Sudan’s escalating civil war has displaced over 13 million people, creating the world’s largest displacement crisis with millions facing famine, disease outbreaks and a collapsing healthcare system that threatens regional stability.
On a sweltering afternoon in North Darfur, 16-year-old Nahed recounts the day armed men stormed her village, killing her grandfather and uncle while girls were raped or abducted. She managed to escape, but the terror remains. Her story is one of millions in Sudan, where nearly three years of brutal civil war have created what humanitarian agencies now call the world’s largest displacement crisis.
Since fighting erupted on April 15, 2023, between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, an estimated 13.6 million people have been uprooted — approximately 9.3 million displaced internally and 4.3 million seeking refuge in neighboring countries. The scale surpasses the displacement crises in Syria, Ukraine and Yemen, marking Sudan as the epicenter of global forced migration.
The conflict’s origins trace back to a power struggle within the military government that seized control following a 2021 coup. Tensions between SAF Commander General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as “Hemedti,” had been simmering over the integration of the paramilitary force into the regular army. The RSF insisted on a 10-year timeline for integration, while the army demanded it happen within two years. When negotiations collapsed, the RSF attacked SAF bases across Sudan, plunging the nation into its current catastrophe.
What distinguishes Sudan’s crisis is not merely its scale but its multidimensional devastation. The war has decimated essential infrastructure, fractured state institutions and left civilians exposed to what the United Nations describes as “unprecedented” levels of violence and deprivation.
An estimated 10 million people have been displaced, half of them children, according to UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell, who visited Sudan in December 2025. More than 30 million people require humanitarian assistance — roughly two-thirds of the population — making it the largest humanitarian emergency globally.
The displacement has triggered cascading crises. In North Darfur, fighting around Al Fasher forced more than 106,000 people to flee since late October 2025, overwhelming reception sites and transforming areas like Tawila into vast informal settlements. Newly displaced children arrive exhausted, dehydrated and in urgent need of protection, nutrition and medical support.
Famine has emerged as one of the conflict’s deadliest consequences. The latest analysis confirms famine conditions in Al Fasher and Kadugli, with 21.2 million people — 45 percent of the population — facing high levels of acute food insecurity. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification warns that 375,000 people are in catastrophic conditions, with the risk of famine spreading to 20 additional areas across Greater Darfur and Greater Kordofan.
Sudan’s agricultural sector has suffered catastrophic losses, with two consecutive farming seasons underutilized due to conflict. Farmland has been destroyed, supply routes disrupted and essential equipment looted. Staple food prices remain exorbitant, with sorghum and wheat flour over 100 percent more expensive than in early 2024, putting food out of reach for millions.
In North Darfur alone, nearly 85,000 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition were treated between January and November 2025 — roughly one child every six minutes — underscoring the crisis’s scale. The Sudan Doctors Union estimated in January 2025 that 522,000 children had died due to malnutrition.
Disease outbreaks have compounded the humanitarian catastrophe. Cholera has spread to all but one of Sudan’s 18 states, infecting 87,219 people and causing 2,260 deaths by July 2025. The outbreak, fueled by displacement, lack of access to safe water and the breakdown of water supply systems, has a case fatality ratio of 2.6 percent.
Overcrowded living conditions, poor sanitation and disrupted services have also triggered outbreaks of malaria, dengue and measles across much of the country. More than 20 million people now require health assistance, while the World Health Organization has verified 201 attacks on healthcare facilities since the conflict began, resulting in 1,858 deaths and 490 injuries.
Sudan’s health system teeters on the brink of collapse. More than one-third of health facilities nationwide are non-functional, cutting millions off from essential and lifesaving care. Fourteen out of 17 million school-aged children are out of school, creating what UNICEF describes as one of the world’s worst education crises.
The conflict has been marked by grave human rights violations. The State Department issued a determination in late 2023 that the RSF and SAF had committed war crimes, and members of the RSF and allied militias had committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. The UN-authorized Independent International Fact-Finding Mission documented ethnic-based attacks, killings, torture, child soldiers, airstrikes and indiscriminate shelling on civilians.
Sexual violence has emerged as a weapon of war. Amnesty International documented 16 incidents of conflict-related rape and other forms of sexual violence committed by the RSF between April 2023 and October 2024, with survivors describing massive physical and mental harm.
Foreign involvement has prolonged the conflict. The United Arab Emirates has provided substantial financial assistance and military supplies to the RSF, with the Biden administration sanctioning seven UAE-based companies in January 2025 for funding RSF leader Hemedti. Meanwhile, Egypt has supplied the SAF with warplanes and pilots, while Saudi Arabia has provided financial support, viewing Sudan as a crucial ally against Iranian influence.
The displacement crisis extends beyond Sudan’s borders. Egypt hosts the largest number of Sudanese refugees at 1.5 million, followed by Chad with 773,662, South Sudan with 349,935, Libya with 256,000, Uganda with 72,125 and Ethiopia with 43,159. In South Sudan, most arrivals are returning nationals who had been living in Sudan as refugees.
Humanitarian access remains severely constrained. Aid workers face insecurity, bureaucratic impediments and logistical challenges that make delivering life-saving assistance extremely difficult. The 2025 Humanitarian Response Plan for Sudan, totaling $4.2 billion, remains critically underfunded at only 27 percent, threatening the scale and continuity of emergency operations.
UNICEF’s $950 million appeal is 52 percent underfunded, threatening continuity of critical services for millions of children. The World Food Programme urgently requires $700 million to continue operations from January to June 2026, with funding shortfalls forcing prioritization of the most hungry communities.
Despite these constraints, humanitarian agencies continue delivering assistance. UNICEF reached 12.6 million people with safe water access in 2025, while 6.7 million children under five were screened for malnutrition. The WFP is reaching over 4 million people monthly, including 1.5 million in the hardest-hit and previously hard-to-reach areas across Darfur, Kordofan, Khartoum and Al Jazira.
The conflict shows no signs of abating. In March 2025, the SAF recaptured Khartoum, but civilians returning to the capital found their homes destroyed and face severe shortages of water, food and basic necessities. Reports indicate reprisal attacks and summary killings by the SAF and allied militias, who accuse civilians of collaborating with the RSF.
Peace initiatives have proliferated but failed to produce results. The U.S. partnered with Saudi Arabia in 2023 to co-host ceasefire talks between the SAF and RSF in Jeddah, where both parties signed a declaration committing to maintain Sudan’s unity and territorial integrity, respect international humanitarian law and protect civilians. They have not adhered to it.
By November 2024, both the SAF and RSF had officially ruled out settling the civil war through negotiations, with the only option on the table being total war. Former U.S. envoy for Sudan suggested as many as 400,000 people may have been killed since the conflict began, though exact figures remain uncertain due to difficulties in accessing affected areas.
The international community’s response has been widely criticized as insufficient. Some observers describe Sudan as a “forgotten” crisis, warning that Africa’s third-largest country risks becoming a failed state. UN experts have called for collective global action, stating that without it, Sudan’s humanitarian catastrophe will only worsen with devastating consequences for millions of innocent civilians.
For children like Nahed, who told UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell that all she wants for Sudan is peace, the crisis represents not just statistics but lived trauma. Everywhere Russell went during her December 2025 visit, children told her the same thing. “The world must do better to deliver on that wish,” she said.
As Sudan enters the third year of conflict, the displacement crisis continues to deepen. With 13.6 million people uprooted, millions facing famine, disease outbreaks accelerating and the health system collapsing, Sudan represents not just the world’s largest displacement crisis but a moral test for the international community’s commitment to preventing mass atrocities and protecting civilian populations caught in conflict.
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