Since April 2023, there has been a civil war in Sudan between the two main factions of the country's military government. The conflict involves the internationally recognized government of Sudan led by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan; against the rival Government of Peace and Unity led by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group, commanded by General Hemedti (Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo Musa). Smaller armed groups have also taken part on both sides, most notably Sudan Liberation Movement splinter groups, the Tamazuj militia, and the Darfur Joint Protection Force.
Fighting began on 15 April 2023 following a power struggle within the transitional administration established after the 2021 coup. As of 6 July 2026, the conflict has forcibly displaced over 14 million people, with 4.5 million fleeing the country as refugees, making it one of the largest displacement crises in recent history. The conflict has also seen heavy influence from foreign powers, especially Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates, while also experiencing effects from the spillover of neighboring conflicts in the Central African Republic (CAR), Chad and Libya.
The current war erupted amid tensions regarding the integration of the RSF into the Sudanese Army following the 2021 coup. Initial RSF attacks targeted government sites in the capital, Khartoum, and other cities. The conflict began with the Battle of Khartoum, and fighting then spread to the Darfur region. The capital region was divided between the two factions, and al-Burhan relocated his government to Port Sudan. International efforts, including the 2023 Jeddah Declaration, failed to stop the fighting, while various rebel groups entered the war: the SPLM–North attacked the SAF in the south; the Tamazuj movement joined the RSF; and the SAF gained support from factions of the Sudan Liberation Movement and Justice and Equality Movement.
By late 2023, the RSF controlled most of Darfur and advanced on Khartoum, taking over most of the capital, Kordofan and Gezira. The SAF regained momentum in 2024, making gains in Omdurman and retaking Khartoum by March 2025. Despite negotiations, no lasting ceasefire has been reached, and the war continues with severe humanitarian consequences and regional implications.
The city of El Fasher, the SAF's last stronghold in Darfur, was besieged by the RSF from April 2024. On 26 October 2025, the city fell to the RSF, with the city and neighboring villages suffering what some experts called a genocidal massacre inflicting between 60,000 and 70,000 deaths by one estimate. Satellite estimates have been as high as 150,000 dead, making it the largest massacre of the 21st century.
Sudan faces one of the world's most severe humanitarian crises, with widespread famine and 25 million people suffering severe food insecurity. Four million children are acutely malnourished, including 770,000 at imminent risk of death, and famine has been confirmed in several regions. The country faces extreme shortages of water, medicine and aid access, widespread hospital closures, disease outbreaks, mass displacement, looting of humanitarian supplies, and the near-collapse of education and infrastructure, leaving half the population in urgent need. The total death toll of the war comprises fatalities from violence, starvation and disease; thousands remain missing or were killed in targeted massacres primarily attributed to the RSF and allied militias. 61,000 people have died in Khartoum State alone, of whom 26,000 were direct victims of violence. Sexual violence has been widespread. UN under-secretary for humanitarian affairs Tom Fletcher described Darfur as the "epicenter of human suffering in the world".
There have been calls for more aid, legal protections for humanitarian workers, refugee support and a halt to international arms supplies to the RSF, particularly from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The US, UK, EU and Canada imposed sanctions on entities linked to both factions for ceasefire violations and human rights abuses. Despite denials, the UAE has been found to violate these sanctions by shipping Chinese weaponry to the RSF, which largely funds its operations through gold exports to the UAE. Many civilians in Darfur have been killed as part of the Masalit genocide. On 7 January 2025, the United States government formally determined that the RSF and its allied militias committed acts of genocide.
Since April 2023, there has been a civil war in Sudan between the two main factions of the country's military government. The conflict involves the internationally recognized government of Sudan led by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan; against the rival Government of Peace and Unity led by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group, commanded by General Hemedti (Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo Musa). Smaller armed groups have also taken part on both sides, most notably Sudan Liberation Movement splinter groups, the Tamazuj militia, and the Darfur Joint Protection Force.
