsening an already precarious humanitarian situation. The country now experiences the world’s largest and fastest-growing internal displacement crisis. As the conflict rages on, neighboring countries have taken in more than four million refugees, risking broader destabilization across the Horn of Africa and Sahel regions.
What’s driving the conflict in Sudan?
The two warring parties were previously allies, having joined forces in 2019 to overthrow dictator Omar al-Bashir, who ruled for three decades before his ouster. The SAF’s leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, replaced him as de facto head of state. Burhan was backed by RSF General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, in orchestrating a second coup in 2021 that toppled Sudan’s interim government. But amid international pressure to transition to a civilian government, Burhan’s push to integrate the RSF into the national army triggered a violent revolt from Hemedti in mid-April 2023.
More on:
International efforts to broker peace talks or establish a caretaker government have been unsuccessful. These have included negotiations led by the United States and Saudi Arabia that resulted in more than a dozen failed ceasefires, as well as unsuccessful peace plans proffered by the African Union and other regional blocs. An Egypt-led conference with Sudan’s neighbors in July 2023 established humanitarian corridors and a framework for political dialogue, but it did not resolve the conflict. Meanwhile, the Sudanese government suspended its membership in the Intergovernmental Authority on Development—a bloc of East African countries—in January 2024 over its outreach to RSF leader Hemedti. The government also restricted media access within Sudan. Today, negotiations remain at a standstill due to a lack of political will on both sides.
How bad is the humanitarian situation?
Sudan was already experiencing a grave humanitarian crisis before the conflict broke out, with nearly 16 million people facing severe food insecurity and an estimated 3.7 million internally displaced. The country was also hosting some 1.3 million refugees, the majority of which were from South Sudan.
“Sudan is in the grip of a crisis of staggering scale and brutality,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in February 2025. “A crisis that is increasingly spilling over into the wider region. And a crisis that demands sustained and urgent attention.” According to the UN refugee agency, more than twelve million people have been forcibly displaced since April 2023. Of them, more than 7.7 million are internally displaced within Sudan and an estimated 4 million are refugees who have fled to neighboring countries.
The conflict is destroying Sudan’s infrastructure. Air strikes and shelling have hit hospitals, prisons, schools, and other facilities in dense residential areas. The fear of disease is particularly acute, and health authorities have reported that outbreaks—including of cholera, dengue fever, and malaria—are increasing as a result of disruptions to basic public health services. At the same time, rising food and fuel costs are exacerbating food insecurity, with nearly twenty-five million people facing acute hunger and famine confirmed in ten areas of the country. The World Food Program says that without a cessation of hostilities, Sudan risks becoming “the world’s largest hunger crisis in recent history.” Meanwhile, the number of people killed in the conflict is unknown due to restricted media access, but researchers’ estimates vary between 20,000 and 150,000 fatalities.
More on:
Where are refugees going?
As of June 2025, more than 863,000 people, or roughly 21 percent of Sudanese refugees, have headed west to Chad. Another roughly 780,000 refugees are South Sudanese who had previously fled to Sudan and have since returned to their home country due to this conflict. The remaining refugees have fled to the Central African Republic, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, and Uganda, adding to the sizable refugee and internally displaced populations in those countries.
Experts say Sudan is experiencing the world’s largest internal displacement crisis and that the total number of refugees will only keep growing as fighting continues. The majority of refugees are women and children, who are more vulnerable to sexual assault and gender-based violence. There have also been reports of ethnically driven mass killings and weaponization of sexual violence against the Masalit people, particularly in the West Darfur city of El Geneina. Both the SAF and RSF have been accused of war crimes, leading the International Criminal Court to open an investigation. In January 2025, the United States announced it had determined that the RSF had committed genocide in Darfur. As a result, the Joe Biden administration sanctioned Hemedti, barring him from entering the United States, as well as seven RSF-owned companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
How have neighboring countries responded?
Many of Sudan’s neighbors are struggling to handle the influx of refugees while addressing their own domestic challenges. “The consequences of the war in Sudan will not be contained within its borders,” CFR Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies Michelle Gavin wrote in May 2024. Five of the seven countries bordering Sudan have suffered internal conflict in recent years, and refugees who previously fled violence and famine in Ethiopia and South Sudan are now returning to their home countries alongside Sudanese nationals.
In addition, concerns over foreign influence have grown as the conflict escalates. Egypt has close ties to the SAF, while Russia-backed Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar has sent military supplies to the RSF. In February 2025, Russian state news reported that Sudan’s foreign minister had confirmed the country had reached a deal for Russia to establish a naval base on Sudan’s Red Sea coast. The Sudanese army and U.S. lawmakers have also long publicly accused the UAE of providing military supplies to the RSF, which Abu Dhabi has denied.
The crisis has also presented a looming threat to regional economic cooperation on Nile River water resources and several major oil pipelines that cross through Sudan. Climate change has contributed to devastating drought and floods, which have heightened migrant displacement and stifled access to natural resources. The country’s ports along the Red Sea are also in a precarious position amid attacks on vessels by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. The SAF has reportedly benefited from using Iranian drones, though both Tehran and Khartoum deny having any direct connection.
UN experts say Sudan’s neighbors need far more assistance. The Central African Republic has called for more aid as its own internal conflict has rendered it ill-equipped to handle incoming refugee flows. Chad closed its land border with Sudan immediately after fighting broke out but continues to aid refugees that make it across, though Chad itself is in need of humanitarian assistance. In 2024, the Adré border crossing in eastern Chad was reopened to facilitate the delivery of aid to Sudan’s Darfur region.
While Egypt’s border remains open, crossings are often delayed, and migrants there face immense challenges that reportedly include threats of deportation and mass arbitrary detentions. Several countries in the Horn of Africa and Sahel regions—including Chad, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Kenya, and South Sudan—have participated in peace talks in the hope of stemming these issues at their source.
What have international organizations done?
A constellation of agencies, funds, and programs, collectively known as a UN Country Team , has been in Sudan for years. In 2024, the United Nations and its humanitarian partners provided $1.8 billion in support to nearly sixteen million people in Sudan. Several other organizations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross and various Islamic relief agencies, are also supplying aid, augmenting the work being carried out by local Sudanese aid groups.
Despite their efforts, the conflict has forced the United Nations and aid organizations to temporarily halt or scale back in-country operations. In December 2023, the RSF captured the capital city of Wad Madani in Gezira state, further hampering aid delivery from the critical hub. That same month, the World Food Program suspended assistance in Gezira due to escalating violence, though the agency has since resumed its work. Other organizations, such as the International Rescue Committee, have found it difficult to reach those in need in areas that are experiencing heavy fighting, such as the city of al-Fashir in North Darfur.
Meanwhile, funding shortfalls persist. The United Nations’ 2025 humanitarian response appeal for roughly $4.2 billion worth of aid for Sudan is only 14 percent funded; previous years’ appeals fell far short of the amounts requested. The funding situation grew more dire in February 2025 when U.S. President Donald Trump announced major cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development, which had been critical in providing billions of dollars of humanitarian aid to Sudan. The funding shortfall is “a crisis of responsibility” in which “the cost of inaction will be measured in suffering, instability and lost futures,” said Filippo Grandi, chief of the UN refugee agency.
Will Merrow created the graphics for this In Brief.
