# Sudan Civil War - Canonical dossier: [Web edition]() - Markdown edition: [Plain-text edition]() - Issue: Issue 001 - Rubric: State Collapse / War Magazine - Byline: Totally Fine Foundation editorial desk - Reading time: 11 min - Last reviewed: 2026-08-24 > Two armed institutions dressed themselves as the state. Sudan got the bill: hunger, exile, ruined hospitals and a country converted into a front line. ## Cover - Kicker: Field dossier / Africa / active war - Cover lines: A state split into uniforms / Displacement became the geography / El Fasher is the evidence cutout / Two armies speak. Civilians survive. #### Hero visual provenance - Caption: Refugee camp in Chad after people fled Sudan, 16 May 2023. - Alt text: A Sudanese refugee camp in Chad in May 2023. - Credit: Henry Wilkins / Voice of America - Rights / license: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ## Metrics ### 33.7M — People requiring assistance in 2026 - Category: humanitarian need - Caveat: HNRP/health-emergency planning figure; not a death toll. **Source trail:** [WHO — Public Health Situation Analysis - Sudan Conflict and Complex Emergency]() (`sudan-who-phsa-2026`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: Refugees in Adre, Chad, where the assistance figure becomes daily logistics. - Alt text: Sudanese refugees and officials in Adre, Chad, January 2025. - Credit: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office - Rights / license: CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### 13.6M — People currently displaced - Category: displacement - Caveat: WHO January 2026 snapshot; includes internal and cross-border displacement. **Source trail:** [WHO — Sudan: 1000 days of war deepen the world's worst health and humanitarian crisis]() (`sudan-who-1000-days`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: A cross-border camp in Chad, where the displacement total becomes tents, water cans and dust. - Alt text: A makeshift camp in eastern Chad sheltering people who fled the war in Sudan, May 2023. - Credit: Henry Wilkins / Voice of America - Rights / license: Public domain (PD-VOA), via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### 21.2M+ — Acute food insecurity - Category: food security - Caveat: People experiencing acute food insecurity; IPC Phase 5 conditions noted in some areas. **Source trail:** [WHO — Public Health Situation Analysis - Sudan Conflict and Complex Emergency]() (`sudan-who-phsa-2026`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: Food insecurity is not abstract when the border town becomes the pantry. - Alt text: Aid and camp life around Sudanese refugees in Chad. - Credit: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office - Rights / license: CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### 201 — Validated attacks on health care - Category: infrastructure / health - Caveat: WHO SSA validated attacks between 15 Apr 2023 and 31 Dec 2025. **Source trail:** [WHO — Public Health Situation Analysis - Sudan Conflict and Complex Emergency]() (`sudan-who-phsa-2026`); [WHO — Sudan: 1000 days of war deepen the world's worst health and humanitarian crisis]() (`sudan-who-1000-days`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: When care systems are hit, the border becomes part of the health infrastructure. - Alt text: Sudanese refugees in Adre, Chad. - Credit: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office - Rights / license: CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ## The state wore a uniform. Then it split in two. ### Origin The war did not arrive as weather. It came from two armed institutions that had already learned how to stand above civilian life. On 15 April 2023, the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, former partners in the post-Bashir transition, stopped pretending the command dispute could be managed by communiqués. Khartoum was the first fracture. Darfur, Kordofan and the aid routes became the wider map of checkpoints, flight and military control. The clean version says integration failed. The harder version says the state had already been organized around armed command. **Source trail:** [International Crisis Group — Sudan: A Year of War]() (`sudan-icg-year-war`); [United Nations in Sudan / OHCHR — A war of atrocities: Sudan civilians deliberately targeted]() (`sudan-un-atrocities`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: Origin: the command dispute is read as a structure before it becomes a battlefield. - Alt text: Editorial origin plate showing two armed institutions splitting the state command structure. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; source-linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Current condition By early 2026, the numbers stopped behaving like numbers and started behaving like geography: 33.7 million people requiring assistance, 13.6 million displaced, health care hit again and again, hunger turning into terrain. It is possible to call this a humanitarian crisis. It is more honest to say the country has been made hard to live in on purpose. El Fasher is the hard cutout in this issue. UN investigators describe a siege and takeover pattern marked by ethnically targeted killings, sexual violence, starvation and enforced disappearances. Amnesty records survivor testimony. The broader UN file is not gentle to the other side either: it attributes attacks on civilians and essential infrastructure to both SAF and RSF. CFR describes Sudan as the world's largest internal-displacement and hunger crisis. The UN reportedly characterized the situation in El Fasher as 'terrifying' and called for an immediate ceasefire, per the UN statement. The supplied evidence indicates UNICEF issued a Sudan flash update dated January 8, 2026, concerning the El Fasher and Kordofan crisis. The Sudan conflict has involved famine or starvation and sexual violence. El Fasher is the subject of a documented 'Siege of El Fasher' and a separate 'El Fasher massacre' entry in the supplied evidence. At a UN Security Council briefing on 24 August 2026, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Tom Fletcher reportedly stated that more than two-thirds of Sudan's population were in desperate need of lifesaving support as of that date, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The same briefing reportedly cited an account attributed to Rosemary DiCarlo, presented by Tom Fletcher, reporting 1,400 civilian deaths in Sudan during the first half of 2026, with more than 1,100 of those deaths attributed to drone strikes, according to the estimate cited by