Sudan's Civil War Enters Third Year as Famine Spreads Across Darfur

The women who survived the massacre in Tawila speak in whispers now, their voices carrying across the makeshift shelter in Chad's Adré border region where 14,000 Sudanese refugees arrived in March alone. Fatima Ibrahim, 34, lost her husband and two sons when Rapid Support Forces fighters swept through her village in North Darfur three weeks ago. She walked for nine days with her surviving daughter, joining an exodus that United Nations officials describe as the largest displacement crisis on Earth.

Sudan's civil war, which erupted on April 15, 2023, between the Sudanese Armed Forces under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces commanded by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, has now killed an estimated 150,000 people and displaced more than 12 million—nearly a quarter of Sudan's population. As the conflict enters its third year this month, the humanitarian catastrophe has reached dimensions that aid workers compare to the worst moments of the 1990s Rwandan genocide.

The situation in Darfur has deteriorated most dramatically, with the RSF and allied Arab militias conducting what human rights investigators increasingly characterize as ethnic cleansing against the Masalit, Fur, and Zaghawa peoples. Last week, satellite imagery analyzed by Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab revealed at least 17 previously undocumented mass burial sites around El Fasher, the last major city in Darfur not under RSF control, which has been under siege since May 2024.

Starvation as a Weapon of War

International humanitarian organizations have accused both warring factions of deliberately blocking food aid, though the RSF faces the most severe allegations. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the global standard for measuring food crises, declared famine conditions in North Darfur's Zamzam displacement camp in August 2024—the first official famine declaration anywhere in the world since 2017. By March 2026, that designation has expanded to five additional areas across Darfur and Kordofan.

Dr. Ahmed Hassan, who operated a pediatric ward in El Fasher until fleeing to Egypt in February, described children arriving at the hospital too weak to cry. "We had no therapeutic food, no medicines. I watched 23 children die of malnutrition in one week," he told The Editorial by phone from Cairo. "The RSF controls the roads. Nothing comes in without their permission, and their permission has a price measured in gold and suffering."

The Sudanese Armed Forces have also impeded humanitarian access, particularly through bureaucratic obstruction at Port Sudan, the country's only functioning seaport. A March 2026 report from Médecins Sans Frontières documented 847 metric tons of medical supplies stranded at the port for more than 60 days awaiting government clearance, while hospitals across SAF-controlled territory reported critical shortages of antibiotics, surgical equipment, and blood supplies.

The International Community's Paralysis

Despite the scale of atrocities, the international response has remained fragmented and ineffective. The United States imposed targeted sanctions on RSF commander Dagalo and six of his deputies in January 2026, but the European Union has struggled to achieve consensus on similar measures, with Hungary and Russia blocking coordinated action. China, which maintains significant oil interests in Sudan, has abstained from all UN Security Council votes on the conflict.

The African Union's peace initiative, launched with great fanfare in Addis Ababa in November 2025, collapsed within weeks when the RSF refused to participate in talks that included representatives from Darfuri civil society. A subsequent Saudi-American mediation effort in Jeddah produced a temporary ceasefire in December that lasted only 72 hours before fighting resumed around El Fasher.

Regional dynamics have further complicated intervention efforts. Egypt, which backs the SAF and has allowed weapons shipments through its territory, has clashed diplomatically with the United Arab Emirates, which human rights groups and UN investigators have linked to arms transfers benefiting the RSF. Both nations deny violating the international arms embargo, but tracking data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project shows sophisticated weaponry appearing on both sides that neither force possessed before the war.

Echoes of Previous Darfur Genocide

For survivors of the 2003-2005 Darfur genocide, which killed an estimated 300,000 people and displaced 2.5 million, the current violence represents a terrifying recurrence. The RSF evolved directly from the Janjaweed militias that carried out those earlier atrocities, and many of the same commanders remain in leadership positions. Mohamed Adam, a Masalit community leader now organizing refugee assistance in N'Djamena, Chad, sees a grim continuity: "They killed my father in 2004. Now they have killed my sons. The world said 'never again' but did nothing to stop it."

The International Criminal Court, which issued an arrest warrant for former President Omar al-Bashir for genocide in Darfur, announced in March that it is investigating current atrocities. Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan visited refugee camps in Chad and declared he had gathered "overwhelming evidence" of crimes against humanity. However, with neither Sudan nor its major arms suppliers party to the Rome Statute, enforcement remains a distant prospect.

As the rainy season approaches in June, humanitarian workers warn that already catastrophic conditions will worsen dramatically. Flooding will make many displacement camps uninhabitable while washing out the few roads that aid convoys can still traverse. The World Health Organization has documented outbreaks of cholera, measles, and dengue fever across multiple states, with health infrastructure almost entirely collapsed outside Port Sudan.

In the refugee settlement outside Adré, Fatima Ibrahim watches her daughter draw pictures in the sand—houses with roofs intact, fields with crops, a family with all its members present. "She draws what she remembers," Fatima says. "I cannot tell her that world is gone. I cannot tell her the world has abandoned us." Until the international community musters the political will to force both parties to the negotiating table—and to ensure humanitarian access regardless of military positions—millions of Sudanese will continue to face a choice between fleeing everything they have known or perishing amid deliberate starvation and systematic violence. The third year of Sudan's civil war promises to be its deadliest yet.