When fighting broke out in Khartoum on 15 April 2023 between Sudan's two most powerful military forces — the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — many observers expected a quick resolution. The SAF had the formal authority of the state; the RSF had surprise and tactical speed. Two years on, neither assumption has held. Instead, Sudan has become the site of one of the world's worst humanitarian catastrophes, with millions displaced, major cities destroyed, and a conflict that has defied every diplomatic effort to contain it.
Understanding why the war has not ended requires understanding why both sides believe they can still win — and why neither has yet been proven wrong enough to change their calculus.
The SAF's bet on attrition
The Sudanese Armed Forces entered the war in a structurally weaker position than many assumed. The RSF, built from the Janjaweed militias of the Darfur era and funded partly through gold mining operations in western Sudan, had used the years since the 2019 revolution to expand rapidly. By April 2023, it had between 70,000 and 100,000 fighters, many of them experienced and equipped with mobile, light-armed units well suited to urban warfare.
The SAF responded by leaning on its advantages: air power, artillery, and the formal backing of state institutions. Its strategy has been one of attrition — retake key cities gradually, choke RSF logistics, and wait for international condemnation of RSF atrocities (particularly in Darfur) to shift the diplomatic balance. That strategy has produced some results, notably in Khartoum North, but at enormous cost to civilian infrastructure. Hospitals, water systems, and power grids in major urban centres have been devastated. The SAF's air campaigns have drawn widespread condemnation for their indiscriminate impact on civilian areas.
The RSF's territorial empire
The RSF's strategy has been almost the inverse: seize and hold territory, particularly in Darfur and Kordofan, and use that territorial base to sustain the war economically. Darfur's gold mines have reportedly continued operating under RSF control, providing revenue independent of state institutions. The RSF has also cultivated relationships with external backers — most notably the United Arab Emirates, which has been accused of supplying weapons and support, allegations Emirati officials have denied.
The RSF's conduct in Darfur — mass atrocities, ethnic killings, and the systematic targeting of non-Arab communities — has been documented by the UN and international human rights organisations. The scale of the violence has drawn comparisons to the 2003–2005 Darfur genocide. Yet international condemnation has not translated into the kind of coercive pressure that might change RSF behaviour or military fortunes. The UN Security Council remains divided, with key powers protecting their respective clients from meaningful consequences.
Why talks keep failing
Multiple rounds of negotiations — in Jeddah, Cairo, Geneva — have produced ceasefires that lasted days, not weeks. The structural reason is simple: both sides still believe military victory is achievable, and neither has an internal constituency pushing hard for compromise. SAF commanders who negotiated away power in 2019 and again in 2021 have been deeply reluctant to repeat that experience. RSF leadership, having come so far from their origins as a counterinsurgency militia, are unlikely to accept an agreement that subordinates them to a military hierarchy they have been fighting.
External mediators have also struggled with a fundamental problem: the key states with influence over the two parties — Egypt and Saudi Arabia with the SAF; the UAE with the RSF — have competing interests and have not coordinated effectively around a unified framework. The African Union's mediation role has been marginal. The United States, despite appointing a special envoy, has lacked the leverage to force concessions from either side.
The humanitarian cost and what comes next
The numbers are staggering. By early 2026, Sudan's conflict had displaced over 10 million people internally and sent more than 2 million across borders into Chad, Egypt, South Sudan, and Ethiopia — straining host countries already dealing with their own pressures. The UN has called it the world's largest displacement crisis. Famine conditions have been declared in parts of Darfur and North Kordofan. The healthcare system has effectively collapsed in conflict zones.
What would it take to end the war? Realistically, one of two paths: a military turning point that convincingly shifts the balance in one direction, prompting the weaker side to negotiate seriously; or a coordinated external intervention that closes off supply lines to one or both parties and presents credible consequences for non-compliance. Neither appears imminent. The more likely near-term trajectory is continued territorial fragmentation, with the RSF consolidating a de facto state in the west and the SAF controlling the north and east — a partition that satisfies no one but becomes entrenched over time.
Sudan's tragedy is not just a story of two generals' ambitions. It is a story of a political transition that was never consolidated, international guarantors who walked away when the hard work began, and a region that has so far lacked either the will or the capacity to stop a catastrophe unfolding in its midst.