Tom Fletcher. The briefing reportedly acknowledged the presence of United States Special Envoy for Africa Massad Boulos and the Secretary-General's Personal Envoy for Sudan Pekka Haavisto in connection with peace efforts for Sudan. According to the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition (SHCC), using data collected by Insecurity Insight, 134 incidents of violence against or obstruction of health care were reported in Sudan during 2025. SHCC reported that health facilities were damaged or destroyed 40 times during 2025, 54 health workers were killed during 2025, and 47 health workers were arrested during 2025. The report states that the documented number of attacks on health care in Sudan during 2025 is likely an undercount because of underreporting in inaccessible areas and reduced humanitarian presence. According to the report, it examines attacks affecting health workers, health facilities, patients, and medical transport amid intensifying conflict between armed groups, including consequences for access to health care in remote and conflict-affected regions. **Source trail:** [WHO — Public Health Situation Analysis - Sudan Conflict and Complex Emergency]() (`sudan-who-phsa-2026`); [United Nations in Sudan / OHCHR — A war of atrocities: Sudan civilians deliberately targeted]() (`sudan-un-atrocities`); [United Nations Office at Geneva — Hallmarks of genocide found in El Fasher]() (`sudan-un-elfasher`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: Current condition: families become the visible unit of a state failure. - Alt text: Sudanese refugee children and families in Adre, Chad. - Credit: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office - Rights / license: CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### How to read responsibility SAF offers the language of state recovery. RSF offers the language of anti-regime revolt. Neither slogan gets to walk through the door as fact. The page keeps each side's costume visible, then puts it under the harsher light of UN findings, survivor testimony and methodology notes. Balance does not mean pretending all evidence weighs the same. In El Fasher, the available public record points heavily at RSF conduct. Across the wider war, the UN file says both parties have helped turn civilian life into military material. That is the editorial rule here: show the claim, show the counterclaim, then show what survives contact with evidence. **Source trail:** [Rapid Support Forces — Statement on Geneva Negotiations and the Maneuvers of the Islamic Movement]() (`sudan-rsf-geneva`); [Al Jazeera, citing SAF statement — Sudan's army declares Khartoum state completely free of RSF]() (`sudan-saf-khartoum`); [United Nations in Sudan / OHCHR — A war of atrocities: Sudan civilians deliberately targeted]() (`sudan-un-atrocities`); [Amnesty International — El Fasher survivors tell of deliberate RSF killings and sexual violence]() (`sudan-amnesty-elfasher`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: Responsibility: the file leaves Sudan and becomes a public demand. - Alt text: A Paris protest about Sudan. - Credit: Jeanne Menjoulet - Rights / license: CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ## Actors and positions ### Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) - Role: National army and de facto state military authority aligned with Port Sudan institutions. - Confidence: high - Position: SAF frames the RSF as a rebel paramilitary force and presents its campaign as the recovery of Sudanese territory and state authority. - Supporter framing: Supporters emphasize national sovereignty, the need to dissolve or subordinate the RSF, and the danger of a militia controlling state institutions. - Opposing account: RSF claims SAF is captured by remnants of the former regime and Islamist networks, and says SAF started or prolonged the war. - Independent assessment: UN investigators attribute civilian targeting, detention abuse and infrastructure destruction to SAF as well as RSF. In Gezira, SAF and allies are specifically cited for targeting the Kanabi community after recapture. **Source trail:** [Al Jazeera, citing SAF statement — Sudan's army declares Khartoum state completely free of RSF]() (`sudan-saf-khartoum`); [Rapid Support Forces — Statement on Geneva Negotiations and the Maneuvers of the Islamic Movement]() (`sudan-rsf-geneva`); [United Nations in Sudan / OHCHR — A war of atrocities: Sudan civilians deliberately targeted]() (`sudan-un-atrocities`) #### Portrait provenance - Caption: Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, SAF-aligned sovereign council figure. - Alt text: Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. - Credit: Kremlin.ru - Rights / license: CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Rapid Support Forces (RSF) - Role: Paramilitary force built from Darfur-era armed structures, now controlling or contesting large areas. - Confidence: high - Position: RSF presents itself as fighting the old regime and Islamist elements inside SAF, while claiming openness to ceasefires and negotiations. - Supporter framing: Supporters frame RSF as a counterweight to army rule and Port Sudan elites; opponents describe that as cover for militia rule and predation. - Opposing account: SAF calls RSF rebels, traitors and agents, and argues that the group must leave civilian areas and give up weapons before a durable truce. - Independent assessment: UN and Amnesty reporting assigns especially heavy evidence against RSF in El Fasher: targeted killings, sexual violence, starvation, forced displacement and possible genocide indicators. **Source trail:** [Rapid Support Forces — Statement on Geneva Negotiations and the Maneuvers of the Islamic Movement]() (`sudan-rsf-geneva`); [Rapid Support Forces — RSF affirms to Sudanese citizens in areas under its protection]() (`sudan-rsf-currency`); [Al Jazeera, citing SAF statement — Sudan's army declares Khartoum state completely free of RSF]() (`sudan-saf-khartoum`); [United Nations Office at Geneva — Hallmarks of genocide found in El Fasher]() (`sudan-un-elfasher`); [Amnesty International — El Fasher survivors tell of deliberate RSF killings and sexual violence]() (`sudan-amnesty-elfasher`) #### Portrait provenance - Caption: Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, RSF commander. - Alt text: Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti. - Credit: Russian Government - Rights / license: CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Civilians, aid workers and displaced communities - Role: Primary victims and witnesses; not