Fighting began on 15 April 2023 following a power struggle within the transitional administration established after the 2021 coup. As of 6 July 2026, the conflict has forcibly displaced over 14 million people, with 4.5 million fleeing the country as refugees, making it one of the largest displacement crises in recent history. The conflict has also seen heavy influence from foreign powers, especially Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates, while also experiencing effects from the spillover of neighboring conflicts in the Central African Republic (CAR), Chad and Libya.
The current war erupted amid tensions regarding the integration of the RSF into the Sudanese Army following the 2021 coup. Initial RSF attacks targeted government sites in the capital, Khartoum, and other cities. The conflict began with the Battle of Khartoum, and fighting then spread to the Darfur region. The capital region was divided between the two factions, and al-Burhan relocated his government to Port Sudan. International efforts, including the 2023 Jeddah Declaration, failed to stop the fighting, while various rebel groups entered the war: the SPLM–North attacked the SAF in the south; the Tamazuj movement joined the RSF; and the SAF gained support from factions of the Sudan Liberation Movement and Justice and Equality Movement.
By late 2023, the RSF controlled most of Darfur and advanced on Khartoum, taking over most of the capital, Kordofan and Gezira. The SAF regained momentum in 2024, making gains in Omdurman and retaking Khartoum by March 2025. Despite negotiations, no lasting ceasefire has been reached, and the war continues with severe humanitarian consequences and regional implications.
The city of El Fasher, the SAF's last stronghold in Darfur, was besieged by the RSF from April 2024. On 26 October 2025, the city fell to the RSF, with the city and neighboring villages suffering what some experts called a genocidal massacre inflicting between 60,000 and 70,000 deaths by one estimate. Satellite estimates have been as high as 150,000 dead, making it the largest massacre of the 21st century.
Sudan faces one of the world's most severe humanitarian crises, with widespread famine and 25 million people suffering severe food insecurity. Four million children are acutely malnourished, including 770,000 at imminent risk of death, and famine has been confirmed in several regions. The country faces extreme shortages of water, medicine and aid access, widespread hospital closures, disease outbreaks, mass displacement, looting of humanitarian supplies, and the near-collapse of education and infrastructure, leaving half the population in urgent need. The total death toll of the war comprises fatalities from violence, starvation and disease; thousands remain missing or were killed in targeted massacres primarily attributed to the RSF and allied militias. 61,000 people have died in Khartoum State alone, of whom 26,000 were direct victims of violence. Sexual violence has been widespread. UN under-secretary for humanitarian affairs Tom Fletcher described Darfur as the "epicenter of human suffering in the world".
There have been calls for more aid, legal protections for humanitarian workers, refugee support and a halt to international arms supplies to the RSF, particularly from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The US, UK, EU and Canada imposed sanctions on entities linked to both factions for ceasefire violations and human rights abuses. Despite denials, the UAE has been found to violate these sanctions by shipping Chinese weaponry to the RSF, which largely funds its operations through gold exports to the UAE. Many civilians in Darfur have been killed as part of the Masalit genocide. On 7 January 2025, the United States government formally determined that the RSF and its allied militias committed acts of genocide.
By the turn of the 21st century, Sudan's western Darfur region had endured prolonged instability and social strife due to ethnic tensions and disputes over land and water. In 2003, this situation erupted into a full-scale rebellion, which president and military strongmanOmar al-Bashir vowed to crush. The resulting War in Darfur was marked by widespread state-sponsored violence, leading to charges of war crimes and genocide against al-Bashir. The initial phase of the conflict left approximately 300,000 dead and 2.7 million forcibly displaced; even though the intensity of the violence later declined, the situation in the region remained far from peaceful.
To crush uprisings by non-Arab tribes in the Nuba Mountains, al-Bashir relied upon the Janjaweed, a collection of Baggara Arab militias drawn from camel-trading tribes active in Darfur and portions of Chad. In 2013, al-Bashir announced that the Janjaweed would be reorganised as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) under the command of the Janjaweed's commander General Hemedti. The RSF perpetrated mass killings, rapes, pillage, torture, and destruction of villages. They were accused of ethnic cleansing against the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa peoples. Leaders of the RSF have been indicted for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC), but Hemedti was not personally implicated in the 2003–2004 atrocities.
