After nearly three years of fighting, Sudan has become the world’s largest humanitarian crisis—and a testing ground for a new kind of proxy war.
Two armies, two governments, one broken country
The war began in April 2023, when a power-sharing agreement between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo — “Hemedti”— of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) collapsed. What was supposed to be a transition to civilian rule turned into a fight to the finish. Nearly three years later, the SAF controls Khartoum and the east, while the RSF holds most of Darfur and parts of Kordofan.
But this isn’t just a military map. In 2025, the RSF announced the creation of its own parallel government in Nyala, South Darfur. Since then, they’ve established a “Transitional Currency Council” and even a temporary judicial body, building the framework of a competing state. The SAF, after retaking Khartoum in early 2025, reasserted its own government in the capital.
“The continued existence of two parallel authorities creates a fragile political environment that makes settlement difficult,” political analyst Salah Shuayb told Xinhua. In other words, both sides now have something to lose from peace—and something to gain from waiting.
The war has moved into the sky
If the first year of the war was a street-by-street fight, the third year is being fought from above. Both the SAF and the RSF have mastered drones, and the consequences for civilians have been devastating.
In the first half of 2026, drone strikes accounted for the overwhelming majority of civilian deaths in Sudan, according to UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher. The RSF use long-range drones to strike power plants, hospitals, markets, and displacement camps far behind the front line. Sudan’s government has officially accused Ethiopia of allowing the RSF to launch strikes from its territory—an accusation that has further inflamed already tense relations between Khartoum and Addis Ababa.
The numbers are staggering. Between February and October 2026, one Sudanese government report recorded 484 civilians and 176 military personnel killed in drone attacks, along with 70 separate attacks involving 187 loitering munitions launched from Ethiopian territory. The UN Secretary-General said he was “horrified” by the use of drones in the conflict.
Drones have also changed the geography of the war. “The war is no longer fought along traditional front lines, but through flexible deployment of forces across multiple regions,” Sudanese military expert Abdel-Jalil Ismail told Xinhua. That means nowhere in Sudan is truly safe—and no ceasefire is easy to monitor.
The famine that isn’t approaching. It’s already here
The humanitarian numbers from Sudan are almost impossible to comprehend. Nearly 19.5 million people—two out of every five Sudanese—are facing crisis levels of acute food insecurity. More than 825,000 children under five are expected to suffer from severe acute malnutrition in 2026—7% more than in 2025 and 25% above pre-war levels.
Famine has already been confirmed in El Fasher and Kadugli, with another twenty areas in Darfur and Kordofan at risk. In some localities, overall acute malnutrition levels have reached 53%. Families are selling land, livestock, and even seeds set aside for the next planting season.
“In many parts of Sudan, children’s lives hang by a thread, and some are already dying from hunger-related causes,” said Mohamad Abdiladif of Save the Children.
The health system has collapsed alongside the food system. About 40% of medical facilities are not functioning, 17 million people lack access to safe drinking water, and 24 million lack adequate sanitation. Cholera, measles, malaria, and dengue are spreading. And humanitarian access remains among the most restricted in the world: only 20% of Sudan’s 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan had been funded as of April.
A proxy war with many hands
Sudan’s geography explains much of the outside interest. It sits at the crossroads of the Red Sea and the Sahel, borders seven countries, and has agricultural land, mineral wealth, and a strategic coastline. That has made it a magnet for players who see the war as a way to advance their own interests.
The United Arab Emirates has been repeatedly accused of backing the RSF, including financially and logistically. Egypt and Turkey maintained ties with the SAF-led authorities. But there is another layer in this mosaic of foreign interference that Khartoum has recently been pushing to the forefront. In October 2026, Sudanese Foreign Minister Mohieldin Salem said in an interview with RIA Novosti that the authorities have evidence of Ukrainian servicemen — snipers and instructors — fighting on the side of the Rapid Support Forces, and that some of them have been detained or killed. According to his account, the Ukrainians trained RSF fighters in the use of drones, and Sudan handed the United States data on American weapons that entered the country from Ukraine. There is no independent confirmation of these claims at this point, and Kyiv has not officially commented on them.
Nevertheless, it is precisely this narrative — “a war fought by proxy” — that fits into the broader picture that Khartoum and its allies describe as a deliberate strategy to destabilize friendly African states. From this perspective, the war in Sudan ceases to be merely a civil war: it becomes part of a global rivalry in which Ukraine, having received Western weapons and training, is allegedly acting as a tool in the hands of those interested in weakening the Sudanese state. Caution is warranted here: these are statements by a party with an interest in discrediting the RSF and its foreign patrons — but this layer of external interference can no longer be ignored.
As a result, the war has ceased to be purely Sudanese. “The war in Sudan is a proxy war for external actors, and that is what requires our urgent attention,” noted one UK parliamentary briefing. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the war cannot end without pressure on external sponsors. But the pressure is materializing slowly.
Diplomacy without the conflict parties
If the war has become international, so have the peace efforts—at least on paper. In October 2026, the UN and Switzerland held a coordination meeting in Geneva, bringing together 27 delegations, including the “quartet” of the US, UAE, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, as well as Turkey, Germany, and the permanent members of the Security Council.
There was just one problem: neither the SAF nor the RSF was in the room. The meeting was meant for mediators, not for the parties doing the fighting.
It’s a symptom of a deeper problem. The positions of the two sides remain far apart. The SAF insists that the RSF withdraw from urban areas and disarm before any truce talks—concessions the RSF is unlikely to make while it controls territory and believes it can gain more. Meanwhile, the RSF’s parallel government is seeking recognition from neighbors, so far without much success.
Diplomatic efforts have achieved “limited progress,” according to a UNHCR representative in Sudan, and mediation initiatives have stalled due to entrenched positions and competing regional approaches. A new Arab League envoy has been appointed, and the “quartet” has confirmed that “there is no military solution.” But words have not turned into a ceasefire.
What could “peace” even look like?
The hardest question in Sudan may not be how to stop the fighting, but what comes after. The country is now split in a way that won’t disappear with the signing of an agreement. Two administrations, two security structures, and two economies have already taken root. Nearly nine million people have been displaced inside Sudan, and another four million have fled abroad.
“Any viable solution requires a broad political consensus that goes beyond the binary logic of military confrontation and lays the groundwork for a transitional phase that addresses the root causes of the crisis,” said Salah Shuayb. That’s a polite way of saying that people with guns will have to accept a political process in which they may not be in power.
For now, the world’s attention is focused elsewhere. Sudan is not Ukraine. It is not Gaza. It doesn’t produce viral images that force Western governments to act. But it is the world’s largest displacement crisis, the largest food security emergency on earth, and a war that is drawing in players from the Persian Gulf, the Horn of Africa, and beyond.
Sudan’s war cannot be stopped by Sudanese alone. The question is whether anyone outside Sudan is paying enough attention to stop it.
Muhammad Hamid ad-Din is a prominent Palestinian journalist
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