Sudan Conflict Straining Fragility of Its Neighbors

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Highlights

The conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) commanded by General Abdel Fattah al Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) headed by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo has triggered the fragmentation of Africa’s third largest country with a population of 47 million people. Sudan now represents the largest displacement crisis in the world with almost 11.2 million Sudanese internally displaced and more than 2.9 million Sudanese refugees.

The conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) commanded by General Abdel Fattah al Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) headed by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo has triggered the fragmentation of Africa’s third largest country with a population of 47 million people. Sudan represents the largest displacement crisis in the world with over 10.4 million Sudanese internally displaced and more than 2.9 million Sudanese refugees.

As a result of the conflict, more than half of the population (24.6 million people) face acute food insecurity, including 638,000 people facing catastrophic food shortages (classified as IPC Level 5) and 8 million people confronting emergency conditions.  Hundreds are estimated to be dying from starvation and hunger-related disease each day. Assessments of excess mortalities suggest that more than 60,000 people have died in Khartoum State alone. Nationally, estimates are that roughly 150,000 civilians have been killed during conflict.

The conflict between the military factions has thrown into turmoil a region that was already straining under record levels of humanitarian stresses. Even prior to the outbreak of conflict in Sudan, there were more than 13 million people in Sudan and its 7 neighbors who were refugees or internally displaced (IDP). More than 40 million people in these countries were facing acute food insecurity. Resources to assist these populations will now be even further stretched.

This reality underscores that each of Sudan’s neighbors is currently or was recently struggling with their own conflict or political instability. It also highlights the compounding effects that each of the region’s crises are having on one another.

Sudan had already been hosting over 1.1 million refugees from its neighbors, as well as over 3.8 million of its own internally displaced (out of a population of 45 million) prior to April 2023. Almost 30 percent of the refugees in Sudan were living in Khartoum.

The majority of IDPs (79 percent) were in camps in Darfur in the west of the country. Still recovering from the genocide that killed an estimated 350,000 in the 2000s, the region has once again become a renewed focal point of conflict and further displacement. The locality of Al Fasher in North Darfur, with a population of roughly 1.5 million people (including an estimated  737,900 IDPs), is under siege by the RSF. Over the span of one day in mid-April 2025, over 400,000 IDPs were newly displaced from the Zamzam IDP camp as a result of an assault by RSF paramilitaries. Estimates were that 40 percent of the people in Zamzam Camp (with a population of over 500,000) had been experiencing IPC Level 4 acute food insecurity (Emergency) and 20 percent were experiencing IPC Level 5 (Catastrophe/Famine).  Similar famine conditions have been documented in Al Salam and Abu Shouk camps in North Darfur as well as in the Western Nuba Mountains. Expectations are that famine will continue to expand in North Darfur as well as other areas receiving a high volume of IDPs.

Should Al Fasher fall, there is a strong likelihood of mass atrocities there and elsewhere. In other parts of Darfur, there has been a systematic destruction of critical civilian infrastructure and a pattern of ethnically motivated violence committed by Arab militias backed by the RSF, primarily targeting men from the Masalit community. Following the defection of a RSF commander in Al Jazirah State, the RSF unleashed a wave of atrocities—rape, food poisoning, and mass killings of civilians—against Al Jazirahan villages in retaliation and as a warning to other would-be defectors.

Combined with pre-conflict displacements, UN agencies estimate that there are now more than 10.5 million people internally displaced and more than 4 million people have fled to neighbors Egypt, Chad, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Libya, and Central African Republic (CAR)—countries that are facing their own stressors. These figures are surely an undercount as humanitarian access and communications with much of the country have been cut. The UN estimates that 25 million people (roughly half the population) are in need of assistance.

Egypt

Egypt has been a major route for Sudanese refugees escaping from Khartoum. So far, it has received more than 1.5 million people, mostly Sudanese, according to IOM.  Egypt is a major transit and destination point for migrants leaving hardship elsewhere in Africa, hosting nearly 9 million economic migrants. Egypt has been engaged in a prolonged dispute with Ethiopia over management of Nile River water access stemming from the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), further adding to regional tensions.

