2023 Sudan war

The 2023 Sudan war began on 15 April 2023 when fighting broke out in Khartoum between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo ("Hemedti"). The two had jointly seized power in an October 2021 coup that ousted the civilian-led transitional government formed after the 2019 removal of Omar al-Bashir, but they fell out over the timetable and terms for integrating the RSF into the regular army under a planned transition framework.

Combat quickly spread from the capital to Darfur, Kordofan, and Gezira state. The RSF, which traces its origins to the Janjaweed militias of the early-2000s Darfur conflict, took control of much of Khartoum and large parts of western Sudan, while the SAF retained Port Sudan, where the government relocated, and much of the north and east. Fighting in Darfur drew particular alarm: in 2023 the United States determined that members of the RSF and allied militias had committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing against the Masalit and other non-Arab communities in West Darfur, and in January 2025 the outgoing Biden administration formally determined that the RSF had committed genocide.

The war has produced what UN agencies describe as the world's largest displacement crisis, with millions internally displaced and millions more fleeing to Chad, South Sudan, Egypt, and Ethiopia. Famine conditions were confirmed in parts of Sudan, including the Zamzam camp near El Fasher, in 2024. Mediation efforts in Jeddah led by Saudi Arabia and the United States, alongside tracks involving the African Union, IGAD, and later Switzerland-hosted talks, have repeatedly failed to secure durable ceasefires. External actors including the UAE (accused by Sudan's government of arming the RSF, which it denies), Egypt, and Russia-linked actors have been implicated in supplying the parties.