Non-international armed conflicts in Sudan

Alleged Use of Chemical Weapons

Reports allege that the SAF employed chemical agents against the RSF in 2023 and 2024, prompting the United States (US) to sanction Sudan in May 2025 under its domestic legislation. The reported conduct includes the use of a riot control and vomiting agent and, later, chlorine gas against RSF positions. Any use of chlorine as a method of warfare against anyone is a serious violation of IHL.

Starvation as a Method of Warfare

Attacks on food systems, impediments to humanitarian relief, and siege tactics in several localities generated acute hunger and malnutrition in civilians in conflict-affected areas and displacement camps in Sudan. Famine situations were primarily attributed to the RSF but also involved the SAF and, in one locality, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army-North (SPLM-N) (al Hilu faction). Siege-like conditions and restrictions on relief blocked the entry of food, medicine, and other essentials, aggravating acute malnutrition among many civilians. In addition to attacks and insecurity, humanitarian access was further undermined by restrictions, bureaucratic impediments, diversion, and looting, including SAF measures affecting cross-border aid routes in breach of IHL rules on humanitarian relief.

Attacks against Displaced Persons and Forced Displacement

In Darfur, the RSF’s shelling and ground offensives against displacement camps and surrounding areas caused extensive civilian deaths, injuries, repeated displacement, and attacks on civilians fleeing along roads and at checkpoints. Such attacks were in some instances linked to ethnicity or perceived allegiance to the SAF and the Darfur Joint Protection Forces (DFJPF). The siege of El Fasher and associated violence generated successive waves of displacement from the city and nearby camps, with the RSF asserting military use of certain sites and claiming voluntary evacuations, while residents and humanitarian actors reported attacks and violence against vulnerable civilians. More broadly, the conflict between the SAF and the RSF has produced mass internal and cross border displacement, described as the world’s largest displacement crisis. Under IHL, displacement is permissible only for the security of civilian population or imperative military reasons, must be temporary and accompanied by measures ensuring adequate shelter, food, safety, and protection for displaced persons.

Attacks against Health Facilities

Sudan’s health system has been driven to near collapse by widespread destruction of medical infrastructure and the targeting of medical personnel by both the SAF and the RSF. As a result, only a small share of facilities has remained operational in conflict-affected areas and much of the civilian population has been deprived from basic care amid severe shortages of supplies and staff. Darfur was particularly affected during the siege of El Fasher, where attacks on hospitals and clinics intensified, including in surrounding displacement camps, and access to treatment and patient evacuation became increasingly dangerous. The RSF repeatedly shelled, raided, looted and threatened hospitals in areas under its influence, including in Khartoum and Al Gezira, and was blamed for attacks on remaining facilities in El Fasher. The SAF also struck medical sites during expanded aerial operations, including in Darfur and East Darfur, asserting military presence while reports questioned that justification. Following the fall of El Fasher in November 2025, massacres reportedly included large numbers of patients in a hospital.

Attacks against Humanitarian Facilities

Humanitarian facilities and relief operations in Sudan were repeatedly attacked or caught in hostilities, undermining the protection owed to civilian objects. In Blue Nile state, an airstrike hit a World Food Programme (WFP) compound in Yabus, killing staff, with responsibility remaining unconfirmed amid competing indications regarding control of the area and the parties’ air capabilities, even though the SAF are the only party with manned combat aircraft. In Darfur, the RSF shelled a WFP facility in El Fasher, and a drone strike later hit a marked humanitarian convoy jointly operated by the WFP and UNICEF, killing and injuring humanitarian workers and damaging food supplies intended for El Fasher. The route had been notified to the parties to the conflict, and the convoy was clearly identified. The strike occurred after the convoy was reportedly halted by the RSF near El Koma, an area under their control at the time, prompting renewed calls for investigation and accountability.

Attacks against Water and Electricity Infrastructure

Fighting between the SAF and the RSF repeatedly damaged or targeted water and electricity infrastructure, compounding civilian hardship. The RSF reportedly relied mainly on artillery before adding drone strikes and were described as systematically attacking water systems, including around El Fasher and in areas predominantly inhabited by non-Arab communities. Reported conduct included briefly cutting El Fasher’s main water supply, damaging systems serving the city and nearby IDP camps, and destroying water delivery capacity to medical facilities. The SAF also struck water sources in areas that fell under RSF control. Electricity infrastructure was repeatedly hit by drone strikes attributed to the RSF, including a major dam and power stations, causing blackouts that disrupted water pumping, hospitals, and communications. In April 2025, Fuel shortages further reduced access to water in El Fasher and surrounding displacement camps. These cumulative attacks and breakdowns were reported to have contributed to a nationwide cholera epidemic.

