Sudan War 2026: What Is Happening, Who Is Fighting, and What Comes Next

The Sudanese conflict had begun on 15 April 2023, when General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the leader of the Sudanese Armed Forces, and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, engaged in a power struggle that escalated into open warfare in Khartoum. The two men, former allies who had jointly seized power in a 2021 coup, were now clashing over the RSF's integration into the army.

Their dispute, which has persisted since the 2019 overthrow of Omar al-Bashir, transformed a political crisis into a civil war that has since devolved into a technologically driven conflict involving drones, sieges, and shifting regional fronts.

The army, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, currently controls the center and east of Sudan, including the capital city of Khartoum and the Red Sea port city of Port Sudan. The Rapid Support Forces, under the command of Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, have gained control of the western arc following their capture of El Fasher, the last army stronghold in Darfur, in October 2025.

The UN has concluded that the RSF's siege and capture of El Fasher exhibited "the hallmarks of genocide," alongside numerous documented war crimes and crimes against humanity.

With roughly 12 to 13 million people displaced, Sudan now faces the world's largest displacement crisis. Additionally, famine has been confirmed in El Fasher and Kadugli, and an estimated 20 million people confront acute hunger. The conflict has taken a severe toll, with an estimated 59,000 deaths recorded by April 2026 by the ACLED database, while the UN recorded 1,400 civilian deaths in the first half of 2026 alone. The overall death toll remains uncertain, with media investigations suggesting a figure far higher.