War in Sudan: Humanitarian, fighting, control developments, September 2025 | Sudan war

Civil warfare in Sudan between the SAF and the RSF has resisted proposals for its finish.

The civil warfare in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Fast Help Forces (RSF) paramilitary is now properly into its third 12 months and has created the world’s most severe humanitarian catastrophe.

Estimates recommend the demise toll is within the tens of hundreds from fight alone, whereas hundreds extra have died from illness and starvation introduced on by the warfare.

This month noticed just a few key army updates, because the humanitarian state of affairs continues to deteriorate:

Preventing and army management

• Observers are awaiting the return of Sudan’s wartime authorities, which had relocated to Port Sudan, to the Khartoum capital area.
• The RSF controls many of the huge western area of Darfur, apart from North Darfur’s capital, el-Fasher, the place SAF has its final Darfur garrison. The paramilitary is besieging el-Fasher in hopes of controlling all of Darfur, erecting huge sand berms round it from the north, west and east, successfully making a “kill-box”, based on satellite tv for pc imagery obtained by the Yale Humanitarian Analysis Hub.
• However analysts say the RSF is on the again foot and the SAF is making features round el-Fasher, advancing from the north so 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 many “bloodiest days within the metropolis for the reason that RSF began its siege in Could final 12 months”, based on Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan, reporting from Khartoum.
• RSF additionally controls a lot of Kordofan to the south, with the assistance of Abdelaziz al-Hilu’s Sudan Folks’s Liberation Motion-North (SPLM-N), giving it cross-border entry to South Sudan.
• Nevertheless, SAF nonetheless controls el-Obeid, probably the most strategic metropolis in North Kordofan, which it wants to carry to maintain 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 disaster

• A landslide in early September reportedly killed greater than 1,000 folks in Tarasin within the Marrah Mountains in Central Darfur. An official from the Sudan Liberation Motion/Military (SLM/A) launched a video on September 4 saying 370 our bodies had been recovered and buried.
• Famine has taken maintain in locations like el-Fasher and the close by Zamzam displacement camp, the place the RSF has trapped an estimated 260,000 civilians, together with 130,000 kids.
• In keeping with the World Meals Programme, a complete of 24.6 million folks, about half of the inhabitants, are struggling acute meals shortages, whereas 637,000 face devastating ranges of starvation.
• Assist convoys from the United Nations and nongovernmental organisations hardly ever attain Darfur resulting from street closures and bureaucratic impediments. Rights teams and activists accuse each side of weaponising meals.
• In the meantime, the Worldwide Committee for the Crimson Cross (ICRC) stated Sudan is going through its worst cholera outbreak in years as a result of nation’s war-devastated infrastructure. In a single space of the capital, greater than 5,000 circumstances of malaria, typhoid and dengue fever, accompanied by dozens of deaths, have been reported up to now month, Hiba Morgan reported on September 23.
• Sudanese refugees are additionally dying within the Mediterranean Sea as they attempt to escape the warfare, with at least 50 dying after a vessel carrying Sudanese refugees caught hearth within the Mediterranean Sea.

Diplomacy and political developments

• UN Secretary-Common Antonio Guterres stated on September 20 that “the events should return to the negotiating desk and discover a sustainable answer to the battle.”
• The European Union utilized restrictive measures in opposition to two corporations, Alkhaleej Financial institution and Crimson Rock Mining Firm. Alkhaleej Financial institution is “owned by corporations linked to relations of RSF Commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and performs an important position in financing RSF operations”, the EU Council stated, whereas Crimson Rock is “concerned in facilitating the manufacturing of weapons and automobiles for the SAF”.
• Restrictive measures had been additionally utilized to 2 people, SAF army commander Abu Aqla Mohamed Kaikal, who defected to the RSF earlier than rejoining the SAF in 2024, and RSF army area commander, Hussein Barsham, who the council stated led “operations which have resulted in mass atrocities, together with focused killings, ethnic violence, compelled displacement and violence in opposition to civilians, significantly in Darfur and different conflict-affected areas of Sudan”.
• Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the US have introduced a proposal to end the war, which requires a three-month humanitarian truce adopted by a everlasting ceasefire, then a nine-month transitional interval whereby a broad-based civilian-led authorities can be granted energy.
• Till now, all proposals to finish the warfare have failed.