A civil war has erupted between two rival factions of Sudan’s military government. The conflict involves the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), backed by the Russian-backed Wagner militia and commanded by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (commonly known as Hemedti), who also leads the broader Janjaweed coalition. Several smaller armed groups have also taken part. The fighting is concentrated in the capital, Khartoum, where the conflict began with large-scale battles, and in the Darfur region. Many Darfur civilians have been reported killed in the Masalit massacres, described as ethnic cleansing or genocide. Sudan has been described as facing the world’s worst humanitarian crisis; nearly 25 million people are suffering from extreme hunger. On January 7, 2025, the United States declared that it had determined that the RSF and allied militias had committed genocide.