In 2017, a new law gave the RSF the status of an "independent security force". Hemedti received several gold mines in Darfur as patronage from al-Bashir, and his personal wealth grew substantially. Bashir sent RSF forces to quash a 2013 uprising in South Darfur and deployed RSF units to fight in Yemen and Libya. During this time, the RSF developed a working relationship with the Russian private military outfit Wagner Group. RSF forces grew into the tens of thousands and obtained thousands of armed pickup trucks which regularly patrolled the streets of Khartoum. The Bashir regime supported the RSF and other armed groups to "coup-proof" its power against challenges from within the regular armed forces.
Political transition
In December 2018, protests against al-Bashir's regime began, starting the first phase of the Sudanese revolution. Eight months of sustained civil disobedience were met with violent repression. In April 2019, the military (including the RSF) ousted al-Bashir in a coup d'état, ending his three decades of rule; the military established the Transitional Military Council (TMC), a junta. Bashir was imprisoned in Khartoum; he was not turned over to the ICC, which had issued warrants for his arrest. Protests calling for civilian rule continued. In June 2019, the TMC's security forces, including RSF and SAF, attacked persistent demonstrators in the Khartoum massacre, with more than a hundred demonstrators killed and dozens raped. Hemedti denied orchestrating the attack.
The Sudan Liberation Movement (or Army; SLM, SLA, or SLM/A) is a rebel group in the region of Darfur, primarily of members of non-Arab ethnicities which had been repressed by the Bashir regime. Since 2006, the movement has split into several factions due to disagreements over the Darfur Peace Agreement, with some factions joining the government in Khartoum. By 2023, the three most prominent factions were the SLM-Minnawi under Minni Minnawi, the SLM-al-Nur under Abdul Wahid al-Nur, and the SLM-Tambour under Mustafa Tambour. The SLM-Minnawi and SLM-Tambour signed the 2020 Juba Peace Agreement, but the SLM-al-Nur refused and kept fighting.
The SPLM–N was founded by units of the predominantly South Sudanese Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army stationed in areas that remained in Sudan following the South Sudanese vote for independence in 2011. These forces then led a rebellion in the southern states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile a few months later. In 2017, the SPLM–N split between a faction led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu and one led by Malik Agar, with al-Hilu demanding secularism as a condition for peace, whereas Agar did not agree with this. During the Sudanese revolution, al-Hilu's faction declared an indefinite unilateral ceasefire. In 2020, a peace agreement was signed between the Sudanese government and Agar's faction, with Agar later joining the Transitional Sovereignty Council in Khartoum. Al-Hilu held out until he agreed to sign a separate peace agreement with the Sudanese government a few months later. Further steps to consolidate the agreement stalled following the 2021 coup, and the al-Hilu faction instead signed an agreement with the SLM-al-Nur and the Sudanese Communist Party, agreeing to co-operate to draft a 'revolutionary charter' and remove the military from power.
Prelude
In the months following the 2021 coup, the already weak Sudanese economy steeply declined, fueling wide protests demanding that the junta return power to civilian authorities. Tensions arose when al-Burhan appointed several old-guard Islamist officials who had dominated politics during the al-Bashir government; Hemedti saw this as an attempt to maintain the dominance of Khartoum's traditional elite, who were hostile to Hemedti due to his ethnic background as a Darfuri Arab. Hemedti expressed regret over his alliance with al-Burhan in the October 2021 coup.
Tensions between the RSF and SAF escalated in February 2023, as the RSF began to recruit members across Sudan. Through February and early March, the RSF built up forces in the capital Khartoum, until a deal was brokered on 11 March and the RSF withdrew. Negotiations were held between the SAF, RSF, and civilian leaders, but they broke down. The chief dispute was over the integration of the RSF units into the regular SAF military: the RSF insisted on a ten-year timetable, while the army demanded two years. Other contested issues included the status of RSF officers in the future hierarchy, and whether RSF forces should be under the command of the army chief rather than Sudan's commander-in-chief, al-Burhan.
