Sudanese civil war (2023–present)

Overview

The Sudanese civil war began on 15 April 2023 when fighting erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), commanded by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti. Their struggle for control of Sudan began in Khartoum and spread across the country. The generals had previously governed as allies. Their rupture followed disagreements over a return to civilian rule and over whether, when and under whose command the RSF would enter the regular army. Fighting in the capital, Darfur and other regions turned that dispute into a nationwide war.^[1][3]

The conflict has destroyed homes, disrupted services and exposed civilians to killing, sexual violence, theft and hunger. Estimates made in 2025 placed deaths between 150,000 and 190,000 and the number of people forced from their homes at approximately 12 million. An earlier estimate counted nearly eight million displaced people, illustrating the rapid growth of the crisis rather than a competing account of its eventual scale. Women and children comprised 88 percent of displaced people in one reported estimate, while more than four million women and girls faced a risk of sexual assault. Civilians fled cities and villages as armed forces approached, often leaving property and livelihoods behind.^[4][8]

Sudan’s geography has made the war consequential beyond its borders. Egypt faces insecurity along its southern frontier and pressure from arrivals seeking refuge. Foreign governments have pursued influence over Sudan’s resources, armed forces and Red Sea coast. The war also interrupted Sudan’s incomplete process of establishing wider relations with Israel. Diplomatic initiatives have secured humanitarian commitments, but fighting continued after those commitments were announced.^[2][9][11]

Background

Sudan’s longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir was removed in 2019 after mass protests and a breakdown of support within the security establishment. A transitional government followed, with civilian leaders and military commanders sharing authority while the country sought a path toward civilian governance. The RSF’s participation in Bashir’s removal did not erase its origins in the Janjaweed militias associated with the earlier War in Darfur. Its later conduct in the renewed conflict remained central to public scrutiny of the force.^[3][4][15]

Al-Burhan, commander of the army, and Hemedti, his deputy and RSF commander, joined in the 2021 coup that overthrew Sudan’s fledgling pro-democracy transitional government. Their alliance placed two large armed forces at the center of national politics without resolving which would ultimately control Sudan’s security apparatus. Political negotiations subsequently attempted to restore a transition to civilian rule. The question of integrating RSF fighters into the Sudanese Armed Forces became a decisive obstacle: the commanders disagreed over the timetable and command structure, while each retained forces able to challenge the other. The collapse of their alliance preceded the outbreak of war in 2023.^[3][15]

Sudan’s earlier fighting in Darfur had continued until 2020. That history mattered when the new war reached the region. RSF fighters employed raid tactics associated with the Janjaweed era, and civilians faced renewed attacks and displacement. The conflict also drew in armed groups beyond the two principal forces. Sudan’s Broad Islamic Current joined al-Burhan’s side, while organizations aligned with Political Islam fought alongside the army. The Sudanese Islamic Movement, through which the Muslim Brotherhood operates in Sudan, became a party to the civil war. These alignments complicated a struggle that had begun between two commanders and their forces.^[4][14]

Sudan had announced a move toward peace and normalization with Israel in 2020. Sudan repealed its boycott law, but its divided transitional leadership and subsequent coup delayed a formal treaty, an exchange of ambassadors and broader cooperation. The fighting that began in 2023 further obstructed implementation. The announcement therefore marked an opening in relations, not completion of the diplomatic process.^[10][11]

Course of the war

Khartoum became the epicenter of combat in April 2023. Army and RSF units fought for military facilities, roads and bridges connecting districts of the capital. The city’s crossings were especially important to RSF supply routes on three flanks. Fighting damaged neighborhoods and drove residents from their homes. Al-Burhan established his headquarters in Port Sudan on the Red Sea while the army and RSF continued to fight for control of the capital and other cities.^[4][7]

The struggle extended across Sudan rather than remaining confined to Khartoum. RSF operations in Darfur brought the renewed war into an area already marked by earlier mass violence. Civilians fled ahead of RSF advances, fearing for their lives and property. Attacks on communities included killing, looting, rape and forced displacement. The RSF and allied militias also pursued control of territory and sought to present themselves as an alternative political authority. Their declared support for civilian democracy stood alongside a record of violence against civilians.^[4][5][8]