a single political actor. - Confidence: high - Position: Survival priorities are protection, access to food and medicine, safe routes, accountability and return where possible. - Supporter framing: Humanitarian actors emphasize access and civilian protection before political victory narratives. - Opposing account: Both armed sides accuse civilians or communities of collaboration when they are perceived to belong to the other camp. - Independent assessment: WHO and UN reporting shows mass displacement, acute food insecurity, attacks on health care and aid obstruction at national scale. **Source trail:** [WHO — Public Health Situation Analysis - Sudan Conflict and Complex Emergency]() (`sudan-who-phsa-2026`); [United Nations in Sudan / OHCHR — A war of atrocities: Sudan civilians deliberately targeted]() (`sudan-un-atrocities`) #### Portrait provenance - Caption: Civilians are represented as affected communities, witnesses and survival systems, not as a single spokesperson. - Alt text: Editorial surface representing Sudanese civilians, aid workers and displaced communities. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; source-linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ## Claims and evidence ### The other side started and prolongs the war. - Claimant: SAF and RSF, in opposing forms - Evidence status: disputed - Counterclaim: SAF frames RSF as rebellion; RSF frames SAF as old-regime and Islamist capture. - Independent assessment: Independent background sources point to a collapsed transition, command integration dispute and elite power struggle. Origin responsibility remains politically disputed, while later violations can be assessed event by event. **Source trail:** [International Crisis Group — Sudan: A Year of War]() (`sudan-icg-year-war`); [Rapid Support Forces — Statement on Geneva Negotiations and the Maneuvers of the Islamic Movement]() (`sudan-rsf-geneva`); [Al Jazeera, citing SAF statement — Sudan's army declares Khartoum state completely free of RSF]() (`sudan-saf-khartoum`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: Power struggle claims sit in formal rooms before they become public ruin. - Alt text: Abdel Fattah al-Burhan at an official meeting. - Credit: Kremlin.ru - Rights / license: CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### El Fasher violence was random battlefield excess. - Claimant: Implicit RSF defense and supporter minimization - Evidence status: likely - Counterclaim: UN investigators describe coordinated, identity-based targeting and public endorsement by RSF leadership. - Independent assessment: The strongest available evidence supports a planned and organized operation with serious risk indicators for genocide in El Fasher. **Source trail:** [United Nations Office at Geneva — Hallmarks of genocide found in El Fasher]() (`sudan-un-elfasher`); [Amnesty International — El Fasher survivors tell of deliberate RSF killings and sexual violence]() (`sudan-amnesty-elfasher`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: El Fasher becomes a public accusation far from the battlefield. - Alt text: Protesters hold signs about Sudan in Paris. - Credit: Jeanne Menjoulet - Rights / license: CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Civilian suffering is caused only by the opposing side. - Claimant: Both belligerent narratives - Evidence status: confirmed - Counterclaim: Human rights investigators assign unlawful civilian harm and infrastructure destruction to both parties, while patterns differ by theatre. - Independent assessment: Confirmed at broad level: both parties targeted civilians and essential infrastructure. Specific incidents still need case-by-case sourcing. **Source trail:** [United Nations in Sudan / OHCHR — A war of atrocities: Sudan civilians deliberately targeted]() (`sudan-un-atrocities`) #### Visual provenance - Caption: Civilian harm is tracked through border routes, camps, health systems and aid access, not one side's slogan. - Alt text: Editorial border surface showing civilian harm moving across routes, camps and aid systems. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; source-linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ## Language record ### Mohamed Chande Othman - Role: Chair, UN Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan - Context: UN September 2025 report on large-scale international crimes. Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition. **Source:** [United Nations in Sudan / OHCHR — A war of atrocities: Sudan civilians deliberately targeted]() (`sudan-un-atrocities`) ### Rapid Support Forces - Role: Belligerent official statement - Context: RSF framing of the Geneva negotiations and responsibility for the war. Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition. **Source:** [Rapid Support Forces — Statement on Geneva Negotiations and the Maneuvers of the Islamic Movement]() (`sudan-rsf-geneva`) ### Sudanese Armed Forces - Role: Belligerent statement cited by Al Jazeera - Context: SAF framing after declaring Khartoum state cleared of RSF. Quotation text is available in the web edition and the cited original source; it is not republished in this machine-readable edition. **Source:** [Al Jazeera, citing SAF statement — Sudan's army declares Khartoum state completely free of RSF]() (`sudan-saf-khartoum`) ## Timeline ### 2023-04-15 — Fighting erupts in Khartoum between SAF and RSF - Event type: conflict\_start - Confidence: high Clashes broke out at multiple locations in the capital Khartoum between Sudan's national army (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), rapidly spreading to Darfur, Kordofan, and other states. **Source trail:** [ACLED — Sudan — Armed Conflict Location & Event Data]() (`src-sudan-acled`) ### 2023-06-01 — 2 million displaced in first six weeks — UNHCR - Event type: displacement\_update - Confidence: high UNHCR reported that the conflict had displaced approximately 2 million people within Sudan and forced more than 500,000 to flee to neighboring countries within six weeks of the outbreak. **Source trail:** [UNHCR — Sudan Emergency — UNHCR]() (`src-sudan-unhcr`) ### 2024-06-01 — IPC declares famine conditions in Zamzam camp, North Darfur - Event type: famine\_declaration - Confidence: high The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) confirmed famine in Zamzam IDP camp near El Fasher — the first famine declaration anywhere in the world since Ethiopia in 2022. An estimated 500,000 people faced catastrophic food insecurity. **Source trail:** [UNOCHA — Sudan: Situation Report — UNOCHA]() (`src-sudan-ocha`); [ReliefWeb / OCHA — Sudan Crisis Overview — ReliefWeb]() (`src-sudan-reliefweb`) ### 2025-07-01 — RSF and allies announce a parallel government in Darfur - Event type: conflict\_escalation - Confidence: high The RSF and allied factions announced the creation of a parallel government based in Darfur, styled the Government of Peace and Unity. Human Rights Watch recorded the announcement in July 2025. Sudan's war now runs through two rival administrations. **Source trail:** [Human Rights Watch — World Report 2026: Sudan — Human Rights Watch]() (`src-sudan-hrw-wr2026`); [Wikipedia — Sudanese civil war (2023–present) — Wikipedia (aggregated reporting)]() (`src-sudan-wiki-war`) ### 2025-10-26 — RSF captures El Fasher after an 18-month siege - Event type: conflict\_escalation - Confidence: high El Fasher, the army's last major holdout in Darfur, fell to the RSF on 26 October 2025 — the end of a siege Human Rights Watch dates to May 2024. HRW documented mass killings of people fleeing the city and sexual violence in the aftermath. **Source trail:** [Human Rights Watch — World Report 2026: Sudan — Human Rights Watch]() (`src-sudan-hrw-wr2026`); [Wikipedia — Sudanese civil war (2023–present) — Wikipedia (aggregated reporting)]() (`src-sudan-wiki-war`) ### 2026-01-11 — SAF-aligned government announces full return to Khartoum - Event type: conflict\_deescalation - Confidence: medium The SAF-aligned government announced on 11 January 2026 that it had completed its return to Khartoum, after operating from Port Sudan since the first weeks of the war. The army had retaken the capital by March 2025; fighting has since concentrated in Kordofan and Darfur. **Source trail:** [Wikipedia — Timeline of the Sudanese civil war (2026) — Wikipedia (aggregated reporting)]() (`src-sudan-wiki-timeline`); [Wikipedia — Sudanese civil war (2023–present) — Wikipedia (aggregated reporting)]() (`src-sudan-wiki-war`) ### 2026-05-10 — WFP suspends operations in three districts; UN Security Council emergency session - Event type: humanitarian\_access - Confidence: high WFP announced suspension of relief operations in three additional districts in North Darfur following direct attacks on convoys. An emergency session of the UN Security Council was convened to address deteriorating conditions in El Fasher, which the RSF captured in October 2025. **Source trail:** [UNOCHA — Sudan: Situation Report — UNOCHA]() (`src-sudan-ocha`); [ReliefWeb / OCHA — Sudan Crisis Overview — ReliefWeb]() (`src-sudan-reliefweb`) ### 2026-06-10 — RSF drone campaign intensifies against El Obeid - Event type: conflict\_escalation - Confidence: high RSF drone strikes on El Obeid killed at least 23 people on 10 June 2026 and 16 more the next day, hitting fuel infrastructure in the army's central-Sudan hub. The Critical Threats Project assessed the campaign as preparation for a ground offensive meant to break the stalemate in central Sudan. **Source trail:** [Wikipedia — Timeline of the Sudanese civil war (2026) — Wikipedia (aggregated reporting)]() (`src-sudan-wiki-timeline`); [Critical Threats Project / AEI — Africa File, June 18, 2026 — Critical Threats Project]() (`src-sudan-ctp-africafile`) ### 2026-01-08 — UNICEF issues flash update on El Fasher and Kordofan - Event type: international\_response - Confidence: medium UNICEF issued a Sudan flash update dated January 8, 2026, concerning the El Fasher and Kordofan crisis, according to the supplied evidence. **Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (2026-08)]() (`src-sudan-civil--editorial-2026-08`) ### 2026-08-24 — UN Security Council briefing on Sudan humanitarian situation - Event type: international\_response - Confidence: medium Tom Fletcher, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, reportedly briefed the Security Council on Sudan's humanitarian situation on 24 August 2026. The briefing reportedly stated that more than two-thirds of the population were in desperate need of lifesaving support as of that date, per OCHA, and reportedly acknowledged the presence of US Special Envoy for Africa Massad Boulos and the Secretary-General's Personal Envoy for Sudan Pekka Haavisto in connection with peace efforts. **Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (2026-08)]() (`src-sudan-civil--editorial-2026-08`) ### 2026-08-24 — Civilian casualty figures reported for first half of 2026 - Event type: casualty\_update - Confidence: medium The UN Security Council briefing reportedly cited an account attributed to Rosemary DiCarlo, presented by Tom Fletcher, reporting 1,400 civilian deaths in Sudan during the first half of 2026, with more than 1,100 of those deaths attributed to drone strikes, according to the estimate cited by Tom Fletcher. **Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (2026-08)]() (`src-sudan-civil--editorial-2026-08`) ### 2025-12-31 — SHCC annual 2025 statistic: 134 incidents of violence against or obstruction of health care in Sudan - Event type: casualty\_update - Confidence: medium Annual 2025 statistic, not a single incident date: SHCC reported 134 incidents of violence against or obstruction of health care in Sudan during 2025, including 40 health facility damages, 54 health workers killed, and 47 health workers arrested, per Insecurity Insight data. The report also noted the documented number is likely an undercount. **Source trail:** [ReliefWeb (OCHA) — ReliefWeb reports ingested by editorial pipeline (2026-08)]() (`src-sudan-civil--editorial-2026-08`) ## Visual essay ### Gallery image 01 #### Visual provenance - Caption: Port Sudan, June 2023: WFP food distribution to conflict-displaced people. - Alt text: WFP food distribution to conflict-displaced people in Port Sudan, June 2023. - Credit: WFP / Mohamed Elamin - Rights / license: WFP official media — editorial use, attribution required - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Gallery image 02 #### Visual provenance - Caption: Diaspora protest in Paris after El Fasher became a global warning signal. - Alt text: A Paris rally calling to stop genocide in Sudan. - Credit: Jeanne Menjoulet - Rights / license: CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ## Linked visual references ### War in Sudan, A Nation Trapped - Photographer: Abdulmonam Eassa - Publisher: Le Monde - Recognition: World Press Photo 2026, Stories category - Why it matters: A field visual record of schools used as camps, emergency burial sites, rubble and civilian mourning. - Original: [Open reference]() #### A nation trapped, read as visual evidence. Le Monde's award-recognized Sudan work stays inside this dossier