Torture and other forms of ill-treatment were reported as a consistent pattern by the SAF and the RSF, as well as allied forces, against civilians and military personnel hors de combat, including severe beatings and lashings and other forms of mutilation. Victims were reportedly blindfolded, abused for prolonged periods in detention centres, and held in overcrowded conditions marked by systematic deprivation of food, water and medical care, sometimes resulting in death. Reports also described the sexual assault of women and girls by RSF soldiers in front of family members, aggravating trauma and stigma. The abuses were reportedly used to intimidate, punish, coerce confessions, and discriminate, including on ethnic grounds, amounting to serious violations of IHL, including the war crimes of rape and torture.

Arbitrary Deprivation of Liberty and Hostage-Taking

Arbitrary deprivation of liberty remained widespread, with civilians detained by both the RSF and the SAF, and multiple cases amounting to hostage-taking. In RSF-controlled areas, notably Darfur and Khartoum, civilians were arrested in homes and at checkpoints on allegations such as collaboration with the SAF, sometimes on ethnic grounds, and were held secretly without charge, judicial review, legal representation, or communication. The RSF also detained male youths in El Fasher, with the fate of many remaining unknown. In areas retaken by the SAF, civilians accused of association with the RSF were reportedly detained incommunicado, while mass arrests in Khartoum after 7 April 2025 involved summary executions or unresolved disappearances. The DJPF also carried out widespread arrests in El Fasher. Reports further describe RSF-linked ransom demands and ill-treatment to secure payment, including in displacement camps, constituting hostage-taking and a war crime.

Incommunicado detention by the SAF and the RSF was repeatedly associated with enforced disappearances, as the fate and whereabouts of numerous detainees remained unknown. The RSF was reported to have detained civilians in Al-Sireha in late October 2024 and to have arrested men and young people en masse in El Fasher in 2024 on suspicion of being informants, with no information available on their subsequent fate. Such practices amount to enforced disappearance, which is prohibited under customary IHL in all armed conflicts.

Sexual and gender-based violence is described as a defining feature of Sudan’s conflicts, characterised as systematic, widespread and used as a weapon of war amid pervasive impunity. Victims span childhood to old age, with patterns including rape and gang rape, forced nudity, abduction, sexual slavery and exploitation, often accompanied by beatings, looting and attacks on homes. The RSF and allied forces are depicted as the main perpetrators, with violence particularly targeting women and girls from Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa communities and involving racist dehumanization. After El Fasher fell to the RSF in November 2025 following an eighteen-month siege, women and girls fleeing the city reported brutal sexual violence, including gang rape by RSF and affiliated fighters, sometimes lasting hours or days and occurring in the presence of family members. Abduction and prolonged sexual enslavement, including targeting of nurses, medical workers, human rights defenders and frontline workers, is presented as recurring. Some cases are also attributed to the SAF and the DJPF, including rape and sexualized torture. Reports highlight increased sexual violence against children and IDPs and severe under-reporting driven by stigma, fear, displacement, and intimidation.

Child recruitment in Sudan is widespread, with neither the SAF nor the RSF appearing to be  concerned about the recruits’ age. In 2024, children were reportedly recruited, trained, armed and used in support roles and in combat-related functions, including as bodyguards, informers and members of fighting units. The RSF and allied militias are depicted as systematically recruiting and abducting children for use in hostilities, often leveraging tribal intermediaries and material incentives, while the SAF is reported to have mobilized children through “popular mobilization” and assigned them security and coercive tasks, including checkpoint duties, searches, guarding detainees and involvement in pillage, arson and torture in detention. Although information regarding the age of recruits is scarce, available accounts indicate recruitment of children below fifteen years through organized enrolment in military camps and coercive conscription.

Sudan had a substantial population of persons with disabilities prior to the conflict, with rural areas disproportionately affected, and conflict dynamics are increasing disability prevalence. Injuries from bullets, shelling and bombings lead to amputations and severe burns. Likewise, ill-treatment of detainees, notably by the RSF, results in permanent physical and psychological disabilities, including severe trauma and lasting impairments linked to repeated beatings and lack of medical care. Survivors of sexual and gender-based violence also endure long-term physical and psychological consequences. Moreover, starvation and chronic malnutrition, especially among children, cause enduring harm including stunted growth, impaired cognitive development and metabolic disorders, while famine exposure in utero increases later-life health risks. These impacts are further compounded by the destruction of and lack of access to health facilities, undermining treatment and rehabilitation.