WORLD CONFLICT DEBRIEF — Live OSINT Dashboard Tracking Global Conflicts.

Sudan

Deaths

150K–400K killed (est.)

Displaced

13.6M — world's largest displacement crisis

Sudan & South Sudan — Geographic Reference

to scale · real coordinates

Fighting erupted in Khartoum in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan "Hemedti" Dagalo — former partners in the 2021 coup who fell out over how to integrate the RSF into the regular army. The war has since spread from Khartoum to Darfur, Kordofan and beyond, drawing in over 10 external countries backing one side or the other. Multiple mediation efforts — including US, Saudi and African Union channels — have failed to produce a lasting ceasefire.

The RSF's October 2025 capture of El Fasher — the SAF's last stronghold in Darfur, under siege for over a year — was accompanied by what multiple human rights groups and researchers describe as a genocidal massacre. Estimates of the dead in the days during and after the city's fall range from 60,000 to as high as 150,000, based on satellite evidence and survivor testimony, which would make it among the most lethal single massacres of the 21st century. The RSF disputes the highest figures.

The RSF has spent months massing forces around El-Obeid, North Kordofan’s capital and a key SAF logistics hub linking southern and western Sudan to the Nile Valley — the city hosts the SAF’s 5th Infantry Division and its joint operations room with Egypt, set up after El Fasher fell. The UN Human Rights Council passed a motion Jul 6 condemning escalating violence and warning that an RSF assault could replicate the “hallmarks of genocide” documented at El Fasher. Roughly 500,000 people, including 105,000 already displaced by earlier fighting, remain trapped in the city with nowhere safe to flee; some residents are buying bus tickets out at a rate of roughly 500 people a day. The RSF has kept up “relentless” drone strikes on the city — UN High Commissioner Volker Türk cited 50 civilians killed in drone strikes over just 10 days in late June — damaging the power station, disrupting water supplies, and striking markets and schools. The US State Department has separately warned of “alarming indications that mass atrocities could be imminent.” As of early August the city has not yet fallen, but the encirclement is tightening and no ceasefire or humanitarian corridor has been agreed.

Sudan's war has transformed into a drone-dominated conflict, per ACLED. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk told the Human Rights Council that over 1,000 civilians were killed in drone strikes in just the first five months of 2026 alone, part of a documented 600% year-on-year rise in drone-related deaths. Both SAF and RSF have adopted the tactic, extending strikes into previously less-contested areas.

Famine was first confirmed at the Zamzam displacement camp in Aug 2024 and has since expanded to multiple localities across El Fasher and Kadugli. Cholera has spread nationwide — the IRC records over 120,000 confirmed cases and 3,000+ deaths from the outbreak alone. Mass rape and sexual violence are documented as widespread and systematic by UN agencies and rights groups on both sides of the front line. International attention has been consistently overshadowed by the Middle East and Ukraine wars despite Sudan's larger displacement toll than either.