August 7, 2026:
In the last month, the armed forces have been able to capture substantial amounts of territory, including some crucial supply routes. The RSF/Rapid Support Forces responded by seeking help from tribal militias or integrating some of these men into the RSF.
Sudan’s civil war has lasted four years so far. Three years ago, fighting between the Sudanese military and the RSF evolved into an enormous displacement of civilians, who are often unable to gain access to food aid because of the fighting. Fighting now reaches cities that had, until recently, been spared the worst of the mayhem.
The city of El Obeid has become the latest flashpoint. Advancing RSF fighters have besieged the city, and drone strikes on civilian areas have forced more than 11,000 residents, over 5,500 of them children, to flee recently. The United Nations has warned that as many as 500,000 civilians remain trapped in or near the city, at risk of mass atrocities if the siege continues to tighten. Aid workers describe a familiar pattern: encirclement, bombardment, and the slow strangulation of food, water, and medical supplies to a besieged population.
The civil war continues with the growing use of drones to attack and kill civilians. In 2025, and for the previous few years, Sudan has been ravaged by famine and a civil war between the military and the RSF militias. The RSF was created in 2013 to deal with rebels in western Sudan. The RSF did that and gained combat experience, which gave them an edge over the army that kept the civil war going from late 2023 to the present. The war began with a 2021 military coup intended as a temporary measure to speed up the return of democracy. That backfired, as many pro-reform civilians declared the military government another attempt to restore a dictatorship.
That is also how Omar al Bashir, the dictator from 1989 to 2019, got his start. The form post-Bashir Sudan will take is one of feuding factions and escalating fighting over scarce resources. The situation in South Sudan, another result of Bashir’s misrule, is more settled.
The two Sudan's had become quieter since the long-lasting Bashir dictatorship in Sudan was removed by determined popular resistance. South Sudan ended its post-independence civil war when everyone realized that they were destroying what they were allegedly fighting over, and maybe a shouting match was preferable to a death match.
In 2024, the northern Sudan civil war escalated and moved to the capital, where government and rebel RSF gunmen fought constantly. The two sides could not agree on how to run the government and decided that a death match was the only way to settle the matter. Civilians caught in the crossfire are fleeing the capital and, in some cases, leaving the country if they can afford it.
Sudan first achieved independence in 1956, after being under Anglo-Egyptian rule since 1899. Before that, it had been an Islamic Mahdist state since 1885, and before that, it had been ruled by the Turks, in cooperation with Egyptian troops and officials, since 1820. Before that, Sudan had been part of the Kingdom of Kush since 780 BC.
Contemporary Sudan has an area of 1,886,068 square kilometers, making it the 15th largest nation in the world. The current population is about 52 million, most of them Arab Muslims. GDP is about $32 billion, and per capita GDP is about $624, which is among the lowest in the world.