as a visual benchmark: a way to understand what the war has done to schools, streets, burial sites and family routines. The reference matters because it follows civilian life after the war has already entered ordinary architecture. Schools become camps. Streets become routes out. Public space becomes a place for mourning, waiting and survival. The portfolio remains with its publisher; this issue reads its evidence value inside the dossier. It sharpens the sourced claims on displacement, health-system collapse, civilian targeting and the way a state failure becomes daily scenery. ## Media desk ### Sudan's War: A Nation Trapped - Publisher: World Press Photo - Creator: Abdulmonam Eassa / Le Monde - Date: 2026 contest - Media type: photo\_story - Rights mode: linked\_reference\_only - Placement: Awarded photojournalism - Caption: Abdulmonam Eassa's World Press Photo-winning Sudan story turns the war into rooms, markets, exams, scars and emergency burials. - Why it matters: Rare ground-level visual record from Omdurman, El-Obeid and Khartoum, kept with the photographer and publisher. Eassa's Sudan work belongs near the top of the dossier as a reference point for proximity and evidence. It shows what this file is trying to become: a war record built from access, rooms, markets, exams, scars and emergency burials rather than decoration. - Original: [Open media record]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: Context image: Darfuri refugees in eastern Chad. Eassa's awarded Le Monde work remains linked at the publisher. - Alt text: Darfuri refugees in eastern Chad. - Credit: Mark Knobil - Rights / license: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### War in Sudan Control Map - Publisher: Wikimedia Commons - Creator: Wikimedia Commons contributors - Date: Updated file - Media type: map - Rights mode: direct\_image - Placement: Orientation map / contested geography - Caption: The war needs a map before it becomes a string of place names: Khartoum, Darfur, Kordofan, the Red Sea corridor and the border routes out. - Why it matters: Reusable orientation asset; treated as geography context, not independent proof of battlefield control. The map belongs early in the visual desk because every later claim depends on geography. It keeps the reader from reading Sudan as one flat disaster zone while preserving the rule that a public map cannot certify every front-line claim. - Original: [Open media record]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: A maintained Wikimedia Commons map gives the reader a geographic orientation layer, not a final verdict on control. - Alt text: Map of the war in Sudan showing contested and controlled areas. - Credit: Wikimedia Commons contributors - Rights / license: CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Sudanese Refugees in Adre - Publisher: UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office - Creator: Russell Watkins / FCDO - Date: January 24, 2025 - Media type: photo - Rights mode: direct\_image - Placement: Displacement / Chad border - Caption: Adre, Chad: people who fled Sudan sit with visiting FCDO officials near the border. - Why it matters: The war is visible outside Sudan as reception rooms, border crossings and aid diplomacy. This is the refugee chapter without theatrical cruelty. The scene shows war after it leaves the battlefield: people displaced, officials listening, survival turned into a border system. It belongs beside the displacement figures because the number has rooms and routes behind it. - Original: [Open media record]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: Adre, Chad, January 2025: Sudanese refugees meet visiting FCDO officials near the border. - Alt text: Sudanese refugees meeting officials in Adre, Chad, near the Sudan border. - Credit: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office / Russell Watkins - Rights / license: CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Chad Influx of Refugees from Sudan Dashboard - Publisher: UNHCR Operational Data Portal - Creator: CNARR, UNHCR and IOM partners - Date: September 11, 2024 - Media type: dashboard - Rights mode: linked\_reference\_only - Placement: Displacement data surface - Caption: UNHCR's Chad dashboard turns the refugee route into a data surface: entry points, relocation and protection services. - Why it matters: It gives the border story structure instead of reducing displacement to one giant number. The photograph shows the human queue; the dashboard shows the system trying to count and move it. The dossier needs both because displacement is intimate at the border and bureaucratic at the same time. - Original: [Open media record]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: The dashboard needs a field surface: displacement data begins in camp geography before it becomes an operational table. - Alt text: Refugee camp in Chad. - Credit: Henry Wilkins / Voice of America - Rights / license: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Inside Darfur: The Siege of El Fasher - Publisher: BBC News Africa / BBC Africa Eye - Creator: BBC Eye Investigations - Date: April 15, 2025 - Media type: documentary - Rights mode: official\_embed - Placement: Screening room / Darfur - Caption: Official BBC embed: El Fasher appears through the cameras of residents living under siege. - Why it matters: The film uses local cameras and investigative framing to show a city that journalists could not freely enter. This slot should feel like a screening room, not a related video tile. Place it after the reader understands SAF, RSF, Darfur and the evidence labels. The film is BBC's investigation; this dossier remains responsible for its own source hierarchy. - Original: [Open media record]() - Official embed: [Open player]() ## Source readings ### The war is also a hospital collapse. - Registry ID: `sudan-who-phsa-2026` - Publisher: WHO - Source type: humanitarian - Published: 2026-01-06 - Registry title: Public Health Situation Analysis - Sudan Conflict and Complex Emergency - Editorial note: Health and humanitarian need metrics for 2026. - Original: [Open source]() WHO turns Sudan from a battle map into a health-system ledger: need, displacement, hunger, outbreaks and destroyed access all sit on the same page. The important part is not the institutional tone. It is the scale underneath it: tens of millions of people are treated as needing humanitarian assistance, while health care itself becomes part of the battlefield. The war is not only fought by armed formations; it is also fought through broken clinics, missing