Chad

More than 1 million people, mostly Sudanese, have already crossed the border into Chad and tens of thousands more are expected as increasing lawlessness has been reported in Darfur. Chad had already been hosting almost 600,000 refugees, 400,000 of which are from Sudan’s Darfur region. In addition, Chad has almost 400,000 IDPs due to its own instability. With a long legacy of autocracy under Idriss Déby, Chad has faced perpetual instability. When Déby was killed in battle with an armed opposition group in 2021, the military bypassed the constitutionally mandated succession plan and installed his son, General Mahamat Idriss Déby, as president. Violent crackdowns against peaceful protesters calling for a restoration of constitutional order in October 2022 have generated another wave of refugees and internally displaced from this strategically important Sahelian country linking West, North, East, and Central Africa.

South Sudan

An estimated 782,000 South Sudanese refugees are reported to have crossed back into South Sudan, along with 357,000 refugees from Sudan and other countries. South Sudan has been in a civil war for most of the past decade. More than a third of the population has been forcibly displaced—2 million as IDPs and 2.3 million as refugees. About 810,000 had fled to Sudan. Of the remaining 8.8 million South Sudanese in country,  including 63,000 facing famine—virtually all of which is attributed to conflict. South Sudan remains in a state of persistent crisis.

Reflecting the increased tensions among neighbors, Sudanese Minerals Minister Mohamed Bashir Abunommo accused South Sudan of allowing the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to establish an “aggression base” under the guise of a field hospital in Eastern Aweil, which borders the Sudanese state of East Darfur. Meanwhile, within South Sudan, fighting between the government and opposition forces has been escalating since February 2025, displacing 130,000 citizens.

Ethiopia

Host of the third largest community of refugees in the region (after Uganda and Chad) with more than 1 million, Ethiopia was embroiled in a devastating internal conflict from 2020 to 2022, primarily involving the Tigray region, which borders Sudan. The number of internally displaced in Ethiopia is around 3.2 million, though accurate figures (particularly for the Tigray region) are not available. An estimated 15.8 million Ethiopians are facing acute food insecurity. Ethiopian refugees in neighboring countries total close to 150,000. This includes many Tigrayans who had fled to Sudan when the Ethiopian conflict started in November 2020. Since the escalation of fighting in Sudan, Ethiopian returnees comprise roughly 41 percent of the more than 167,000 people who have crossed into Ethiopia.

CAR

Some 37,500 Sudanese have fled to CAR. They were joined by more than 6,300 refugees from CAR who had previously escaped the fighting there. About 500,000 Central Africans are internally displaced and 750,000 have fled conflict into neighboring countries, including more than 24,000 into Sudan. Almost half of the population (some 3 million) of this sparsely populated country is facing acute food insecurity primarily due to conflict.

The United Nations Panel of Experts has found that the RSF is using CAR as a logistical hub for resupply and recruitment. Meanwhile, armed group activity within CAR has simultaneously increased.

Libya

Over 116,000 people, mostly Sudanese, have managed to cross the remote Libya border. Libya has long been a key transit country for migrants and refugees fleeing conflicts and repression from the western Sahel and other parts of Africa. An estimated 824,000 migrants are in Libya, many of whom are subject to abuse by human traffickers. Libya has also been facing an extended political conflict as militias linked to the eastern-based warlord, Khalifa Haftar, have repeatedly tried to undermine and overthrow the UN-backed government in Tripoli.

Eritrea

There are few, if any, Sudanese refugees fleeing to Eritrea, which is itself a major country of origin. Nevertheless, unconfirmed reports suggest that maybe as many as 3,500 Eritreans in Sudan were forcibly repatriated to Eritrea. More than 664,745 Eritreans have escaped the country of 3.7 million. Forced military conscription, arbitrary arrests, disappearances, and torture are among the many abuses against its citizens attributed to the Eritrean government by the UN. Eritrea was also a combatant in the neighboring Tigray region’s conflict with the government of Ethiopia.

Uganda

The spread of the Sudan conflict has also reached Uganda, with over 74,000 refugees from Sudan having arrived in Uganda since the start of the conflict. Uganda already hosts the largest number of refugees (over 1.7 million) in Africa, due to the instability in South Sudan and the DRC.