Sylvia ChebetThe prospect of a peaceful Sudan seemed plausible for millions trapped between airstrikes, ground attacks, famine, and disease, as the war appeared to be grinding to a halt.
The momentum of the war has swung in favour of the army, as it moved to recapture critical installations in Khartoum including the airport, the presidential palace and the central bank.
On March 26, 2025, army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan made a landmark return to the country’s seat of power, for the first time since war broke out on April 15, 2023, an event that sent waves of joy across Sudan and beyond its borders.
“There is some reason for optimism after Khartoum has been declared liberated but much of the country still remains under conflict,” Davis Makori, humanitarian policy and advocacy specialist for the charity PLAN International told TRT Afrika.
The recapture of Khartoum marks a significant gain for the Sudanese army as the war continues to unfold.
The conflict erupted on April 15, 2023, after the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) chief Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan fell out with his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
After being pushed out of Khartoum, the RSF has intensified assault in Darfur, particularly around the city of el-Fasher.
Reports indicate more than 300 people have been killed in RSF’s ground offensive which began on the April 11, targeting Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps, where thousands of displaced people were sheltering. It was another episode of horror.
“After being starved, shelled and deprived of lifesaving assistance, people in Zamzam displacement camp, near el-Fasher, are once again under attack,” Marion Ramstein, MSF emergency field coordinator in North Darfur said.
“There are reports of people fleeing in all directions and many casualties, although we can’t verify how many at the moment.”
Relief International, the only international aid organisation that was still operating in Zamzam during the attack, confirmed the killing of 9 of their staff running a clinic in the camp.
People are now watching to see whether the Sudanese army will ‘‘take the war to Hemedti in Darfur," Pascal Cuttat, a senior advisor at the Kenya-based think tank Sahan, told TRT Afrika.
Children in the crossfire
Sudan’s civil war, now entering its third year, has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Nearly 15 million people representing one-thirds of the Sudanese population, have been uprooted from their homes and an estimated 24,000 killed, according to the UN, as the conflict enters its third year.
More than 30 million people — over half the country’s population — now require humanitarian assistance, the UN says.
Gender-based violence has surged across Sudan, with 12.1 million women and children at risk.
Since the beginning of 2024, at least 221 cases of child rape have been recorded, according to UNICEF, which has warned that “children as young as one” have been targeted.
“The long-term psychological impact of this crisis in children is going to be severe even if the conflict ends tomorrow,” Makori of PLAN International explained.
“Not only have these children faced neglect and abuse, and suffered the indiginity of having to live in displacement sites, they’ve also lost formal access to education, they’ve lost their friends, they’ve lost their parents, they’ve lost all semblance of normalcy in their lives and what has become normal for them has actually been the language of trauma and war.”
To ease their trauma and help them heal their invisible wounds, humanitarian agencies such as Plan International have created special child-friendly spaces, where they can play again and be the children that they are.
“On the first day, the children were frightened, they were scared, but then we were able to integrate them into the space and the atmosphere improved” Nasra Abdalla, PLAN International’s child friendly space facilitator in southeastern Sudan told TRT Afrika.
“Perpetrators have primarily targeted women and girls but men and boys are not spared,” UNICEF has said.
Asma, not her real name, has survived multiple horrors since she fled her home in Khartoum with her children 22 months ago.
She fell victim to a group of men who waylaid her in a banana plantation near the camp she was sheltering in in Sennar State, as she sought food for her children.
“I tried to talk to them, I told them they were the same age as my son,” Asma recalls, adding: “Then it happened, I had incontinence and diarrhoea, but I don’t know if it was because of what they did to me.”
Meanwhile, Sudan’s fragile health system has crumbled under the weight of the war. With no doctors in Sennar, Asma had to move again with her children to another displacement camp, in search of treatment.
“When I got to the camp, I found help from PLAN International. I asked them to treat me but to keep the assault a secret,” the mother of five said.
“I don’t like telling my story, but there is no escaping it if I need support and treatment. The treatment is going well, so far so good. I feel so much better since starting treatment. I am grateful to the PLAN international. If it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t have survived because I had isolated myself.”
Asma, now on the road to recovery, hopes that the guns will soon fall silent and her country can begin the journey towards healing.
Mohamed Hamdan Daglo says the rival government "reflects the true face of Sudan" in a move that comes as foreign ministers and humanitarian leaders gathered to mark the two-year anniversary of the Sudan conflict.