El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, endured a prolonged RSF siege that placed civilians under acute threat. The city was an army stronghold amid territory increasingly controlled by the RSF. In October 2025, after an approximately 18-month siege, RSF forces captured El-Fasher and the Sudanese army withdrew. Reports, videos and satellite analysis documented mass executions and attacks on residential areas after the city fell. The loss of El-Fasher gave the RSF a major territorial gain even though it had already lost ground elsewhere in Sudan.^[6]

The army’s campaign in Khartoum produced a different result. By 26 March 2025, the army reported regaining the Soba and Manshiya bridges. On 28 March it secured the bridge at Jebel Aulia Dam, the last Khartoum crossing held by the RSF. These advances cut routes that had sustained RSF positions around the capital. After more than 23 months of war, the Sudanese Armed Forces retook Khartoum in March 2025. Recapturing the capital did not end fighting in Darfur or settle who would govern Sudan after the war.^[7]

Foreign weapons and military relationships affected the course of combat. Turkish manufacturer Baykar sold offensive weapons to Sudan’s Defense Industries System, the army’s procurement agency; possible Turkish sales to the RSF were also reported. Al-Burhan renewed relations with the Iranian regime and sought military assistance against Hemedti’s forces, including during a visit to Tehran. Russia’s Wagner network supported the RSF after fighting began, while Moscow pursued arrangements with the army over access to Sudan’s coast. These ties made the conflict a contest for regional influence as well as control within Sudan.^[3][9][12]

Israel's conduct and the protection of civilians

Israel’s connection to the conflict lay principally in Sudan’s interrupted normalization process and in the wider security implications of fighting around the Red Sea. Peace offered Sudan diplomatic and economic opportunities after the 2020 announcement, but the transition, 2021 coup and civil war prevented the process from developing into full relations. Sudan’s institutional collapse also created openings for the Iranian regime to rebuild influence on the Red Sea coast. Israel’s interest in peace with Sudan therefore remained tied to whether Sudan could establish stable civilian institutions and control its territory.^[10][11]

Protection of Sudanese civilians became an immediate purpose of diplomacy once the war began. In May 2023, Saudi Arabia and the United States launched the Jeddah Platform for indirect negotiations between the army and RSF, focused on humanitarian concerns. Representatives signed a declaration addressing safe passage, access for relief, protection of aid workers and respect for civilian sites. The commitments did not stop combat. The platform produced chiefly humanitarian ceasefire undertakings and had no binding mechanism to ensure that either force carried them out.^[12][13]

The civilian toll showed the limits of those undertakings. Both principal forces continued military operations in populated areas, while RSF fighters and allied militias committed extensive violence against civilians, particularly in Darfur. Women and girls described sexual assaults committed largely by RSF members and allied fighters. Hunger intensified as violence and displacement disrupted livelihoods, trade and the delivery of assistance. The protection of civilians required more than a declaration signed by commanders whose forces remained in combat.^[4][5][13]

Terrorist tactics and propaganda

The RSF’s conduct included attacks that spread fear among civilian communities: raids, killings, theft, sexual violence and forced displacement. Its fighters repeated tactics associated with the Janjaweed era in Darfur. Civilians’ decisions to flee as RSF units approached reflected the danger created by that pattern of violence. The United States determined in January 2025 that RSF members and allied militias had committed genocide in Darfur and imposed sanctions on Hemedti. That determination addressed the RSF’s actions; it was separate from claims the warring parties made about one another’s battlefield conduct.^[4][5][6]

The RSF also framed its war as a struggle for civilian democracy. In 2025 it joined allied groups in a charter proposing a parallel governing authority in territory under its control. That political message did not change the documented record of attacks on civilians. After taking El-Fasher, RSF representatives presented the victory as progress toward a new state, while evidence from the city showed executions and attacks on civilians. Evaluating the force’s political declarations alongside its conduct is necessary to understand its role in the war.^[4][6]

