The war in Sudan

Tens of thousands flee as frontline moves east

At least 36,000 civilians fled their homes in the Kordofan region of Sudan last week as fighting moved east from Darfur, the UN said, according to AFP.

Recently, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) took control of the city of el-Fashir in Darfur, which borders Kordofan.

Kordofan has now become the next frontline in the war that has been going on between the Sudanese army and the RSF since April 2023.

The parties are fighting for control of el-Obeid, a strategically important junction between Darfur and the capital Khartoum.

“We are avoiding our farms because we are afraid of the fighting,” says local resident Suleiman Babiker. 

Doctors fought to the last: “They are heroes”

The Saudi Maternity Hospital was the last functioning hospital in el-Fashir in Sudan. For months, medical staff performed operations in the dark and under fire, often without medicine or electricity, reports NPR.

“They are heroes,” says Mohamed Faisal Elsheikh, a doctor from Sudan who works in Manchester, UK.

When the paramilitary RSF recently took control of the city, 460 patients were killed in the hospital. Doctors and other medical staff have been abducted or killed.

At the same time, several testimonies are coming out about the persistent efforts of civilians to tell the world about the atrocities until the very end. One of them was Mohamed Khamis Douda, a spokesman for a refugee camp. He was killed when the RSF took over the city, writes The Guardian.

“I cannot emphasize enough what a loss Mohamed’s death is, for civil society and for Sudan as a country,” says Shayna Lewis, program director at the organization “Preventing and Ending Mass Atrocities.”

The civil war in Sudan – it's about the matter

• The civil war in Sudan has been going on since April 2023 between the army and the paramilitary RSF, which according to the UN has led to the largest refugee crisis in world history with around nine million Sudanese refugees at the turn of the year 2023/2024.
• The UN and aid organizations report acute famine, cholera outbreaks and that over 25 million people are threatened with hunger, while millions of children are at risk of acute malnutrition.
• The fighting has caused tens of thousands of deaths, massacres of civilians and widespread sexual violence, especially in Darfur where the RSF is accused of genocide and ethnic cleansing.
• The United Arab Emirates has supplied the RSF with weapons and is reportedly the largest financier of the group, while the US and other countries have tried to broker ceasefires and peace plans without lasting success.
• In 2025, the Sudanese army has regained control of the capital Khartoum, but the RSF has taken over the Darfur region, and massacres and humanitarian catastrophe continue despite new peace initiatives.