Sudan enters the third year of its civil war

On April 15, 2026, the civil war in Sudan entered its third year and shows no signs of ending in the near future. The parties to the conflict—the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)—remain determined to achieve military dominance over one another. This outcome appears unlikely, despite RSF advances in the Darfur region, due to the intervention of third countries (such as Egypt and the United Arab Emirates), which help perpetuate the violence and consolidate a kind of “catastrophic equilibrium.”

Paraphrasing the Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci (1932–1934) and applying his concept to the military sphere, the parity between the forces—in terms of access to weaponry and availability of personnel—contributes to prolonging a war that, so far, has resulted in thousands of deaths (it is difficult to provide an exact figure due to limited access to the ground), more than 11 million internally displaced persons, and 4 million refugees (UNHCR 2026; OCHA 2026). The war is deepening the humanitarian crisis in Sudan, where 64% of the population, including 16 million children, currently depends on international aid for survival (ECHO 2026).

In this context, what is unfolding is not simply a prolonged war, but a conflict that has entered a phase of negative stabilization, where no actor prevails, yet all contribute to sustaining the dynamics of violence. This logic, rather than opening opportunities for negotiation, tends to reinforce incentives for continued confrontation, especially in contexts where resources and territorial control remain contested.

The United Nations has been unable to secure a ceasefire or lay the groundwork for a negotiated solution to the conflict, although it has maintained a detailed record of human rights violations committed by both sides, with the aim of highlighting the humanitarian impact of the civil war in Sudan. In this regard, it is important to underscore the role played by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan, established by the UN Human Rights Council in October 2023. In its reports, for instance, it determined that crimes committed by the Rapid Support Forces during the capture of the city of El-Fasher, between October 26 and 27, 2025, may indicate a “genocidal” pattern (Sudan-FFM 2026).

The conflict in Sudan is often described as a “forgotten war.” While this argument has merit when considering the limited attention it receives from Western media and the most influential states in the international system, the United Nations has in fact followed the issue consistently. Over the past decade (2016–2026), the Security Council has adopted a total of 80 resolutions of various kinds, ranging from renewals of peacekeeping mandates in Darfur and specialized bodies (such as the Panel of Experts on Sudan), to the imposition of sanctions and calls for ceasefires. Most of these objectives have not been achieved due to implementation deficits and the lack of cooperation from the conflicting parties, which from the outset have obstructed the work of both missions (UNAMID, UNITAMS) and humanitarian organizations, thereby making it more difficult to fulfill their mandates.

This point is crucial for understanding the limits of the international system in civil war contexts. It is not merely a question of the existence of resolutions or formal willingness to intervene, but of the effective capacity to shape the behavior of actors on the ground. In the Sudanese case, that capacity appears clearly weakened.

The United Nations closed its mission in Darfur in December 2023, following a request by the government of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Human rights organizations criticized this decision, arguing that it left victims of the civil war without a humanitarian safety net, thereby exacerbating the crisis in the country. These organizations have long called for the expansion of the arms embargo to cover all of Sudan (Amnesty International 2024; Sudan-FFM 2024), since it currently applies only to the Darfur region, despite the fact that since 2023 the conflict between the army and the RSF has affected most of the country.

It is unlikely that such an initiative will succeed in the Security Council, as it would affect the interests of countries such as Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt, which have been accused of supplying weapons to the warring parties (López Martín 2024; Patrick Wintour 2025), thereby violating the existing embargo while reaping significant economic benefits.

For now, the possibility of reinstating a peace stabilization mission in Darfur has been ruled out, as, according to the Secretary-General António Guterres, the conditions for such an initiative are not in place. As he acknowledges in his 2024 Report on the Protection of Civilians in Sudan, the decision to end the civil war ultimately rests with the belligerent parties themselves. For this reason, he considers it necessary to promote flexible contributions aimed at achieving peace: “In particular, through the personal engagement of certain heads of state, in order to strengthen diplomatic influence and ensure concrete and sustained progress in efforts to resolve the conflict” (UN Secretary-General 2024).

However, this approach—aimed at engaging key actors to influence the warring sides—has so far failed to produce the expected results. Compounding this is the closure of UNITAMS, which has limited the operational capacity of the United Nations in Sudan, an organization already facing a severe funding crisis. This is evident in the underfunding of humanitarian assistance programs in Sudan and refugee support initiatives in countries such as Egypt, South Sudan, and Chad (where more than one million Sudanese refugees who fled the war currently reside) (Security Council 2024). For example, last year the Sudan Refugee Response Plan managed to raise only 25% of the required budget, which aimed to provide assistance to 5 million people facing food insecurity (UNHCR 2026).

In this context, the war in Sudan not only challenges the actors directly involved, but also calls into question the effectiveness of the multilateral system as a whole. The persistence of the conflict, despite the abundance of resolutions, reports, and institutional mechanisms, reveals an increasingly evident gap between the normative output of the international system and its real capacity to make an impact on the ground.