Sudan's Forgotten War: 18 Months of Carnage Leave 12 Million Displaced

In the skeletal remains of what was once a primary school in Omdurman, Fatima Ahmed cradles her youngest child while two others sleep on a thin mat beside her. The 34-year-old mother of five fled El Fasher three weeks ago when Rapid Support Forces fighters entered her neighborhood, killing her husband and brother-in-law as they tried to protect their home. Now she is one of roughly 12 million Sudanese — more than a quarter of the country's population — who have been displaced by a war that shows no signs of ending.

Tuesday marks 18 months since the April 2024 outbreak of fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces commanded by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti. What began as a power struggle between two generals who once collaborated in a 2021 coup has metastasized into a full-scale civil war that has destroyed the capital Khartoum, spread ethnic cleansing through Darfur, and created what the United Nations now calls the world's largest humanitarian emergency.

The international community's response has been halting and inadequate. A UN-backed humanitarian appeal for Sudan in 2025 received less than 40 percent of its requested $4.1 billion in funding, while diplomatic efforts to broker a ceasefire have repeatedly collapsed. Meanwhile, both sides have been accused of war crimes, including the systematic use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, deliberate attacks on hospitals and schools, and the blocking of humanitarian aid to starving populations.

The Battle for El Fasher and Darfur's Darkening Horizon

The RSF's six-month siege of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur and the last major city in the region not under paramilitary control, has become the conflict's most brutal front. The city's population has swelled to an estimated 2.5 million as displaced people from across Darfur sought refuge there, only to find themselves trapped in a tightening noose of artillery bombardment and street-to-street fighting.

Doctors at El Fasher's South Hospital, one of only three medical facilities still partially functioning in the city, told The Editorial they are performing amputations without anesthesia and treating gunshot wounds with expired medications. Dr. Ibrahim Hassan, a surgeon who has remained despite evacuation orders, described receiving up to 80 casualties on a single day in February when RSF shelling hit a displaced persons camp on the city's outskirts.

The violence in Darfur has taken on an explicitly ethnic dimension, with the RSF and allied Arab militias accused of targeting the Masalit, Fur, and Zaghawa ethnic groups in a campaign that echoes the genocide of the early 2000s. Survivors reaching Chad's border camps describe systematic killings, mass graves, and the deliberate destruction of villages along ethnic lines. The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, announced in January 2026 that his office is investigating potential genocide charges related to events in West Darfur.

Khartoum's Ruins and the Collapse of a Nation

The capital that was once home to six million people now resembles a post-apocalyptic wasteland. RSF fighters control much of Khartoum and Omdurman, while the SAF holds positions in Khartoum North and maintains air superiority that it uses to conduct daily bombing raids. The fighting has reduced entire neighborhoods to rubble, destroyed the country's main banking infrastructure, and severed communications networks across large swaths of the nation.

For those civilians who remain, survival has become a daily negotiation with death. Food prices have risen by over 400 percent since the war began, with a 50-kilogram sack of sorghum now costing the equivalent of three months' average pre-war salary. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification reported in February that 25.6 million Sudanese — more than half the population — face acute food insecurity, with 8.5 million at emergency levels and 755,000 in famine conditions.

The collapse extends beyond food. Sudan's health system has been systematically dismantled, with over 70 percent of hospitals nationwide non-functional. Disease outbreaks, including cholera, dengue fever, and measles, have swept through displaced populations. The education system has ceased to exist for most children, with UNESCO estimating that 19 million school-age Sudanese have been out of classrooms for over a year.

The Failure of International Diplomacy

Successive attempts to negotiate a ceasefire have collapsed, with neither side showing genuine willingness to compromise. The Jeddah talks, mediated by Saudi Arabia and the United States, produced multiple short-lived humanitarian pauses that both parties violated within days. The African Union's Continental Peace Initiative, launched in September 2025, has made little progress, hampered by divisions among member states and the refusal of both Sudanese generals to attend direct talks.

External powers have complicated the picture. The RSF has reportedly received weapons and supplies from the United Arab Emirates, channeled through Chad and Libya, while the SAF has drawn support from Egypt and Iran. Russia's Wagner Group, despite its reorganization following the 2023 mutiny, maintains a presence in Sudan's gold mining regions, providing revenue streams that help sustain the conflict. China, Sudan's largest trading partner, has called for peace while continuing to purchase gold and other resources from RSF-controlled areas.

As the war enters its 19th month, aid workers and analysts warn that the worst may still be ahead. The rainy season beginning in June will make already difficult aid deliveries nearly impossible in many areas, while the continuing siege of El Fasher threatens to produce mass casualty events that could dwarf anything yet seen. For Fatima Ahmed, still sheltering in that ruined school in Omdurman, the future holds only uncertainty. Her savings are exhausted, her home is destroyed, and the husband who provided for her family is dead.

"I don't know what will happen tomorrow," she said, her voice steady despite everything. "But I know that my children must survive. That is all I can think about now." Her words echo across a nation where survival itself has become the only remaining ambition, and where the international community's failure to act has condemned millions to endure a catastrophe that unfolds in plain sight, demanding attention the world seems unwilling to give.