As global attention is pulled toward flashpoints from Iran to Russia’s war in Ukraine, Sudan continues to endure one of the world’s most severe humanitarian and displacement emergencies with comparatively little notice.
Since fighting erupted in 2023, more than 14 million people have been forced from their homes, while nearly 34 million are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance — about 10% of worldwide need, according to the International Rescue Committee.
“The war in Sudan has caused the world’s largest humanitarian crisis and has escalated into a regional war involving all of its neighbors as well as numerous Middle Eastern powers,” Alan Boswell, Project Director for the Horn of Africa at International Crisis Group, told INC News.
“Despite this, world leaders continue to ignore the conflict, leaving it to subordinates. That approach continues to fail,” Boswell added.
Women and children wait in line for free food at al-Mohayra camp for displaced people near El-Obeid in Sudan’s southern Kordofan region on June 29, 2026. (AFP via Getty Images)
The United Nations estimates that roughly 19.5 million people in Sudan are facing acute hunger, while 4.5 million have crossed borders in search of safety.
The United States recently announced another round of sanctions targeting the Sudanese Armed Forces, accusing them of using chemical weapons in 2024 in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Sudan’s government has rejected the accusations.
The Trump administration has made significant efforts in trying to mediate between Russia and Ukraine, as well as bring Israel’s war against Gaza to an end. The administration is also trying to uphold a shaky ceasefire that was agreed with Iran to halt the war that began on February 28.
“For three years, we have warned that Sudan was on the brink of catastrophe, and those warnings have gone unanswered,” said International Rescue Committee Country Director Richard Data.
Sudan’s recent outbreak of civil war, following years of coups and credible accusations of ethnic cleansing and genocide, persists under the radar.
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Members of Sudanese Armed Popular Resistance Force take part in a military parade for fresh graduates, in Al-Qadarif state, in eastern Sudan on May 20, 2026. (AFP via Getty Images)
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The civil war broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, widely known as “Hemedti,” leader of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The two had been in an uneasy alliance ruling the country following the 2019 overthrow of Sudan’s longtime dictator, Omar al-Bashir, who had been in power since 1989. Together, the generals staged another coup in 2021, toppling the interim civilian government that had been in power after the fall of Bashir.
While both the Sudanese Armed Forces and RSF are accused of committing atrocities, recent reports have highlighted the brutality of the RSF.
A major focus of the deteriorating conditions has been in El-Obeid in North Kordofan state, where an escalating hunger crisis is plaguing over 100,000 displaced people in camps throughout the city.
“What we need to do is really now to plan for the scale-up beyond the 100,000 people that we have been supporting,” said World Food Programme Sudan Country Director, Abdallah Alwardat.
Members of the Sudanese army’s Special Mission Forces batallion in the Northern State hold a parade in Karima city on May 19, 2024. Sudan has been in the throes of conflict for over a year between the regular army led by de facto ruler Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the RSF led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo. (AFP via Getty Images)
El Fasher in the Darfur region is another major flashpoint, where the RSF took control in October 2025 and killed more than 6,000 people in the initial siege of the city.
A recent July report from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights revealed widespread acts of sexual violence against women and girls, some as young as 12, including reports of mass and gang rapes committed by the RSF.
The RSF is also accused of abduction, with survivors describing incidents of girls and women being beaten, having their hands tied behind their backs, and being driven away in a Land cruiser.
Sudanese displaced people gather at the Zam Zam refugee camp outside the town of El-Fashir in the Darfour region of Sudan, during a visit by U.N. officials, on July 1, 2004. The U.N. humanitarian aid and refugee agencies appealed Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2024, for $4.1 billion in international support for embattled civilians in Sudan amid signs that some may be dying of starvation after nearly a year of war there between the forces of rival generals. (AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo, File)
The United Nations and other human rights groups have accused the RSF of perpetrating ethnically targeted attacks and concluded that at least three components of genocide have been overwhelmingly met, including deliberately inflicting conditions of life intended to destroy a group in whole or in part.
A U.N. report from September 2025 found that the Sudanese Armed Forces have also committed war crimes and attacked civilian populations and infrastructure. Both the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces targeted civilians with perceived affiliations to the enemy, executing, torturing and raping victims.