medicines, blocked roads and water that cannot be trusted. This source is useful because it refuses the clean separation between front line and civilian life. Food insecurity, disease risk, displacement, damaged infrastructure and attacks on health care are described as one system of collapse. That is exactly why this dossier uses it for the headline numbers rather than for ideology. The document reads as an inventory of survival: staff, vaccines, supplies, safe access, surveillance and funding. #### Takeaways - Anchor source for Sudan health and humanitarian need figures. - Best used for scale and operational constraints, not for assigning battlefield intent. - Pairs with rights investigations to separate humanitarian consequence from legal blame. #### Visual provenance - Caption: UNICEF mobile clinics deliver a healthcare lifeline to displaced communities in Sudan, 2024. - Alt text: UNICEF-supported mobile clinic providing healthcare to people displaced by Sudan's conflict, 2024. - Credit: UNICEF / Ahmed Mohamdeen Elfatih, 2024 - Rights / license: UNICEF official media — editorial use, attribution required - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### A thousand days is no longer an emergency. It is a condition. - Registry ID: `sudan-who-1000-days` - Publisher: WHO - Source type: humanitarian - Published: 2026-01-09 - Registry title: Sudan: 1000 days of war deepen the world's worst health and humanitarian crisis - Editorial note: Displacement and health-system collapse signal. - Original: [Open source]() WHO's anniversary framing matters because it treats Sudan's war as a long-duration system failure, not a temporary spike in suffering. The thousand-day marker changes the grammar. This is not a sudden storm that passes over a population and leaves relief agencies to repair the roof. By this point, displacement, hunger, disease exposure and medical collapse have become the operating environment. The source is strongest as a time signal. It tells the reader that Sudan's catastrophe is not fading because the headlines fade. A family that has moved three times, a clinic that has lost staff, a child missing vaccination windows: these are not dramatic exceptions. They are the administrative texture of the war. For the dossier, this article works as a clock. It keeps the humanitarian section from sounding like an opening-week disaster note when the conflict has already settled into the body. #### Takeaways - Use as duration context for a conflict that has outlived normal news attention. - Supports the displacement and health-collapse narrative. - Not a neutralizer of blame: it explains consequence, while rights sources handle conduct. #### Visual provenance - Caption: The thousand-day marker is read against ordinary terrain: routes, clinics, villages and the long duration of survival. - Alt text: People walking through a village in Sudan. - Credit: World Health Organization - Rights / license: WHO media asset, source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### The civilian is not scenery here. - Registry ID: `sudan-un-atrocities` - Publisher: United Nations in Sudan / OHCHR - Source type: human\_rights - Published: 2025-09-05 - Registry title: A war of atrocities: Sudan civilians deliberately targeted - Editorial note: UN Fact-Finding Mission findings on SAF and RSF conduct. - Original: [Open source]() The UN-mandated investigation is the source that makes the balance rule explicit: both armed sides are assessed by conduct, not by branding. This is where the dossier stops treating devastation as atmosphere. The point of the file is that civilians are not merely photographed near the war; they are described as deliberate targets, victims of abuse, displaced people, detainees, survivors of sexual violence and people cut off from essentials. The source matters because it does not let either side use the other's crimes as a costume for innocence. SAF and RSF appear as actors whose public language has to be checked against conduct. That is the editorial rule for the whole project. For readers, this is the legal-pressure layer under the visual horror. The pictures tell you something is ruined. This source says the ruin has alleged authors, methods and patterns that require investigation. #### Takeaways - Core independent-rights source for alleged violations by both SAF and RSF. - Useful for conduct assessment, not for quoting either party's self-image. - Prevents false cleanliness in a two-sided narrative. #### Visual provenance - Caption: The rights file needs Darfur as a place, not as an abstract allegation. - Alt text: UNAMID archive image from Darfur, Sudan. - Credit: UNAMID / United Nations - Rights / license: United Nations media asset, source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### El Fasher is where the language gets darker. - Registry ID: `sudan-un-elfasher` - Publisher: United Nations Office at Geneva - Source type: human\_rights - Published: 2026-02-19 - Registry title: Hallmarks of genocide found in El Fasher - Editorial note: UN investigator findings on the RSF takeover of El Fasher. - Original: [Open source]() The El Fasher file is not a general war summary. It is a concentrated atrocity lens around takeover, identity, siege and civilian flight. This source is used as a hard cutout. It narrows the map to El Fasher and forces the reader to look at what happens when a city becomes a test chamber for ethnic targeting, terror, disappearance, sexual violence and starvation pressure. The value is specificity. General humanitarian language can blur into fog. El Fasher does the opposite: a place, a sequence, a set of alleged patterns, a reason international investigators reach for the vocabulary of genocide warning. The dossier should not flatten this into a slogan. It sits here as a flagged evidence room: visually loud, legally careful, and separate from any side's propaganda. #### Takeaways - Primary context source for the El Fasher chapter. - Best read together with Amnesty survivor testimony. - High-severity rights signal; still framed as investigator findings, not our verdict. #### Visual provenance - Caption: El Fasher is read through a Darfur archive image while the UN investigator text carries the legal weight. - Alt text: UNAMID archive photograph from Darfur, Sudan. - Credit: UNAMID / United Nations - Rights / license: United Nations media asset, source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### The file gets a voice. - Registry ID: `sudan-amnesty-elfasher` - Publisher: Amnesty International - Source type: human\_rights - Published: 2025-11-25 - Registry title: El Fasher survivors tell of deliberate RSF killings and sexual violence - Editorial note: Eyewitness testimony from survivors who escaped El Fasher. - Original: [Open source]() Amnesty's testimony layer turns the institutional El Fasher warning into witness memory, escape routes and named forms of harm. The UN source gives the architecture. Amnesty gives the testimony texture. This is where the dossier moves from categories to survivors: what people say they saw, how they escaped, what kind of violence was described, and how the RSF takeover is remembered by those who got out. It is an advocacy source, so it must still be read with method in mind. But testimony is not decoration. In a project about war as lived experience, witness accounts are one of the ways bureaucracy is forced back into a human scale. The editorial use is narrow: not to turn one report into the whole war, but to keep El Fasher from becoming just another red dot on a map. #### Takeaways - Survivor testimony layer for El Fasher. - Pairs with UN investigator findings for corroboration logic. - Advocacy source; evidence and method remain visible to the reader. #### Visual provenance - Caption: El Fasher survivor testimony sits beside the BBC investigation that filmed the city through residents' cameras. - Alt text: BBC Africa Eye documentary thumbnail for Inside Darfur: The Siege of El Fasher. - Credit: BBC Africa Eye - Rights / license: Official YouTube thumbnail, embed/source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### The RSF writes itself as negotiator. - Registry ID: `sudan-rsf-geneva` - Publisher: Rapid Support Forces - Source type: official\_position - Published: 2025-06-22 - Registry title: Statement on Geneva Negotiations and the Maneuvers of the Islamic Movement - Editorial note: RSF stated position; treated as a belligerent claim, not independent evidence. - Original: [Open source]() This is not evidence of what happened. It is evidence of how the RSF wants its role, enemies and legitimacy to be seen. Official statements are useful when they are not mistaken for truth. This RSF page is kept because a conflict dossier needs the belligerent's own language: who it blames, what it denies, what it calls negotiation, what it calls sabotage. The important editorial move is distance. The statement is not printed as verification. It is printed as posture. It shows the RSF's attempt to frame the war through old-regime networks, Islamist maneuvering and its own claimed political reasonableness. That is why the source sits beside UN and Amnesty files, not above them. A side may explain itself. It does not get to grade itself. #### Takeaways - Official RSF position source. - Useful for language, accusations and self-presentation. - Never treated as independent verification. #### Visual provenance - Caption: The RSF statement is treated as public language from a belligerent institution, not as verification. - Alt text: Editorial document surface for the RSF Geneva statement. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### A militia speaks like an administration. - Registry ID: `sudan-rsf-currency` - Publisher: Rapid Support Forces - Source type: official\_position - Published: 2025-01-01 - Registry title: RSF affirms to Sudanese citizens in areas under its protection - Editorial note: RSF framing of SAF, Port Sudan authorities and the former regime. - Original: [Open source]() This source matters because armed control often dresses itself in the vocabulary of protection, currency, order and citizenship. The RSF page is not included because it settles facts. It is included because it shows a force trying to sound like a governing authority in the places it claims to protect. That posture is part of the war. Control of territory is not only checkpoints and weapons; it is also public messaging, currency rules, accusations against rival authorities and promises to civilians who have little choice over who rules the street. The dossier reads this as a self-portrait by a belligerent actor. The source is useful, but only under glass. #### Takeaways - Shows RSF governance language in areas under its influence. - Useful for actor-position matrix, not for casualty or atrocity verification. - Should be read against independent humanitarian and rights records. #### Visual provenance - Caption: The RSF protection claim is read against the border record, where authority becomes checkpoints, flight routes and civilian exposure. - Alt text: Chadian soldiers near the Chad-Sudan border. - Credit: Henry Wilkins and Arzouma Kompaore / Voice of America - Rights / license: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### The army calls it liberation. The dossier calls it a claim. - Registry ID: `sudan-saf-khartoum` - Publisher: Al Jazeera, citing SAF statement - Source type: news - Published: 2025-05-20 - Registry title: Sudan's army declares Khartoum state completely free of RSF - Editorial note: Used for SAF public framing where direct SAF pages are inconsistent. - Original: [Open source]() Al Jazeera is used here as an accessible carrier of SAF language when direct official pages are unstable or inconsistent. The phrase is the story: Khartoum declared free of RSF. That is military language built for victory, morale and legitimacy. It may describe a battlefield change, but it is still a statement from one side. This source enters the dossier to balance the position shelf. RSF statements cannot be shown without also showing how SAF frames itself, the enemy and the recovered capital. The editorial rule stays the same: public military language is evidence of what a side says. It is not, by itself, evidence of everything that happened on the ground. #### Takeaways - Accessible SAF-position source via a news report. - Useful for public framing of Khartoum control. - Requires independent follow-up before being treated as settled ground truth. #### Visual provenance - Caption: SAF public language is read beside a military image without turning the image into verification of every claim. - Alt text: Sudanese Armed Forces soldier in Habila, Sudan. - Credit: Sudanese Armed Forces - Rights / license: CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### The origin story is institutional failure in uniform. - Registry ID: `sudan-icg-year-war` - Publisher: International Crisis Group - Source type: research - Published: 2024-04-11 - Registry title: Sudan: A Year of War - Editorial note: Background on how the failed transition and RSF integration dispute led to war. - Original: [Open source]() Crisis Group gives the dossier