Civil war in Sudan between the SAF and the RSF has resisted proposals for its end.

The civil war in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary is now well into its third year and has created the world’s most serious humanitarian disaster.

Estimates suggest the death toll is in the tens of thousands from combat alone, while thousands more have died from disease and hunger brought on by the war.

This month saw a few key military updates, as the humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate:

Fighting and military control

• Observers are awaiting the return of Sudan’s wartime government, which had relocated to Port Sudan, to the Khartoum capital region.
• The RSF controls most of the vast western region of Darfur, except for North Darfur’s capital, el-Fasher, where SAF has its last Darfur garrison. The paramilitary is besieging el-Fasher in hopes of controlling all of Darfur, erecting huge sand berms around it from the north, west and east, effectively creating a “kill-box”, according to satellite imagery obtained by the Yale Humanitarian Research Hub.
• But analysts say the RSF is on the back foot and the SAF is making gains around el-Fasher, advancing from the north as far as Bakhit (150km, or 90 miles, from el-Fasher).
• On September 19, an RSF drone killed more than 70 people in el-Fasher, marking it one of the “bloodiest days in the city since the RSF started its siege in May last year”, according to Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan, reporting from Khartoum.
• RSF also controls much of Kordofan to the south, with the help of Abdelaziz al-Hilu’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), giving it cross-border access to South Sudan.
• However, SAF still controls el-Obeid, the most strategic city in North Kordofan, which it needs to hold to keep the RSF from threatening central Sudan.
• SAF achieved a strategic victory in North Kordofan when it took Umm Sumeima, about 60km (37 miles) west of el-Obeid on September 26, and Bara, 62km (39 miles) north, on September 11, after months of fierce battles some analysts described as “Mad Max-like”.

Humanitarian crisis

• A landslide in early September reportedly killed more than 1,000 people in Tarasin in the Marrah Mountains in Central Darfur. An official from the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) released a video on September 4 saying 370 bodies had been recovered and buried.
• Famine has taken hold in places like el-Fasher and the nearby Zamzam displacement camp, where the RSF has trapped an estimated 260,000 civilians, including 130,000 children.
• According to the World Food Programme, a total of 24.6 million people, about half of the population, are suffering acute food shortages, while 637,000 face devastating levels of hunger.
• Aid convoys from the United Nations and nongovernmental organisations rarely reach Darfur due to road closures and bureaucratic impediments. Rights groups and activists accuse both sides of weaponising food.
• Meanwhile, the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) said Sudan is facing its worst cholera outbreak in years due to the country’s war-devastated infrastructure. In one area of the capital, more than 5,000 cases of malaria, typhoid and dengue fever, accompanied by dozens of deaths, have been reported in the past month, Hiba Morgan reported on September 23.
• Sudanese refugees are also dying in the Mediterranean Sea as they try to escape the war, with at least 50 dying after a vessel carrying Sudanese refugees caught fire in the Mediterranean Sea.

Diplomacy and political developments

• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on September 20 that “the parties must return to the negotiating table and find a sustainable solution to the conflict.”
• The European Union applied restrictive measures against two companies, Alkhaleej Bank and Red Rock Mining Company. Alkhaleej Bank is “owned by companies linked to family members of RSF Commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and plays an essential role in financing RSF operations”, the EU Council said, while Red Rock is “involved in facilitating the production of weapons and vehicles for the SAF”.
• Restrictive measures were also applied to two individuals, SAF military commander Abu Aqla Mohamed Kaikal, who defected to the RSF before rejoining the SAF in 2024, and RSF military field commander, Hussein Barsham, who the council said led “operations that have resulted in mass atrocities, including targeted killings, ethnic violence, forced displacement and violence against civilians, particularly in Darfur and other conflict-affected regions of Sudan”.
• Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the United States have presented a proposal to end the war, which calls for a three-month humanitarian truce followed by a permanent ceasefire, then a nine-month transitional period whereby a broad-based civilian-led government would be granted power.
• Until now, all proposals to end the war have failed.