Claims about foreign military intervention also became part of the conflict between the commanders. Hemedti and the RSF accused Egyptian aircraft of striking RSF positions, including at Jabal Moya in Sennar State, and accused Egypt of supplying the army with weapons, ammunition and training. Egypt’s foreign ministry denied Egyptian army involvement in Sudan’s battles. Sudan’s army denied acquiring K-8 aircraft from Egypt and said it had operated K-8 squadrons for more than 20 years. The RSF’s accusations and the governments’ denials describe their opposing positions; the accusations do not establish that Egyptian forces carried out those attacks.^[1][2]

Outcome

The war remained unresolved after the army retook Khartoum. That victory restored its control over the capital and key crossings but did not defeat the RSF across Sudan. The RSF retained substantial forces and territory in the west and captured El-Fasher later in 2025. By 2026 the army was still fighting the RSF from its base in Port Sudan. The geographic division of power and the growth of other armed groups made a single battlefield victory insufficient to restore the civilian transition interrupted in 2021.^[6][7][14]

Diplomatic efforts continued alongside military campaigns. Cairo hosted heads of neighboring states in July 2023 and brought Sudanese civil and political forces together for talks in July 2024. Al-Burhan visited Riyadh to pursue a ceasefire and strengthen Saudi support for his side. A later proposal sought to combine the Jeddah Platform and the Quad Sudan peace track through a joint executive secretariat in Jeddah. The proposal addressed fragmentation among mediators, but negotiations had yet to deliver a durable end to combat or a settlement over civilian rule.^[12][13]

Aftermath and legacy

Sudan’s humanitarian crisis grew with each shift of the front. By 2025, estimates placed war deaths between 150,000 and 190,000, and approximately 12 million people had been forced from their homes. Hunger spread as farming, commerce and relief networks broke down. The scale of displacement placed women and children at particular risk, while sexual violence exposed millions of women and girls to further harm. The war drew less public attention and protest than many Israel-related events despite its mass deaths, displacement and famine.^[4][8][12]

The consequences reached Egypt across a shared 1,276-kilometer border. Cairo viewed stability in Sudan as vital to border security and access to Nile water. Before the war, Egyptian and Sudanese forces held the joint Nile Eagles 2 exercises in March 2021, and their governments coordinated positions on Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam. Once fighting began, Egypt faced greater risks of armed incursions, weapons smuggling and human trafficking. It officially maintained neutrality despite its close military relationship with Sudan’s army.^[1][2]

Egyptian soldiers stationed at Merowe in northern Sudan were captured by the RSF during the opening fighting in April 2023. They were later returned to Egypt through the International Red Cross. Civilian movement posed a longer-term challenge: approximately 1.2 million Sudanese people arrived in Egypt after the war began, including an estimated 500,000 officially registered refugees. The arrivals increased pressure on public services and infrastructure. Disrupted trade routes also aggravated shortages of essential goods and inflation in Egypt.^[2][16]

Sudan’s Red Sea coast became a focus of foreign competition. Port Sudan housed al-Burhan’s wartime headquarters and offered access to a strategically important shipping route. In February 2025, Russian and Sudanese foreign ministers announced a deal for a Russian naval base at Port Sudan. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates pursued competing influence in Sudan, while Turkey sold weapons to the army and the Iranian regime renewed military ties with al-Burhan. Russia’s contacts with both sides reflected the value of a foothold on the coast. Sudan’s oil, gold and other precious-metal resources added to the stakes of the war.^[3][9][12]

The conflict left two linked questions unresolved: how Sudan could end the fighting, and how a state with rival armed forces could return to civilian government. The generals’ joint 2021 coup had weakened the earlier transition; their war then devastated the institutions and communities needed to rebuild it. The army’s return to Khartoum, the RSF’s capture of El-Fasher and continued foreign involvement showed why control of a single city could not settle either question.^[12][14][15]