A series of advances by the Sudanese military has led some observers to posit that the African nation’s yearslong civil war could be at a crucial turning point.
Even if it were to end tomorrow, the bloody conflict would have left the Sudanese people scarred by violence that has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions of people. But the recent victories by the military do not spell the end of its adversary, a rebel paramilitary group that still holds large areas in Sudan.
The Conversation turned to Christopher Tounsel, a historian of modern Sudan at the University of Washington, to explain what the war has cost and where it could turn now.
Can you give a summary of the civil war to date?
On April 15, 2023, fighting broke out in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces, or SAF – led by de facto head of state Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan – and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, led by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known colloquially as “Hemedti.” The RSF emerged out of the feared Janjaweed militia that had terrorized the Darfur region of Sudan.
While the SAF and RSF previously worked together to forcibly remove longtime President Omar al-Bashir from power in 2019, they later split amid a power struggle that turned deadly.
The major point of contention was the disputed timeline for RSF integration into the national military, with the RSF preferring a 10-year process to the SAF’s preferred two-year plan.
By early April 2023, the government deployed SAF troops along the streets of the capital, Khartoum, while RSF forces took up locations throughout the country. Matters came to a head when explosions and gunfire rocked Khartoum on April 15 of that year. The two forces have been in conflict ever since.
To human toll of the civil war has been staggering. As of February 2025, estimates of those killed from the conflict and its related causes, including lack of sufficient medical facilities and hunger, have ranged from 20,000 to 150,000 – a wide gulf that, according to Humanitarian Research Lab executive director Nathaniel Raymond, is partially due to the fact that the dead or displaced are still being counted.
The conflict has displaced more than 14 million people, a number that demographically makes the Sudan situation the world’s worst displacement crisis. Nearly half of Sudan’s population is “acutely food insecure,” according to the U.N.’s World Food Programme. Another 638,000 face “catastrophic levels of hunger” – the world’s highest number.
How have recent developments changed the war?
The SAF has recently scored a slew of victories. At time of writing, the Sudanese military controls much of the country’s southeastern border with Ethiopia, the Red Sea coast – and, with it, Sudan’s strategically important Port Sudan – and parts of the country’s metropolitan center located at the confluence of the Blue and White Nile rivers.