On April 15, 2023, a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as “Hemedti,” erupted into what has become a devastating armed conflict and humanitarian crisis. By 2025, Sudan had two rival governments—the SAF’s “Hope Government” in Port Sudan, in the east, and the RSF’s “Government of Peace and Unity” in Nyala, Darfur, in the west—each nominally civilian but actually military-controlled and each supported by different foreign backers.
Against the backdrop of failed international mediation efforts, the fighting goes on, with recent significant territorial shifts. In March 2025, the SAF recaptured Sudan’s capital, Khartoum. Then on October 26, 2025, the RSF announced that it had captured al-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur and the Darfur region’s last major city that had been outside its control. With the RSF now controlling all of Darfur, the already dire humanitarian crisis is worsening, and the country could be in effect partitioned along east-west lines.
Bringing an end to hostilities is paramount, but it also matters how a peace agreement is reached and structured. Any sustainable peace will require responding to the Sudanese people’s call for genuine civilian, democratic governance and avoiding outright or de facto military rule—a demand that the warring parties and their foreign backers have failed to accept.
Competing Governments and the Fight for Legitimacy
Sudan’s war can be traced back to the 2018–2019 popular uprising that toppled Omar al-Bashir’s 30-year Islamist military regime. That grassroots uprising demanded not just the fall of al-Bashir and his ruling National Congress Party, but the dismantling of the entire military-run political system. At its core, the revolutionary movement demanded full civilian rule and the armed forces’ full withdrawal from politics and the economy.
In April 2019, popular pressure forced the military to remove al-Bashir and his party. Yet, to preserve a military-run state, senior SAF officers formed the Transitional Military Council (TMC), led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. The Council included the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which grew out of the Janjaweed militias that, beginning in 2003, carried out a state-sanctioned campaign of genocidal violence against Darfur’s non-Arab communities. In August 2019, the TMC and the civilian leadership, represented by the Forces of Freedom and Change, signed a power-sharing agreement that created a “sovereignty council” to lead the post-Bashir transition, while keeping the real power with the TMC. In October 2021, a coup by the SAF and the RSF—at the time still allies—ousted the civilian leadership, derailing Sudan’s path toward democratic rule.
After the coup, tensions emerged between the SAF and the RSF, in particular over control of Sudan’s gold sector. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is the primary destination for militia gold smuggling, which is then channeled into global markets. In exchange, the UAE has supplied the RSF with weapons that are transferred to Sudan, often via Chad and Libya. In 2023, conflict between the heads of the two forces broke out over the question of integrating the RSF into Sudan’s national armed forces, as both Burhan and Hemedti sought to preserve their power. The current war is therefore best understood as a war between counterrevolutionary factions that are backed by internal and external actors whose interests make them determined to preserve Sudan’s military state.
With the conflict now in its third year, the warring parties not only have pursued military gains on the ground but also have advanced competing narratives to assert their own political legitimacy. The SAF has rallied, armed, and mobilized an array of militias to fight the RSF, including Darfuri ex-rebels, Islamists (some with ties to the former Bashir regime), and tribal elements. The alliance between SAF and these Islamists calls into question the argument that the SAF can be an ally of democracy, in light of Islamists’ efforts to punish civil activists, to restore military-Islamist rule, and to dismantle the grassroots revolutionary movement.
By 2025, fighting intensified as the SAF moved to retake key areas across Sudan. In January 2025, it expelled RSF forces from Omdurman, the city across the Nile from Khartoum, and recaptured a major oil refinery north of the capital. The following month, the SAF regained near-total control of Bahri, a city north of Khartoum, and broke the RSF’s two-year siege of al-Obeid, the capital of the strategic region between Khartoum and Darfur. In March 2025, the SAF announced the recapture of Khartoum, a major turning point in the war that carried both symbolic and strategic weight. Regaining the presidential palace, airport, army headquarters, and other institutions bolstered the SAF’s claim to state sovereignty. In May 2025, the SAF formed its own civilian-led administration in Port Sudan and appointed former United Nations official Kamal Idris as prime minister. Seeking international legitimacy, Idris then announced a new technocratic government called the Hope Government.
