What Is the Extent of Sudan’s Humanitarian Crisis?

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. 

As the war rages on, Sudan is enduring the world’s largest and fastest-growing internal displacement crisis, with several rights groups and the United States describing the violence—particularly in Darfur—as genocide. Most recently, the RSF’s capture of El Fasher, the last major government-held city in Darfur, marked an end to an eighteen-month siege but raised the risk of a de facto partition of the country.

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 by Hemedti in mid-April 2023.

International efforts to broker peace talks or establish a caretaker government have been largely 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 peace plans proffered by the African Union and other regional blocs that ultimately collapsed. Meanwhile, the Sudanese government suspended its membership in the Intergovernmental Authority on Development—a bloc of East African countries—in 2024 over its outreach to RSF leader Hemedti. The government also restricted media access within Sudan. 

However, in November 2025, the RSF agreed to a proposal for a humanitarian ceasefire put forth by the United States and Arab countries and said it “looks forward” to peace talks. The Sudanese Army did not immediately respond to the announcement.

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, mostly from South Sudan.

Yet the situation has grown even more grim since war broke out. As of November 2025, nearly twelve million people have been forcibly displaced, according to the UN refugee agency. More than 7.2 million of them are internally displaced within Sudan, while over 4.2 million are refugees, asylum seekers, or “returnees” who have fled or returned to neighboring countries. 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.

The RSF’s capture of El Fasher in October 2025 consolidated the paramilitary group’s control over the entire Darfur region and sent tens of thousands more people fleeing the area. Humanitarian groups said the takeover involved mass killings of civilians, though the exact figure is unknown.

“We cannot allow Sudan to descend further into a nightmare of violence, hunger, and despair,” UN experts said in October. “The deliberate targeting of civilians, combined with the use of starvation, sexual violence, disappearance and displacement as weapons of war, is creating a humanitarian catastrophe of historic proportions.”

The conflict has destroyed much of Sudan’s infrastructure. Air strikes and shelling have hit hospitals, prisons, schools, and other facilities in dense residential areas. 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 conditions confirmed [PDF] in two regions of the country—with an additional twenty areas at risk. The World Food Program (WFP) has warned that without a cessation of hostilities, Sudan risks becoming “the world’s largest hunger crisis in recent history.” 

Where are refugees going?

More than 882,000 people, or roughly 21 percent of Sudanese refugees, have headed west to Chad. Another roughly 820,000 refugees are South Sudanese who had previously fled to Sudan and have since returned to their home country due to the war. 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 warn the total number of refugees will only keep growing as fighting continues. Most 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 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). The Donald Trump administration has also condemned the violence in Sudan.

How have other countries responded?

Many of Sudan’s neighbors are struggling to handle the influx of refugees while addressing their own domestic challenges. 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 fighting has escalated. “This conflict has been enabled by external powers who continue to provide arms and financing” to both the RSF and the SAF, said CFR Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies Michelle Gavin.

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 allowing Russia to establish a naval base on Sudan’s Red Sea coast. The Sudanese army and U.S. lawmakers have long publicly accused the UAE of providing military supplies to the RSF, which Abu Dhabi has denied. (The Wall Street Journal reported in October 2025 that the UAE had increased its arm deliveries to the RSF in recent months.)

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 at risk due to 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 are in urgent need of more assistance. This includes the Central African Republic, as its own internal conflict has rendered it ill-equipped to handle incoming refugee flows, and Chad, which closed its land border with Sudan immediately after fighting broke out but continues to aid refugees who  make it across. However, Chad itself is in need of significant humanitarian assistance, facing severe food insecurity and health emergencies, both exacerbated by regional instability and climate change. 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, largely to no avail.

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. The WFP has struggled to deliver shipments in places that were previously aid hubs, such as the capital city of Wad Madani in Gezira state, which fell to the RSF in 2023. 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 El Fasher in North Darfur—well before it was overtaken by the RSF. 

“There is no safe place, there is no safe harbor,” Gavin said of the latest violence in El Fasher. “And there is no help on the way.” 

Meanwhile, funding shortfalls persist. With less than two months left in the year, the United Nations’ 2025 humanitarian response appeal for roughly $4.2 billion worth of aid for Sudan is only 28 percent funded. Previous years’ appeals fell short of the amounts requested, too. The situation has grown more dire since the start of 2025 amid global aid reductions, including the Trump’s administration’s 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.