Sudan Crisis : Scale of the Humanitarian Crisis

• The conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has caused over 1,50,000 deaths, with a significant proportion being children who succumbed to malnutrition and preventable diseases.
• Nearly 13 million people have been displaced. This includes 8.8 million internally displaced persons, making Sudan the world’s largest internal displacement crisis, and 3.5 million refugees who have crossed into neighbouring countries such as Chad, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt.
• Famine has been confirmed in several parts of Darfur by the Famine Review Committee due to crop loss, blockades and supply chain collapse.
• More than 70 percent of hospitals are nonfunctional. Shortages of medicines and electricity have contributed to outbreaks of cholera, malaria and measles.
• Conflict areas report widespread gender-based violence including mass sexual assaults, forced marriages, trafficking, and recruitment of children by armed groups.

Political Background 

• Sudan’s democratic transition collapsed after the 2021 military coup, which ended the civilian–military power-sharing arrangement set up after the fall of Omar al-Bashir in 2019.
• The split between SAF and RSF widened over control of security forces and integration plans. This institutional cleavage triggered the 2023 civil war.
• State authority has largely collapsed, leaving a vacuum filled by militias, tribal armed groups and regional warlords.

Ethnic and Resource Faultlines

• The RSF is rooted in the Janjaweed militias responsible for violence in the early 2000s Darfur genocide, which deepened ethnic hostility between Arab militias and non-Arab communities.
• Competition over fertile agricultural land, scarce water sources, gold mines and trade corridors has heightened local conflicts, especially in Kordofan and Darfur.
• Climate change has reduced rainfall and accelerated desertification, placing pastoralists and farmers in direct competition over shrinking resources.

International and Regional Involvement

• UAE has been accused of supplying drones and weapons to RSF through channels in Libya.
• Egypt is perceived as backing SAF due to security interests along the Nile and long-standing military ties.
• Russia’s Wagner-linked networks have allegedly supported RSF in exchange for access to gold mines in Darfur.
• The conflict has therefore become a theatre for competing regional and global ambitions, complicating ceasefire negotiations.

Societal Resilience and Local Responses

• Local communities and neighbourhood committees, known as Resistance Committees, continue to provide makeshift schooling, basic healthcare and food distribution wherever possible.
• Volunteer networks have restored abandoned clinics, coordinated evacuation routes and documented human rights abuses.
• Despite the collapse of state institutions, social solidarity networks remain key drivers of survival.

Way Forward

• A unified diplomatic strategy led by the African Union and IGAD must push for an enforceable ceasefire, as fragmented negotiations have prolonged the SAF–RSF conflict.
• The UN Security Council should strengthen monitoring of arms inflow and impose targeted sanctions on actors supplying weapons, especially through gold-smuggling networks linked to Darfur.
• Secure humanitarian corridors and protected delivery routes must be negotiated to restore access to food, water and medical aid in Darfur, Kordofan and the Nile Valley regions.
• Long-term stability requires resolving land and resource disputes through climate-resilient agriculture, water-harvesting systems and agreements that protect pastoral and farming communities.
• Strengthening civil society groups and Resistance Committees can create community-driven peacebuilding foundations, ensuring that reconciliation is locally rooted and sustainable.