The War and Humanitarian Crisis in Sudan (CRS Report for Congress)
| Release Date |
Revised Nov. 19, 2024 |
| Report Number |
IF12816 |
| Report Type |
In Focus |
| Authors |
Lauren Ploch Blanchard |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
| Older Revisions |
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Summary:
The conflict in Sudan that began in 2023 between rival
elements of the security forces has fueled the world’s
largest displacement crisis and largest hunger crisis. The
war has pushed over 11 million people from their homes.
More than half the population, over 25 million people,
reportedly face acute food insecurity, including 1.5 million
at risk of or facing famine. The warring parties have been
implicated in atrocity crimes and other gross human rights
abuses. Fatality figures are not reliable, given access
constraints, but by some estimates as many as 150,000
people may have died in the first year of the conflict alone.
The war that began as a fight for power between the Sudan
Armed Forces (SAF, the military) and paramilitary Rapid
Support Forces (RSF) has roots in how Sudan has been
ruled, primarily by military regimes and central elites, since
independence. Islamist military leader Omar al Bashir, who
took power in a 1989 coup, faced multiple rebellions in the
marginalized peripheries. He armed Sudanese Arab militias
known as the Janjaweed to help the SAF counter rebels in
the western Darfur region in the early 2000s, and the United
States, among others, labeled their atrocities against nonArab communities genocide. Bashir formed the RSF from
the Janjaweed to counter other insurgencies, allowing it to
seize gold mines and other assets, and deployed it to Yemen
as part of the Gulf-led coalition fighting the Houthi rebels,
which provided revenue that bolstered the RSF’s autonomy.
Sudan’s security chiefs used pro-democracy protests in
2019 as justification to oust Bashir, with reported support
from some Arab countries. The junta, led by the SAF’s
Abdel Fattah al Burhan and RSF’s Mohamed Hamdan
Dagalo, aka Hemedti, resisted handing power to civilians,
but later conceded under pressure to share power with a
“civilian-led” transitional government (CLTG). It led
reforms and secured U.S. sanctions relief and international
debt relief. The SAF and RSF generals usurped power from
the CLTG in 2021 (Sudan’s sixth coup since independence)
and violently suppressed ensuing mass protests. Under
growing pressure to restore civilian authority and merge
their forces in security sector reforms, a long-simmering
rivalry between the SAF and RSF erupted in April 2023.
Over 18 months later, the SAF and RSF continue to fight
over the war-torn capital, Khartoum, and its adjacent cities,
once home to 10 million people. SAF-held Port Sudan now
serves as the de facto capital. As the conflict has spread,
rebels, former rebels, and communities are being drawn into
an increasingly complex civil war. The RSF took control of
much of Darfur in late 2023 and has besieged El Fasher, the
North Darfur capital where the SAF fights to hold its last
garrison in the region. Fighters from non-Arab groups like
the Zaghawa, once targeted by the Janjaweed, have aligned
with the SAF to defend the area. The RSF has also
advanced southeast in 2024, disrupting farming in Sudan’s
agricultural heartland and fueling further displacement.
