As the civil war enters its third year, battles for territory, worsening humanitarian crises, and behind-the-scenes political maneuvers shape Sudan’s future.
Sudan’s brutal civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary continues to spiral, producing the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. Tens of thousands have died in combat, while countless more perish from hunger and disease as the conflict grinds through its third year.
Fighting and Military Control
The SAF has consolidated control over Khartoum, captured from the RSF in March, and maintains a grip on Sudan’s central and eastern regions, including its wartime capital, Port Sudan. Meanwhile, the RSF dominates Darfur and much of Kordofan, steadily expanding its territorial reach.
In North Darfur, the RSF has encircled el-Fasher, where the SAF holds its last major garrison in the region. Satellite imagery shows massive sand berms blocking the city from multiple directions, effectively trapping an estimated 260,000 civilians — half of them children. UNICEF has called the city an “epicentre of child suffering,” with families surviving on dwindling supplies of ambaz, a paste made from pressed seed residue.
Conditions are equally dire elsewhere. One-third of children in Mellit, an RSF-held city near el-Fasher, are severely malnourished. A cholera outbreak has further devastated Darfur, infecting over 9,000 people and claiming nearly 400 lives since June. The World Food Programme says aid convoys have not reached the region in over a year, with both warring sides accused of weaponising food. A UN convoy was struck by a drone in late August — the second such attack in three months — with SAF and RSF trading blame.
In Kordofan, the RSF’s alliance with Abdelaziz al-Hilu’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) has allowed it to dominate much of the west and south, securing cross-border routes into South Sudan. Yet the SAF still controls el-Obeid, a strategic North Kordofan city under RSF siege. Its loss would threaten central Sudan.
Diplomacy and Political Developments
Beyond the battlefield, political maneuvering intensified in August. On the 31st, RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo was sworn in as president of a self-declared “Peace government” in Nyala, South Darfur — a move immediately overshadowed by an SAF drone strike on the city.
Meanwhile, reports surfaced of a clandestine mid-August meeting in Switzerland between SAF commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and a U.S. adviser, sparking speculation of renewed peace efforts. Though Washington has not confirmed the talks, al-Burhan’s subsequent retirement of several senior Islamist-linked officers suggests external pressure to sideline Sudan’s old guard tied to former president Omar al-Bashir.
As the SAF and RSF battle for territory and legitimacy, Sudan’s civilians remain caught in a relentless cycle of siege, famine, and disease — with no clear end in sight.