Sudan mass displacement
Sudan’s civil war has entered its third year, and reporting says fighting between General Abdel Fattah al‑Burhan and Mohamed ‘Hemedti’ Dagalo has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced more than 11 million people. The scale of displacement is straining neighbouring states and has attracted comparatively little international attention, according to recent coverage. (ntv.co.ug)
Nearly three years into Sudan’s war, about 14 million people have been driven from their homes, making it the world’s largest displacement crisis. (unhcr.org) The war began in April 2023 as fighting broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces, led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, widely known as Hemedti. By April 10, 2026, the United Nations refugee agency said 9 million people were displaced inside Sudan and 4.4 million had fled across borders. (unhcr.org) The International Organization for Migration said Sudan had 11.3 million internally displaced people in April 2025, while nearly 4 million others had crossed into Chad, South Sudan, Egypt, Ethiopia and other neighboring states since the war started. Its January 2026 update said nearly one in three people in Sudan had been displaced internally or across borders over the first 1,000 days of fighting. (dtm.iom.int, iom.int) The numbers keep rising because the front lines keep moving. The United Nations refugee agency said violence in Darfur, Kordofan and Blue Nile, along with increased air bombardments and drone attacks, was still forcing civilians to flee in April 2026. (unhcr.org) Khartoum has shifted again, but the war has not ended. In March 2025, al-Burhan declared the capital “free” after army gains, yet major fighting continued elsewhere and new attacks were still killing civilians in Darfur in April 2026. (dw.com, apnews.com) Displacement is colliding with hunger on a national scale. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said 33.7 million people in Sudan needed humanitarian assistance in 2026, while the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification said 19.1 million people were projected to face acute food insecurity between February and May 2026. (unocha.org, ipcinfo.org) Some places have already crossed the famine threshold. The food security monitor said famine conditions were confirmed in El Fasher and Kadugli in late 2025 and expected to persist into January 2026, with other areas of Darfur and the Nuba Mountains still at risk. (ipcinfo.org, ipcinfo.org) Children make up a huge share of the people uprooted. UNICEF said Sudan had become the world’s largest child displacement crisis, with more than 7 million children displaced and 17.3 million children needing life-saving support in 2026. (unicef.org, unicef.org) Aid agencies say neighboring countries are absorbing a refugee flow that keeps growing even as they face their own shortages. The United Nations refugee agency lists Egypt, Chad, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Libya and the Central African Republic among the main destinations for people fleeing Sudan. (unhcr.org, unhcr.org) The war’s third year has also brought more allegations of atrocities. In February 2026, the United Nations human rights office said violations by the Rapid Support Forces during the capture of El Fasher amounted to war crimes; the group has previously denied or disputed accusations in other parts of the conflict. (ohchr.org) For civilians, the pattern is repeated flight. The United Nations refugee agency said many Sudanese have fled several times since April 2023, leaving a country where one in four people is now displaced and no clear end to the war is in sight. (unhcr.org)
