Sudan’s civil war is no longer confined to a struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces. Fighting now stretches from Darfur and Kordofan to the Ethiopian frontier, while weapons, money, foreign fighters, and competing regional interests flow across Sudan’s borders. The conflict has also produced one of the world’s largest displacement crises and threatens states already struggling with instability across the Sahel and Horn of Africa. What happens next will depend increasingly on whether regional powers restrain the war or deepen it.
The battlefield remains divided rather than moving decisively toward victory for either side. The army controls Khartoum and much of eastern and central Sudan, while the RSF dominates most of Darfur and has established a parallel administration in territories under its control. Recent RSF attacks around Al Obeid, Khartoum, Atbara, and Bahri have shown that the paramilitary force retains the ability to strike well beyond its western strongholds despite earlier territorial losses.
Sudan’s borders are becoming new battlefields
The fighting around Kurmuk in Blue Nile illustrates the danger of regional expansion. The strategic town on the Ethiopian border has changed hands repeatedly, with the RSF and its allies retaking it in August after the army had recaptured it only weeks earlier. Sudanese authorities have accused Ethiopia of facilitating RSF operations across the frontier, allegations that Addis Ababa has not accepted. Whatever the extent of outside involvement, repeated fighting along an international border increases the risk that Sudan’s internal war becomes entangled with wider disputes in the Horn of Africa.
Foreign networks are already influencing the conflict. Reuters reported that United Nations experts traced aircraft carrying weapons, drones, and Colombian mercenaries to supply operations supporting the RSF. The investigation connected some of the recruitment to a company based in the UAE, while Abu Dhabi has consistently denied supporting the paramilitary force. Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar have meanwhile maintained varying degrees of political or security alignment with the army backed authorities.
This international involvement makes a purely military solution harder. Each Sudanese faction can seek new suppliers or political partners when battlefield conditions deteriorate. External assistance can prevent defeat, but it can also reduce incentives to negotiate.
Civilian survival is becoming the decisive pressure
The humanitarian cost is already staggering. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification estimates that around 19.5 million people faced crisis level hunger or worse earlier this year, including more than five million in emergency conditions. Fourteen areas across Darfur and South Kordofan face a risk of famine if fighting intensifies or humanitarian access deteriorates further. More than 800,000 children are expected to suffer severe acute malnutrition during 2026.
Displacement spreads the consequences across the region. UNHCR projects millions of Sudanese refugees, returnees, and displaced people will require assistance across Chad, Egypt, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Libya, Uganda, and the Central African Republic. These movements place additional pressure on food supplies, public services, border security, and fragile neighboring economies.
Three broad outcomes now appear possible. The first is prolonged territorial division, with the army and RSF consolidating rival administrations while fighting periodically shifts between Kordofan, Darfur, and the southeast. The second is further regionalization, where foreign support and border fronts turn Sudan into a more entrenched proxy conflict. The third is a negotiated process built around a humanitarian ceasefire, withdrawals, disarmament, and eventual civilian rule.
Washington has already proposed a ninety day humanitarian truce followed by ceasefire negotiations and a civilian transition, but disagreements over RSF withdrawal remain unresolved. The army demands a complete withdrawal from occupied cities, while the RSF has resisted terms that would remove much of its territorial leverage.
Sudan therefore faces more than a choice between military victory and negotiated peace. Continued fragmentation could reshape security from the Sahel to the Red Sea while making eventual reconstruction vastly harder. Preventing that outcome will require outside powers to stop treating Sudan primarily as an arena for competing interests and start making continued warfare more costly than compromise.
Original analysis inspired by Mohammed Ibrahim Al Rashid from Anadolu Agency. Additional research and verification conducted through multiple sources.
