April 21, 2026

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Sudan at Three Years: A War Overshadowed, A Crisis Unmanaged

(AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

The war in Sudan surpassed the three-year mark last week, a painful anniversary of what has been called an “abandoned crisis,” with humanitarian conditions remaining severe. According to the Associated Press, 4.5 million have fled to neighboring countries such as Libya and Chad, with 9 million displaced internally. There appears to be no end in sight of the fighting between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), despite the 150,000-person death toll, estimated by the International Rescue Committee, though there are conflicting estimates from various sources.

Hunger and the full-scale collapse of Sudan’s food and agricultural systems have become central to the conflict. Nearly 29 million people — approximately 60 percent of the population — are facing acute food insecurity, and 10 million are facing extreme food insecurity, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council. Fighting has disrupted agricultural production by forcing farmers to flee their fields; irrigation systems are not functioning, and rising fuel prices have severely affected food supply chains, leaving markets isolated and highly localized. Families are increasingly forced to skip meals, reduce portions, or resort to consuming wild plants and animal feed, while community kitchens and aid groups are overwhelmed by demand.

Sudan’s health system has also collapsed, with hospitals and other healthcare facilities destroyed, leaving millions without access to healthcare. According to the International Rescue Committee, this lack of services has contributed to a cholera outbreak that has taken over 3,000 lives. Women and children are at increased risk, particularly women and young girls, with the International Rescue Committee also reporting that those at risk for sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) have tripled in the past two years. As the fighting goes on, the humanitarian outlook continues to look increasingly grim.

In 2025 and at the beginning of 2026, the RSF made important strategic gains in its conflict with the SAF. Most notably, in October 2025, the RSF captured El Fasher, the last remaining SAF stronghold in Darfur, facilitating the rise of the RSF as the more dominant player in the Sudan conflict. The seizure of El Fasher was preceded by an 18-month siege that terrorized, starved, and forcibly displaced local populations on a massive scale. After the city’s capture, reports emerged detailing the scale and coordination of the RSF’s crimes against civilians, leading many human rights groups, along with the UN, to conclude that these acts met the legal definition of “mass atrocity crimes” and raised concerns about their genocidal nature.

While fighting persists in North Darfur and across the country, Kordofan, a region located in central Sudan, has become the new flashpoint for clashes between the SAF and RSF. Control over Kordofan, for the RSF, has the ability to link Darfur to Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, connecting its strongholds with the rest of the country, and potentially providing it with critical Red Sea access. However, Khartoum has remained under SAF control since it recaptured the city in March 2025. Since its recapture, the SAF resumed government operations from Khartoum, while the RSF had set up its own parallel government in its regional strongholds.

The RSF has focused much of its attention on Kordofan over the past few months, making extensive use of drones in its operations. With the help of its ally, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-Army North (SPLM-N), which is based in the region, the two groups have blockaded two major cities in South Kordofan, Kadugli and Dilling, which, according to the BBC and UN monitors, have created famine conditions across the region. In recent weeks, the SAF has been able to break these blockades with drone bombardments.

According to the BBC, the SAF uses drones from a Turkish defense contractor, Baykar, although Ankara itself denies providing direct support to the SAF. The RSF is widely believed to use Chinese-made drones, which are likely supplied by the UAE, although Abu Dhabi denies this. These weapons supplies are only one part of the broader military and logistical support that external actors provide to both the RSF and the SAF, the latter of which has also faced numerous accusations of human rights violations.

The Sudan conflict has not only been sustained by weapons transfers but by a broader regional network of supply routes, logistics hubs and financial channels. The RSF has been most closely tied to the UAE, of which most of its support flows through Libya, and through Uganda, Kenya, and South Sudan. The latter serves as an important transit corridor for the RSF’s gold economy; gold is reportedly smuggled through South Sudan and taken to the UAE, where it is sold. The proceeds of this gold exchange allow the RSF to continue to buy weapons and function as an independent entity. The SAF, by contrast, has benefited greatly from Egypt, which has provided it with staunch political backing and logistical and technical support.

Recently, Egyptian support for the SAF has deepened. Reuters has reported that Cairo expanded its backing for the Sudanese army after the capture of El Fasher, which has raised concerns about the RSF’s ability to push further east towards the Red Sea, which would strengthen Emirati influence over the vital waterway. Recent reports from Reuters and the New York Times have indicated that the SAF’s advance in Kordofan was facilitated by Egypt, with Cairo allowing attacks on the RSF blockade to be operated from Egypt’s East Oweinat airstrip. At the same time, the RSF has attempted to open a new front in the Blue Nile region, partly to divert attention away from Kordofan, but also because, according to analysts at the BBC, the small strip of land sits between Ethiopia and South Sudan, both of which have been accused of supporting the RSF. Although both countries deny their support for the militia, reporting from Reuters suggests that the UAE is funding and supplying an RSF training camp in Ethiopia itself, which has its own Red Sea ambitions.

In 2025, the United States and its allies in the “Quad” — consisting of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, some of which are alleged sponsors of the conflict — attempted to secure an end to the war, outlining steps toward de-escalation. By early 2026, however, the momentum had almost entirely dissipated as diplomatic bandwidth was shifted to deal with the more local war between the U.S.-Israel and Iran. As such, this absence has reinforced a permissive environment in which both the RSF and SAF continue to pursue their goals with little external pressure.

Additionally, the humanitarian response has increasingly become decoupled from political diplomacy. At a recent conference on Sudan aid, hosted by Germany in Berlin last week, 61 countries pledged a total of €1.5 billion and called for a ceasefire. This conference follows two previous iterations that were held in Paris and London, in which €2 billion were pledged in Paris, and €1 billion were pledged in London. Despite the much-needed humanitarian support, especially as the number of mutual aid societies functioning in Sudan continue to diminish, it contributes little towards an effort to quell the fighting.

Meanwhile, prospects for a resolution remain limited. Africa expert Cameron Hudson characterizes international engagement with Sudan as an “asymmetry of interests,” in which the stakes for Sudanese civilians are existential, but remain comparatively low for the U.S. and other world powers. This leads to inconsistent engagement, as seen following the outbreak of the war in Iran, in which efforts are not sustained long enough to have a real impact. Therefore, without a more coordinated approach that keeps Sudan high on the international agenda and includes Sudanese voices, the conflict is likely to continue to flourish.