its pre-war machinery: transition politics, rival armed structures and the integration dispute that helped make open war possible. This is the slow-burn source. It is less visually spectacular than El Fasher or refugee camps, but it explains how the runway was built before the country was pushed onto it. The failed transition matters because war rarely begins with the first shot. It begins with arrangements that let armed institutions sit above civilian politics, then fail to fold themselves back into a single accountable state. For the reader, this is the tailoring diagram behind the torn garment: who held force, who resisted integration, and why a command dispute became a national disaster. #### Takeaways - Best background source for how the war became structurally possible. - Useful before reading the SAF/RSF position files. - Research lens, not live casualty tracker. #### Visual provenance - Caption: The Crisis Group source is read as an origin schematic: transition failure, armed integration dispute and war. - Alt text: Editorial schematic of Sudan's failed transition and competing armed institutions. - Credit: Totally Fine Foundation - Rights / license: Project editorial graphic; original source linked - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ## Analysis shelf ### Public Health Situation Analysis - Sudan - Publisher: WHO - Type: report - Why it matters: Best current compact source for needs, displacement, outbreaks and health-system collapse. - Position note: Humanitarian source; not a belligerent narrative. - Original: [Open source]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: Humanitarian reading starts where planning figures become aid-room life. - Alt text: Sudanese refugees in Adre, Chad. - Credit: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office - Rights / license: CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### A war of atrocities - Publisher: UN Fact-Finding Mission / OHCHR - Type: investigation - Why it matters: Establishes the balance rule: both parties implicated, with specific evidence gradients. - Position note: Independent investigators; balance here means evidence discipline, not equal weighting of every claim. - Original: [Open source]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: The investigation becomes public pressure beyond the battlefield. - Alt text: A Paris protest about Sudan. - Credit: Jeanne Menjoulet - Rights / license: CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### RSF statement on Geneva negotiations - Publisher: Rapid Support Forces - Type: official page - Why it matters: Shows RSF's self-explanation and accusations against SAF/old-regime networks. - Position note: Belligerent source; useful for position, not verification. - Original: [Open source]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: Belligerent statements stay tied to the public room of the structure. - Alt text: Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, in a formal meeting setting. - Credit: Russian Government - Rights / license: CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### SAF declares Khartoum state free of RSF - Publisher: Al Jazeera, citing SAF - Type: official page - Why it matters: Accessible capture of SAF public language when direct military pages are unstable. - Position note: News report carrying a belligerent statement; not independent proof of all claims. - Original: [Open source]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: SAF language is treated as position, not automatically as fact. - Alt text: Abdel Fattah al-Burhan in a formal meeting setting. - Credit: Kremlin.ru - Rights / license: CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ## Media shelf ### UNAMID Darfur file imagery - Publisher: UN Photo / UN Geneva - Type: media - Why it matters: A visual doorway into the Darfur rights record: protest, accusation and investigator language around El Fasher. - Position note: Visual context source; the linked publisher page remains the inspection trail. - Original: [Open source]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: Darfur imagery becomes a public accusation before it becomes an archive note. - Alt text: Sudan protest signs in Paris. - Credit: Jeanne Menjoulet - Rights / license: CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ### Amnesty El Fasher testimony page - Publisher: Amnesty International - Type: media - Why it matters: Survivor testimony gives the El Fasher file a human scale beside the investigator language. - Position note: Human-rights advocacy source with clear accountability position. - Original: [Open source]() #### Visual provenance - Caption: El Fasher testimony sits inside a cross-border security and survival geography. - Alt text: Sudanese refugees in Adre, Chad. - Credit: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office - Rights / license: CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons - Asset: [View image]() - Original / provenance: [Open source]() ## Open questions - Build an event-level El Fasher sub-dossier with map, siege chronology and named incident table. - Find a stable direct SAF source archive instead of relying on media mirrors for official statements. - Separate IDPs, refugees, returnees and cross-border movements into a normalized human-cost table. ## Source registry - `sudan-who-phsa-2026` — [WHO — Public Health Situation Analysis - Sudan Conflict and Complex Emergency](); humanitarian; 2026-01-06 - `sudan-who-1000-days` — [WHO — Sudan: 1000 days of war deepen the world's worst health and humanitarian crisis](); humanitarian; 2026-01-09 - `sudan-un-atrocities` — [United Nations in Sudan / OHCHR — A war of atrocities: Sudan civilians deliberately targeted](); human\_rights; 2025-09-05 - `sudan-un-elfasher` — [United Nations Office at Geneva — Hallmarks of genocide found in El Fasher](); human\_rights; 2026-02-19 - `sudan-amnesty-elfasher` — [Amnesty International — El Fasher survivors tell of deliberate RSF killings and sexual violence](); human\_rights; 2025-11-25 - `sudan-rsf-geneva` — [Rapid Support Forces — Statement on Geneva Negotiations and the Maneuvers of the Islamic Movement](); official\_position; 2025-06-22 - `sudan-rsf-currency` — [Rapid Support Forces — RSF affirms to Sudanese citizens in areas under its protection](); official\_position; 2025-01-01 - `sudan-saf-khartoum` — [Al Jazeera, citing SAF statement — Sudan's army declares Khartoum state completely free of RSF](); news; 2025-05-20 - `sudan-icg-year-war` — [International Crisis Group — Sudan: A Year of War](); research; 2024-04-11