Sudan returns amid collapse
- Nearly four million displaced Sudanese have returned home only to find destroyed services, damaged housing, and pervasive uncertainty, the IOM reports. (anewz.tv) - Phone tracking suggests Colombian mercenaries backed the RSF, and reports point to emerging evidence of possible UAE involvement. (bbc.com) - Khartoum remains eerily quiet a year after the army recaptured it, signaling devastation rather than recovery. (apnews.com)
Nearly 4 million Sudanese have gone back to areas they fled, but many are returning to wrecked homes, broken water and power systems, and little certainty that they can stay. (iom.int) The International Organization for Migration said on April 21 that returns are concentrated in Khartoum, Sennar and Aj Jazirah states after shifts in front lines, with more than 2 million additional people expected to return to Khartoum in 2026. (iom.int) U.N. officials said this week that people are going back for two different reasons: some believe security has improved, while others say life in displacement sites has become unbearable. In Khartoum, they reported heavy damage to homes and to water, health and electricity networks. (news.un.org) The war began on April 15, 2023, after a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces exploded into open fighting in Khartoum and across the country. Three years later, the U.N. says nearly 34 million people need aid and about 14 million have been displaced at some point by the conflict. (news.un.org) Khartoum’s silence has become part of the story. Video and reporting from the capital a year after the army recaptured it show empty streets, shuttered neighborhoods and whole districts still scarred by shelling and looting rather than any broad recovery. (apnews.com) That quiet followed a major military shift in 2025, when the army retook Khartoum State after pushing the Rapid Support Forces out of other central areas including Wad Madani in January 2025. The front line moved, but the war did not end. (aljazeera.com) New reporting has also sharpened attention on who kept the Rapid Support Forces supplied. The U.S. Treasury said in sanctions announced this month that a transnational network recruited former Colombian soldiers and moved them into Sudan to support the paramilitary force. (home.treasury.gov) A U.N. panel report on Libya, released in April, said the Rapid Support Forces used a rear base southwest of Kufra and received fighters and equipment through eastern and southern Libya. Associated Press reported that the findings linked Colombian mercenaries and military supplies to that route. (abcnews.com) BBC reporting based on phone tracking said Colombian fighters passed through United Arab Emirates-linked military hubs before reaching Sudan, pointing to possible Emirati involvement. The United Arab Emirates has repeatedly denied backing the Rapid Support Forces. (bbc.com) U.N. human rights investigators said on April 17 that both the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces continue to commit serious violations with “increasing intensity and impunity,” even as some civilians try to go home. For many returnees, the front line has moved faster than the state has. (ohchr.org)