On 11 April 2023, RSF forces deployed near the city of Merowe as well as in Khartoum. Government forces ordered them to leave and were refused. RSF forces then took forcible control of the Soba military base south of Khartoum. On 13 April, RSF forces began a general mobilization, raising fears of rebellion, and the SAF declared the mobilization illegal.
Course of the war
April–May 2023
Battle of Khartoum
On 15 April 2023, the RSF attacked SAF bases across Sudan, including Khartoum and its airport. There were clashes at the headquarters of the state broadcaster Sudan TV, eventually captured by RSF forces. Bridges and roads in Khartoum and its hinterland were closed by the RSF. The next day saw an SAF counteroffensive which retook Merowe Airport, near the headquarters of Sudan TV and state radio.
The Sudan Civil Aviation Authority closed the country's airspace as fighting began. Telecommunications provider MTN shut down Internet services, and by 23 April there was a near-total internet outage attributed to attacks on the electricity grid. International trade began to break down, with the major shipping firm Maersk announcing a pause on new shipments.
Hemedti directed his forces to capture or kill al-Burhan, and RSF units engaged in pitched and bloody combat with the SAF Republican Guard. Al-Burhan was besieged and trapped in his headquarters in Khartoum. In an interview with Al Jazeera, Hemedti accused al-Burhan and his commanders of provoking the war by scheming to bring deposed Islamist leader Omar al-Bashir back to power. He called for the international community to intervene against al-Burhan, claiming that the RSF were fighting against radical Islamic militants.
After a few days, SAF brought in reinforcements from the Ethiopian border. Despite a ceasefire announced for Eid al-Fitr, fighting continued across the country. Combat was described as particularly intense along the highway from Khartoum to Port Sudan and in the industrial zone of al-Bagair. Intercommunal clashes were reported in Blue Nile State and in Geneina.
By the beginning of May, the SAF claimed to have weakened the RSF and repelled it in multiple regions. The Sudanese policeCentral Reserve Forces joined SAF in the streets of Khartoum, claiming to have arrested several hundred RSF fighters. SAF announced an all-out attack on RSF in Khartoum using air strikes and artillery. Air strikes and ground offensives against RSF over the next few days damaged infrastructure but failed to dislodge RSF forces.
Following further threats from Hemedti, al-Burhan gave a public video address from his besieged headquarters, vowing to continue fighting. On 19 May, al-Burhan officially removed Hemedti as his deputy in the Transitional Sovereignty Council, and replaced him with former rebel leader and council member Malik Agar. With al-Burhan trapped in Khartoum, Agar became de facto leader of the Sudanese government, assuming responsibility for peace negotiations, international visits and the day-to-day running of the country.
Treaty of Jeddah
International attention to the conflict resulted in the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) voting to increase monitoring of human rights abuses. On 6 May, delegates from SAF and RSF met directly for the first time in Jeddah for "pre-negotiation talks" sponsored by Saudi Arabia and the United States. The warring sides could not agree on a ceasefire, but signed the Treaty of Jeddah on 20 May, promising safe passage of civilians, protection of relief workers, and prohibition of the use of civilians as human shields. Deadly clashes resumed in Geneina, Darfur. UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian AffairsMartin Griffiths expressed frustration at the refusal of both sides to end the fighting.
The situation remained volatile, with both sides trading blame for attacks on churches, hospitals, and embassies. Casualties mounted, particularly in Geneina, where Arab militias loyal to RSF were accused of atrocities against non-Arabs. A temporary ceasefire was signed, but fighting persisted in Khartoum and elsewhere. Between 28 and 97 people were reportedly killed by the RSF and Arab militias when they attacked the predominantly Masalit town of Misterei in West Darfur on 28 May.
June–September 2023
Continued fighting in Khartoum
As June began, tanks were deployed in battle in Khartoum. The RSF took control of several important cultural and government buildings, including the National Museum of Sudan and the Yarmouk Military Industrial Complex. Acute food insecurity affected a significant portion of Sudan's population.