The city of El Fasher, Sudan fell to the RSF in October after 18 months of siege. During what is being called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, PeaceRep researcher Dr Jan Pospisil offers an expert perspective on the roots of the conflict and implications for mediation and humanitarian response.
Learn more about the current situation in Sudan, explore PeaceRep’s latest research, and watch reactions to the ongoing conflict in the media below.
PeaceRep Sudan Analyst Reacts to Atrocities in El Fasher
In October 2025 the city of El Fasher, in Darfur, fell to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) after 18 months of siege. As the last key government-controlled city in Darfur, the fall of El Fasher left all major cities in Darfur under RSF control.
In a conflict where both the opposing factions of the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF have been accused of ethnically targeting groups and committing human rights violations against civilians, there is now mounting evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The IOM reported almost 90,000 people had been forced to leave El Fasher, using extremely unsafe routes, with medical workers reporting atrocities being carried out in El Fasher by the RSF. Thousands remain trapped in the city in need of protection from armed actors and in urgent need of humanitarian supplies. With no access to food, water or medical supplies and with warehouses almost empty, aid convoys are also facing significant challenges in gaining secure access to El Fasher and IDP camps outside the city around Tawilah, where people have been forced to flee.
The fall of El Fasher follows several years of unrest. Sudan’s twin transition from armed conflict and authoritarian rule has been stalled since the military coup of October 2021 and the installation of a military junta under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. In April 2023, tensions escalated further between al-Burhan and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (“Hemedti”), the leader of the RSF, resulting in violent clashes breaking out in Khartoum that signalled the beginning of a devastating war for control of the country. The ongoing conflict has displaced more than 12 million people and exacerbated instability and humanitarian crisis, which is now widely considered to be both the largest displacement crisis recorded and the largest humanitarian crisis on record.
PeaceRep reactions in the media
PeaceRep Sudan analyst Dr Jan Pospisil from Coventry University spoke to France 24 and TRT World about the ongoing situation in El Fasher.
Wider PeaceRep research and data on Sudan
PeaceRep research offers insights into the roots of the war and implications for mediation and humanitarian response. Our Sudan research examines Sudan’s democratic transition through the development of policy analyses and academic research, exploring civic inclusion in peace and economic processes; the role of digital technologies in the violation and application of humanitarian law and consequences for famine prevention; natural resource management; and civil fiscal resistance and fragmented governance. Sudan is a key element of our work in the Global Transitions series, which looks at fragmentations in the global order and how these impact peace and transition settlements.
Recent PeaceRep publications and resources
Sudan peace agreements since 1990 can be accessed via the PA-X Peace Agreements Database, including the Juba Peace Agreement of 3 October 2020.
From Paralysis to Pluralism: Repoliticising Mediation in Sudan
The ongoing war in Sudan exposes the limits of international mediation efforts when stripped of political substance. In this blog, Jan Pospisil argues that current approaches reduce mediation to a technocratic exercise, where inclusion is invoked more as a legitimising slogan than a meaningful political act. To make a difference, mediation must re-engage with power, fragmentation, and the complex realities of Sudan’s political landscape.
This brief from the LSE’s Conflict and Civicness Research Group (CCRG) contends that any serious approach to security sector reform (SSR) in Sudan must reckon with the political economy that sustains militarised rule.
Reframing the Nation: Army Media, Memory, and Militarised Legitimacy in Sudan’s War
Since the start of the war in Sudan in 2023, the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) has used Arabic-language media to portray itself as Sudan’s only legitimate national institution—non-Islamist, inclusive, and the last safeguard against fragmentation. This policy brief from LSE CCRG explores how that projection is constructed, and how it draws on selective historical memory and co-opted revolutionary rhetoric to consolidate military legitimacy.
Third-Party Mediation in Sudan and South Sudan: Longer-Term Trends
This Global Transitions report from the University of St Andrews draws from a preliminary dataset on third-party mediation in Sudan and South Sudan (1988-2022) to determine if and how the growing presence of non-Western powers – especially out-of-region ones – indicates their greater involvement in peace processes and mediation.
Browse our full list of Sudan publications