More than 9 million people remain internally displaced inside Sudan as the brutal conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group continues to generate fresh waves of displacement across the country’s war-ravaged regions.
At the height of the crisis, more than 12 million people were uprooted — the largest displacement emergency in any single country at any given moment in the world. While around 3.8 million displaced persons have begun returning home in some areas, the UN says displacement is still actively occurring in Darfur, Kordofan and Blue Nile states.
The crisis in Darfur remains the most acute. The region, scarred by a prior conflict in the 2000s that killed an estimated 300,000 people, has seen some of the worst fighting since the current conflict began.
International humanitarian organisations warn that the displacement crisis is on the verge of becoming a fully blown famine situation in several regions. The UN World Food Programme says aid convoys face systematic obstruction in areas controlled by both warring parties.
Children make up a disproportionate share of the displaced. Aid workers report widespread malnutrition, outbreaks of measles and cholera in overcrowded camps, and a collapse of the health system in active conflict zones.
The international response has been critically underfunded. The UN’s humanitarian appeal for Sudan has received only a fraction of the funding required, as donor governments deal with competing crises in Gaza, Ukraine and elsewhere.