Second Sudanese Civil War

Lore & Background

The war originated in southern Sudan and spread to the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile. The conflict was marked by numerous human rights violations, including slavery and mass killings, and resulted in roughly two million deaths and four million displaced people. Led by John Garang, the SPLA initially campaigned for a united Sudan, criticizing the central government for policies leading to national disintegration. The war was partially about natural resources, including significant oil fields between north and south.

Reader's Guide

The Second Sudanese Civil War is significant as one of the longest civil wars on record, lasting nearly 22 years. It resulted in the independence of South Sudan six years after the war ended, reshaping the political geography of Africa. The conflict's civilian death toll is among the highest of any war since World War II, with widespread human rights violations including slavery and mass killings. The war highlighted tensions between the central government and peripheral regions, with roots in colonial administration that separated northern and southern Sudan. The discovery of oil fields along the north-south border added economic dimensions to the conflict. The war also demonstrated the challenges of implementing peace agreements, as the Addis Ababa Agreement that ended the first civil war was violated, leading to renewed conflict. The SPLA's role as a movement for all oppressed Sudanese citizens, despite its southern base, reflected broader issues of marginalization in Sudan.

Did You Know?

• The war resulted in the independence of South Sudan 6 years after the war ended.
• Roughly two million people died as a result of the conflict.
• The war was marked by human rights violations including slavery and mass killings.

Origins: A Fractured Transition

The war that erupted in Sudan on 15 April 2023 was not born in a vacuum. It grew out of the fragile transitional government that had followed the 2021 military coup, a coup that was itself part of a long pattern—Sudan has endured twenty coup attempts since gaining independence in 1956, with military rule dominating the intervals between brief democratic experiments. The immediate trigger was a bitter dispute over whether the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary outfit originally assembled from Janjaweed militias during the 2003 Darfur conflict, would be absorbed into the regular Sudanese Armed Forces. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, heading the internationally recognized SAF government, and General Hemedti, who commanded the RSF and its rival Government of Peace and Unity, could not resolve their rivalry through negotiation. When talks collapsed, the RSF struck government installations in Khartoum and other cities, and the country's two most powerful armed factions turned on each other. Smaller armed groups, including Sudan Liberation Movement splinter factions, the Tamazuj militia, and the Darfur Joint Protection Force, quickly aligned with one side or the other, widening the conflict beyond its original two protagonists.

Shifting Frontlines: From Khartoum to Darfur

The fighting opened with the Battle of Khartoum, where RSF units targeted government buildings and military sites in the capital. The capital region itself became a divided battleground, and al-Burhan was forced to relocate his government to the port city of Port Sudan. As the war expanded, combat spread into the western Darfur region, the Kordofan, and Gezira. By the end of 2023, the RSF held most of Darfur and had captured large portions of Khartoum, Kordofan, and Gezira. The momentum then reversed: in 2024 the SAF pushed back, recapturing Omdurman and eventually retaking Khartoum by March 2025. Meanwhile, the war drew in additional actors. The SPLM-North launched attacks against the SAF in the south, the Tamazuj movement threw its weight behind the RSF, and the SAF received backing from factions of the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement. One of the war's most harrowing campaigns was the siege of El Fasher, the SAF's final stronghold in Darfur, which began in April 2024. The city fell to the RSF on 26 October 2025, an event that triggered what experts described as a genocidal massacre. Despite multiple rounds of negotiation, no durable ceasefire has held, and the conflict continues to rage.

A Humanitarian Catastrophe Without Precedent

The human cost of this war is staggering. By mid-2026, more than fourteen million people had been forcibly displaced, and 4.5 million had fled Sudan entirely, creating one of the largest displacement crises of the modern era. Twenty-five million Sudanese faced severe food insecurity, while four million children suffered acute malnutrition—770,000 of them at imminent risk of death. Famine was confirmed in multiple regions. Hospitals closed, disease spread, humanitarian supplies were looted, and the education system and basic infrastructure nearly collapsed, leaving half the population in desperate need. In Khartoum State alone, 61,000 people lost their lives, of whom 26,000 were direct victims of violence. The fall of El Fasher in October 2025 brought what some analysts called the largest massacre of the twenty-first century, with estimates ranging from 60,000 to 70,000 deaths and satellite-based figures as high as 150,000. Sexual violence was widespread. United Nations under-secretary Tom Fletcher called Darfur the "epicenter of human suffering in the world." The total death toll, combining combat fatalities, starvation, and disease, remains difficult to pin down, with thousands still missing.

Foreign Entanglements and the Question of Accountability

The war has never been purely domestic. Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates have all exerted significant influence, while spillover from conflicts in the Central African Republic, Chad, and Libya has further complicated the picture. International diplomacy, including the 2023 Jeddah Declaration, failed to halt the fighting. The United States, United Kingdom, European Union, and Canada imposed sanctions on entities linked to both factions over ceasefire violations and human rights abuses. Yet the UAE was found to be circumventing those sanctions by shipping Chinese-made weaponry to the RSF, a group that largely finances its operations through gold exports to the UAE. On the legal front, the situation reached a critical threshold on 7 January 2025, when the United States government formally determined that the RSF and its allied militias had committed acts of genocide, a finding that echoed earlier International Criminal Court indictments for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The killings of Masalit civilians in Darfur have been specifically identified as part of a genocide. Calls have mounted for increased humanitarian aid, legal protections for aid workers, refugee support, and a complete halt to international arms flows to the RSF.