Sudan: Sudan's Death Toll in 2025 Could Be As High As 100,000 - How We Did the Count

Estimating the death toll in Sudan's civil war has proven challenging due to the inherent difficulties in counting casualties in active conflict zones. Recent estimates range from around 19,000 to over 70,000 direct deaths in 2025 alone. A conflict research team developed a model to account for the bias in datasets that tend to underestimate fatalities, providing a more realistic range of possible death tolls.

In 2025, the conflict intensified as paramilitary forces advanced in Darfur and North Kordofan, leading to a significant territorial shift and marking one of the war's deadliest episodes. UN officials concluded that the Rapid Support Forces' actions in El-Fasher bore characteristics of genocide. Satellite imagery, survivor reports, and other evidence estimate that at least 60,000 people were killed during and after the paramilitary group's capture of El-Fasher.

However, these figures only capture direct deaths from violence, not accounting for potential deaths from disease and starvation. The true number of war deaths remains uncertain, but scholars have identified several factors contributing to the variation in estimates. The Uppsala Conflict Data Program's estimate of 60,000 deaths in El-Fasher is supported by independent reporting from Sudanese media, NGOs, and UN agencies.

Their model provides a range of plausible death tolls, with a 90% probability that the number falls between 73,000 and 90,000, with a small chance that the actual number could reach as high as 100,000.