Fresh fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has driven more than 28,000 people from their homes in Blue Nile State, a region in southeastern Sudan bordering Ethiopia and South Sudan, between April 2025 and January 2026. Reporters documenting conditions at Al Karama camp in Al-Damazin, the state capital, have found displaced families struggling with limited shelter and access to basic services, adding a new chapter to one of the world's most severe humanitarian emergencies.
The conflict, now in its third year, began in April 2023 when the Sudanese army and the RSF — a paramilitary force that grew out of the notorious Janjaweed militias — turned their guns on each other after a power struggle within Sudan's military-led government. The war has since spread across much of the country, with analysts pointing to the involvement of foreign actors as a significant obstacle to mediation. Peace negotiations have repeatedly stalled, and the United Nations has warned that the increasing use of armed drones is making the conflict more dangerous and civilian casualties harder to prevent. Aid organisations have also accused both sides of using sexual violence as a weapon of war.
The human cost is staggering. Fourteen million people have been displaced across Sudan according to UN figures, while nearly half the country faces acute hunger and more than 18 million people require urgent medical assistance. Sudan has recorded the largest number of internally displaced people of any country for three consecutive years, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).
The crisis in Blue Nile State sits within a broader global trend. The IDMC's 2025 Global Report on Internal Displacement found that conflict-driven displacements worldwide reached a record 32.3 million last year — 60 percent higher than the year before and, for the first time since data collection began in 2008, surpassing displacements caused by natural disasters. Nearly half of all conflict-driven displacements globally were concentrated in just five countries: Sudan, Colombia, Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan.
Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, described the figures as a "sign of a global collapse" in the protection of civilians, warning that families are returning to destroyed homes and vanishing services — or cannot return at all. Experts caution that even a modest decline in the total number of displaced people worldwide should not be read as progress, as it masks forced returns to areas with destroyed infrastructure and no viable path to lasting stability. For the tens of thousands newly uprooted in Blue Nile State, that reality is immediate and urgent.