Sudan is entering a fourth year of war marked by famine and massacres, in what the United Nations has called an "abandoned crisis".
Sudan has been described as the world’s largest humanitarian challenge, notably in terms of displacement and hunger. The conflict has displaced 13 million people.
There is no end in sight to the fighting between the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that witnesses and aid groups say has laid waste to parts of the vast Darfur region.
Growing evidence shows regional powers such as the United Arab Emirates backing combatants behind the scenes. Attempts by the United States and regional powers, now distracted by the Iran war, have failed to establish a ceasefire.
"This grim and chastening anniversary marks another year when the world has failed to meet the test of Sudan," United Nations humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said.
At least 59,000 people have been killed. At least 6,000 died over three days as the RSF rampaged through the Darfur outpost of el-Fasher in October, according to the UN, with UN-backed experts concluding the offensive bore "the defining characteristics of genocide".
More than 11,000 people were missing over the course of the war, the Red Cross says.
The war has pushed parts of Sudan into famine. The number of people with severe acute malnutrition, the most dangerous and deadly kind, is expected to increase to 800,000, the world’s foremost experts on food security, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, said in February.
Around 34 million people, or almost two of every three Sudanese, need assistance, the UN says. Only 63% of health facilities remain fully or partially functional amid disease outbreaks including cholera, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
And now fuel prices in Sudan have increased by more than 24% because of the Iran war and its effects on shipping, driving up food prices.
"A plea from me: Please don’t call this the forgotten crisis. I’m referring to this as an abandoned crisis," the top UN official in Sudan, Denise Brown, said, criticising the international community for failing to focus on ending the fighting.
The war exploded from a power struggle that emerged following Sudan’s transition to democracy after an uprising forced the military ousting of longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir in April 2019.
The tensions sparked between military chief General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, who chairs the ruling sovereign council, and RSF commander Genernal Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who was Burhan’s deputy there.
Neither side can achieve a decisive victory, said Shamel Elnoor, a Sudanese journalist and researcher, adding that Sudanese people "have become powerless and are subjected to foreign dictates".
Germany, meanwhile, is hosting a conference in Berlin for governments, UN agencies and aid groups. The aim is to rally donors to help fund the strained humanitarian response and to "promote an immediate ceasefire" in Sudan, the German Development Ministry said in a statement.
The Sudanese government in Khartoum, however, described the Berlin conference as an "unacceptable" interference in its internal affairs. It said Germany, as the host country, did not consult with Sudan before convening the gathering.
Sudan is now essentially divided between a military-backed, internationally recognised government in the capital, Khartoum, and a rival RSF-controlled administration in Darfur.
The military has established control over the north, east and central regions, including Sudan’s Red Sea ports and its oil refineries and pipelines. The RSF and allies control Darfur and areas in the Kordofan region along the border with South Sudan. Both regions include many of Sudan’s oil fields and gold mines.
While Egypt supports Sudan’s military, the UAE is accused by UN experts and rights groups of providing arms to the RSF. The UAE has rejected the accusation.
The Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab, which tracks the war through satellite imagery, said this month that the RSF had received military support from a base in Ethiopia. The RSF did not comment on the allegation.
Josef Tucker, senior analyst for the Horn of Africa at the International Crisis Group, told the Associated Press that the war could spill over Sudan’s borders, making the conflict "even more intractable".
Three years of fighting have seen widespread atrocities including mass killings and rampant sexual violence including gang rapes.
Hospitals, ambulances and medical workers in Sudan have been attacked, with more than 2,000 people killed, the WHO has said.
The International Criminal Court has said it was investigating potential war crimes and crimes against humanity, particularly in Darfur, a region that two decades ago became synonymous with genocide and war crimes.
Most of the latest atrocities have been blamed on the RSF and their Janjaweed allies, Arab militias that were notorious for atrocities in the early 2000s against people identifying as East or Central African in Darfur. The RSF grew out of the Janjaweed.
"We have… no reason at all to believe it will stop the mass atrocities that we saw in el-Fasher," Ms Brown said.
The military’s seizure of Khartoum and other urban areas in central Sudan in early 2025 did allow the return of about four million people to their homes, the UN migration agency said in March. But they struggle with damaged infrastructure and other challenges.
"It’s not really a return to normal. It is trying to survive amid a new normal," said Tjada D’Oyen McKenna, chief executive of aid group Mercy Corps.