For the RSF, the loss of Khartoum, which it had seized at the start of the war, was devastating to its political influence and military position. Since then, however, RSF has managed to consolidate its grip on most of the Darfur and Kordofan regions, and in August 2025 it formed the Government of Peace and Unity in Nyala. RSF Commander Hemedti was sworn in as head of its presidential council, and RSF members and allied rebel groups and other parties make up the rest of the government. In establishing a rival government soon after losing Khartoum, the RSF sought to challenge the SAF’s claim to legitimacy, a move that deepened Sudan’s fragmentation. The RSF’s October 2025 seizure of the SAF’s army base in al-Fasher and declaration of victory there has pushed the country closer to de facto partition: the RSF now controls west and southwest Sudan, while the SAF controls the east and Khartoum.
A War on Civilians
Sudan’s civilians have been subjected to relentless atrocities and a worsening humanitarian crisis. Sudan is currently home to the world’s largest displacement crisis, with 11.8 million people forcibly displaced, 7.4 million of whom are internally displaced and 4.2 million of whom have fled to neighboring countries. On September 5, 2025, the UN Human Rights Council’s Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan reported that “both parties to the conflict violated international human rights and humanitarian law, with most violations amounting to war crimes.” The report documented mass killings, forced displacement, looting, and the destruction of critical infrastructure, including hospitals, roads, displacement camps, and educational institutions. Women and girls are also subjected to systematic sexual violence, enforced disappearance, and other grave abuses.
The escalation of violence has intensified Sudan’s hunger crisis. The country now ranks among the top four nations globally for acute malnutrition, with more than half its population suffering from severe hunger. As in Gaza, conflict has enabled armed groups to exploit food insecurity. Both factions have targeted Sudan’s most fertile regions, disrupting agricultural production, displacing local populations, and cutting off communities from the food sources they depend on. They have also obstructed humanitarian access and imposed sieges on areas outside their control, depriving civilians of aid. Starvation is not just a byproduct of war but a weapon used to weaken and ethnically cleanse vulnerable communities and to consolidate territorial control.
Restrictions on movement and access to aid are acute. The SAF has delayed or denied travel permits and clearances for aid agencies, making it nearly impossible to reach RSF-controlled areas. In April 2024, the RSF began a siege on al-Fasher and prevented food and lifesaving assistance from entering. They also made it nearly impossible for civilians to escape. Al-Fasher once had 36 clinics and hospitals; today, only one remains partially functional, and many medical staff have gone into hiding. Families say they have been reduced to eating leaves and animal feed.
The Collapse of International Humanitarian Aid
The situation in Sudan has become even more dire as international aid has sharply declined. The United States had been Sudan’s largest humanitarian donor, providing nearly 44 percent of all humanitarian funding in 2024. However, soon after taking office in 2025, President Donald Trump began slashing foreign aid, including for Sudan, leading to the shutdown of numerous food assistance programs and health centers. France, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, have likewise scaled back their assistance.
With international support collapsing, Sudanese civilians have been left to fend for themselves, relying on local “resistance committees” and grassroots mutual aid networks to respond to urgent needs. These committees—who represent Sudan’s leading pro-democracy movement—played a key role in the 2019 revolution and later mobilized against the 2021 coup, becoming influential actors through their community-based activism. When war erupted in 2023, they shifted toward humanitarian efforts, creating Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs)—informal, youth-led networks—to deliver lifesaving assistance in areas that international agencies cannot reach. ERRs have provided food, water, emergency medical care, and organized evacuations for thousands. They have also begun offering educational activities for children. Most of their work is being supported by Sudanese diaspora communities and by local groups.
Strengthening the work of ERRs and other local aid initiatives is not only essential for delivering humanitarian assistance but also for rebuilding trust and repairing Sudan’s social fabric as the war tears communities apart. As Sudanese analyst Hamid Khalafallah notes, mutual aid is an act of political participation and an act of resistance. As he says, it “contributes to building bottom-up institutions that are representative and responsive to the needs of its citizens” and allows communities to assert control over their own survival rather than relying on international donors or accepting conditions imposed by the warring factions.
