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Main developments in the emergency
Despite repeated diplomatic efforts to achieve a ceasefire, the conflict that erupted in Sudan in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) continues, and has led to the world’s largest displacement, humanitarian, and protection crisis.
As of December 2025, some 14 million people had been forced to flee their homes since the conflict began, of whom nearly 12 million remain displaced. This includes 7.1 million internally displaced people (IDPs) in Sudan and 4.4 million refugees, asylum-seekers, and returnees who sought safety in the Central African Republic (CAR), Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, South Sudan and Uganda.
Before the current conflict, Sudan itself hosted the second highest refugee population in Africa, mainly from Eritrea, Ethiopia and South Sudan. Despite the conflict, Sudan maintains an open-door policy to refugees and asylum-seekers, with over 84,000 new arrivals since the start of 2025. Most have come from South Sudan, where political instability and rising hostilities between armed groups since February 2025 have led to fresh clashes, particularly in Upper Nile State.
As of December 2025, there are nearly 860,000 refugees and asylum-seekers in Sudan. Roughly 66 per cent of refugees in Sudan reside in overcrowded camps with restricted movement, and 34 per cent live in urban/peri-urban settings where they are highly vulnerable to exploitation, eviction, abuse and other protection risks. Refugees and asylum-seekers also face violence, exposure to trafficking networks, and arrest and detention, particularly as parties to the conflict tighten security measures. Disruptions to education have also been profound: as of September 2025, an estimated 300,000 refugee children, representing 86 per cent of school-age refugee children, were out of school, exposing them to heightened risks of child labour and child marriage. Worsening food insecurity, recurrent disease outbreaks, and increasing malnutrition rates add to refugees’ poor living conditions.
Moreover, over 272,000 refugees and asylumseekers in Sudan who were largely self-reliant prior to the conflict have been compelled to relocate within Sudan, often moving from urban settings to camps. A near-doubling of the camp-based refugee population has severely strained already limited resources, infrastructure and social services.
Between 2023 and 2025, insecurity and the deteriorating humanitarian situation inside Sudan pushed nearly 870,000 refugees living in Sudan to return to their countries of origin, often under dangerous conditions. The majority have returned to South Sudan.
The current conflict is marked by extreme levels of violence and human rights violations against civilians, including sexual violence, torture, arbitrary killings, abduction, extortion, and targeting specific ethnic groups, leaving lasting trauma on survivors and communities. The risk of violence against women and girls, including as a weapon of war, is reported to have surged 80 per cent since 2024 and 350 per cent since April 2023.
In March 2025, the SAF retook control of Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, and fighting subsided in Khartoum and Al Jazirah States. An estimated over 3 million displaced Sudanese inside Sudan and in neighbouring countries have returned to their home areas since January 2025. This includes close to 520,000 Sudanese refugees who had fled Sudan seeking safety in neighbouring countries, returning mainly from Egypt and South Sudan, with smaller numbers returning from Libya. Yet many families return to Sudan because of the hardship they faced in asylum countries, rather than the safety of return areas, and come back to find infrastructure destroyed and essential services decimated. Many also remain stranded in border and transit states, increasing pressure on services and humanitarian capacity in those areas.
Over the same period, clashes have intensified in the Darfur and Kordofan regions, precipitating new waves of displacement including to Northern and White Nile States and across Sudan’s borders with Chad and South Sudan.
Many families have been displaced multiple times, or have had to remain on the run, as places in which they had found temporary refuge come under attack. In April, a three-day offensive on the Zamzam IDP camp in North Darfur involved summary executions of civilians and the widespread rape of women and girls. Over 400,000 people – about 80 per cent of the camp’s prior population – fled the violence, most across Darfur but many also into Chad2. At the end of October, after a 500-day siege, the RSF took control of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, and over 107,000 people had fled the town and its surrounding villages by early December3. A lack of money to cover exorbitant transportation costs and ransom demands, and the absence of any safe escape routes, has kept many others trapped. Battle lines have shifted to strategic hubs and critical infrastructure in the Kordofan region, where heavy shelling, increased drone strikes, and fierce ground assaults have resulted in growing civilian casualties. Between 25 October and 30 December 2025, nearly 65,000 people were uprooted in the Kordofans4. Several hundred thousand more are at risk of being displaced if fighting continues in Kadugli, the besieged capital of South Kordofan State, or reaches El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan State.
Humanitarian access has been blocked in some areas, and 87 aid workers were killed, injured, kidnapped or detained in 20256. Recent attacks have hit aid convoys, peacekeepers, marketplaces, schools, and medical facilities. Sudan has been ranked the deadliest conflict in Africa, with over 17,000 civilian fatalities between January and November 2025.
Challenges persist in delivering humanitarian aid not only due to ongoing insecurity, but also because of road closures, limited transportation options, and bureaucratic impediments alongside tighter security measures. Even in areas where markets for goods and services remain functional, the access of displaced families to basic necessities is severely limited by soaring prices and disrupted supply chains; cash shortages and telecommunication outages also hinder access to banking services, among other obstacles.
Critical infrastructure in parts of the country has collapsed and basic services such as safe water, health care and shelter are severely limited. There have been repeated cholera outbreaks, and other diseases like malaria, dengue fever, and viral liver infections like hepatitis are now on the rise in some states in Sudan. Seasonal flooding exacerbates conditions. More than half the population of Sudan faces acute food insecurity, with famine confirmed in several regions.
Most refugees from Sudan have little to no resources and reach asylum countries in dire condition. In Chad, 1 in 10 newly arrived Sudanese refugee children are malnourished. Many Sudanese refugees, especially women and girls, have encountered violence at multiple junctures - when their homes came under attack, in transit, in temporary shelters, and at the borders. Family separation is also a serious concern, and refugees exhibit high levels of mental distress. At the same time, a relatively large proportion of the Sudanese refugee population in some countries are urban and educated, with professional skills, and so the response in asylum countries must be tailored both to meet refugees’ immediate needs and to foster their self-reliance and potential contributions.
Arrivals from Sudan often enter impoverished regions of asylum countries that have limited services and economic opportunities. Disrupted cross-border trade between Sudan and its neighbours is driving food and fuel inflation, worsening macroeconomic pressures. Neighbouring countries are also hosting new arrivals post-April 2023 on top of some 840,000 Sudanese refugees received pre-April 2023, while receiving their own nationals coming back from Sudan.
Until lasting peace is achieved, significant displacement, both within and outside Sudan, is expected to continue. Governments and host communities receiving Sudanese refugees have shown remarkable solidarity despite overstretched resources, underscoring the need for sustained international support.