The Extent of US Involvement: Failed Mediation Efforts and Sanctions
International mediation has attempted—and so far failed—to resolve the conflict. Recently, July 2025 talks among the United States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE (referred to as “the Quad”) were canceled by the United States due to disagreements over a final joint statement and over what roles the SAF and RSF would play in Sudan’s post-war political order. Egypt has been closely aligned with the SAF and opposed a portion of the proposed statement, declaring that neither the SAF nor the RSF should lead the postwar transitional government. Egypt supports the SAF’s al-Burhan because Cairo is concerned about instability along its southern border and the future of the Nile River basin. (In 2020, Ethiopia began filling the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam—a $4.5 billion hydroelectric project on the Blue Nile—which Cairo sees as an existential threat to its water security.) Meanwhile, Hemedti maintains close ties with Ethiopia and the UAE. While the UAE is one of Egypt’s most important benefactors, it is also a competitor for influence in the region. As a result, Egypt perceives an RSF-dominated Sudan as a direct threat to its national interests.
On September 12, 2025, the Quad announced that they had agreed to a joint roadmap to end the war in Sudan. The roadmap calls for a three-month humanitarian truce, followed by a permanent ceasefire and a nine-month transitional process leading to civilian-led governance, a framework that clashes with the warring factions’ continued pursuit of victory by force and the formation of rival governments. Additionally, the proposal calls for an end to external military support and asserts that “Sudan’s future cannot be dictated by violent extremist groups […] linked to the Muslim Brotherhood,” referring to the SAF and some of its Islamist allies.
On September 18, 2025, SAF chief al-Burhan rejected the proposed roadmap, as Khartoum refused to negotiate without recognition of the government’s legitimacy and insisted that peace could not be achieved without a military resolution. The RSF also resisted ceasefire efforts, convinced that it was on the verge of victory in al-Fasher. About a month after the Quad proposal, the RSF did capture the city, and now effectively controls all of Darfur.
The Quad proposal fails to impose any consequences for noncompliance. There is no pressure or enforcement, and it stops short of constraining the foreign actors fueling the war. It does not call on the UAE to halt its weapons supply to the RSF or on Egypt to end its military and political backing of the SAF, for example.
Mediation so far has lacked a strong actor capable of exerting real pressure on the warring parties and their foreign backers. The Quad’s roadmap continues this pattern, building on earlier rounds of US involvement—such as the Jeddah ceasefire talks, the Geneva peace talks, and sanctions against both the SAF and RSF—that have failed to produce meaningful progress. Peace initiatives have focused on short-term ceasefires rather than on addressing the root causes of the conflict, while the belligerents have shown no political will to stop fighting. Additionally, a formal mechanism must be established to bring the Resistance Committees and other civilian actors into the negotiation and decision-making process. This would help address one of the main shortcomings of previous ceasefires: the exclusion of the very communities most affected by the war.
A Path Forward
Due to the counterrevolutionary nature of this war, a military victory by either side will only entrench autocratic rule at the cost of countless lives. As Sudanese experts have pointed out, military elites have spent decades negotiating and signing peace agreements that they never implemented. For this reason, any future peace process must center pro-democracy civilian actors—such as resistance committees, mutual aid groups, and women’s and youth organizations—in order to build a durable, justice-based solution and a bottom-up model of governance that breaks with the past by dismantling existing systems of elite power.
The Quad proposal may appear to offer a path forward, but as mentioned, major questions remain about enforcement: Who will ensure compliance, and what consequences will follow violations? Ending the conflict requires enforceable mechanisms such as an international arms embargo. Ultimately, no peace agreement will succeed if arms sales and other external interference continue. Sudan’s future cannot be engineered from the outside; power must be placed in the hands of Sudanese communities themselves, allowing them to follow their own blueprint for a just and democratic future.
The views expressed in this publication are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab Center Washington DC, its staff, or its Board of Directors.
Featured image credit: TG/RSF Media
