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Sudan's 100 Days of War between Rival Military Factions

Women and children gather in a building at a camp for the internally displaced in al-Suwar, about 15 kilometers north of Wad Madani in Sudan, on June 22, 2023. (Photo by AFP)
Women and children gather in a building at a camp for the internally displaced in al-Suwar, about 15 kilometers north of Wad Madani in Sudan, on June 22, 2023. (Photo by AFP)
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Sudan's 100 Days of War between Rival Military Factions

Women and children gather in a building at a camp for the internally displaced in al-Suwar, about 15 kilometers north of Wad Madani in Sudan, on June 22, 2023. (Photo by AFP)
Women and children gather in a building at a camp for the internally displaced in al-Suwar, about 15 kilometers north of Wad Madani in Sudan, on June 22, 2023. (Photo by AFP)

A war that broke out in mid-April between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Response Forces (RSF) has devastated the capital Khartoum, caused a sharp increase in ethnically-driven violence in Darfur, and displaced over three million people, Reuters said.
The following is a timeline of major events since fighting began 100 days ago:
April 15 - After weeks of tensions building over a plan to hand power to civilians, heavy fighting erupts in Khartoum and clashes are reported in several other cities.
RSF forces loyal to Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, storm the residence of army chief General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, as they try to seize strategic sites in the heart of the capital.
April 16 - The UN World Food Program says it is temporarily suspending operations in Sudan, one of its biggest programs globally, after three of its staff were among aid workers killed in early fighting. The WFP says on May 1 that it is resuming work, alongside warnings that more than three million more people could slip into hunger and farmers may be unable to plant crops.
April 21 - The number of residents fleeing Khartoum accelerates as areas across the city are subjected to army air strikes, clashes, and looting by the RSF. Many seek refuge outside Khartoum and some head for Sudan's borders.
April 22 - The United States says special operations forces have evacuated all its embassy staff from Khartoum. France, Britain and other nations follow, leaving Sudanese worrying they will be left to fend for themselves.
April 25 - Ahmed Haroun, a former minister wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges he committed crimes in Darfur, says he and other ex-officials from ousted leader Omar al-Bashir's administration have walked free from prison.
Officials later confirm that Bashir, who is also wanted by the ICC, had been transferred to a military hospital before fighting began.
May 5 - More than 1 million polio vaccines intended for children have been destroyed as a result of looting, UNICEF says, following warnings that the provision of medical care and hospital capacity is collapsing as a result of the fighting. The WFP also reports extensive looting of its supplies.
May 20 - At talks convened by Saudi Arabia and the United States in Jeddah, Sudan's warring factions agree to a seven-day ceasefire designed to allow delivery of humanitarian aid. Violations of the deal by both sides are later reported, and aid agencies still struggle to deliver relief. The Jeddah talks are adjourned in June.
May 29 - The head of the UN refugee agency says estimates that one million people could flee Sudan by October may prove conservative, warning that arms and people trafficking could spread across a fragile region.
June 8 - The mobilization of the powerful SPLM-N rebel force in South Kordofan raises fears of the conflict extending through Sudan's southern regions. Clashes in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states later caused residents to flee.
June 14 - West Darfur Governor Khamis Abbakar is killed hours after a TV interview in which he accused the RSF and allied militias of conducting genocide against non-Arab groups.
Thousands of civilians try to escape by foot to nearby Chad following his death but are targeted as they flee.
June 19 - International donors pledge $1.5 billion in aid for Sudan and the surrounding region at a fundraising conference in Geneva, about half the estimated needs for a deepening humanitarian crisis.
July 13 - Egypt begins a new mediation attempt between Sudan's rival factions at a summit for Sudan's neighbors in Cairo. Ethiopia's leader says the push should be coordinated with an existing initiative led by East African regional bloc IGAD, amid concerns about competing and ineffective diplomatic efforts.
July 14 - The US-based Sudan Conflict Observatory reports that the RSF and aligned forces were suspected of the targeted destruction of at least 26 communities in Darfur. A day earlier, the International Criminal Court said it was investigating violence in Darfur. The RSF says hostilities there are tribal.

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As the UN Turns 80, Its Crucial Humanitarian Aid Work Faces a Clouded Future

Students in an English class at a primary school run by URWA for Palestinian refugees at the Mar Elias refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Students in an English class at a primary school run by URWA for Palestinian refugees at the Mar Elias refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
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As the UN Turns 80, Its Crucial Humanitarian Aid Work Faces a Clouded Future

Students in an English class at a primary school run by URWA for Palestinian refugees at the Mar Elias refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Students in an English class at a primary school run by URWA for Palestinian refugees at the Mar Elias refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

At a refugee camp in northern Kenya, Aujene Cimanimpaye waits as a hot lunch of lentils and sorghum is ladled out for her and her nine children — all born while she has received United Nations assistance since fleeing her violence-wracked home in Congo in 2007.

“We cannot go back home because people are still being killed,” the 41-year-old said at the Kakuma camp, where the UN World Food Program and UN refugee agency help support more than 300,000 refugees, The Associated Press said.

Her family moved from Nakivale Refugee Settlement in neighboring Uganda three years ago to Kenya, now home to more than a million refugees from dozens of conflict-hit east African countries.

A few kilometers (miles) away at the Kalobeyei Refugee Settlement, fellow Congolese refugee Bahati Musaba, a mother of five, said that since 2016, “UN agencies have supported my children’s education — we get food and water and even medicine,” as well as cash support from WFP to buy food and other basics.

This year, those cash transfers — and many other UN aid activities — have stopped, threatening to upend or jeopardize millions of lives.

As the UN marks its 80th anniversary this month, its humanitarian agencies are facing one of the greatest crises in their history: The biggest funder — the United States — under the Trump administration and other Western donors have slashed international aid spending. Some want to use the money to build up national defense.

Some UN agencies are increasingly pointing fingers at one another as they battle over a shrinking pool of funding, said a diplomat from a top donor country who spoke on condition of anonymity to comment freely about the funding crisis faced by some UN agencies.

Such pressures, humanitarian groups say, diminish the pivotal role of the UN and its partners in efforts to save millions of lives — by providing tents, food and water to people fleeing unrest in places like Myanmar, Sudan, Syria and Venezuela, or helping stamp out smallpox decades ago.

“It’s the most abrupt upheaval of humanitarian work in the UN in my 40 years as a humanitarian worker, by far,” said Jan Egeland, a former UN humanitarian aid chief who now heads the Norwegian Refugee Council. “And it will make the gap between exploding needs and contributions to aid work even bigger.”

‘Brutal’ cuts to humanitarian aid programs UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has asked the heads of UN agencies to find ways to cut 20% of their staffs, and his office in New York has floated sweeping ideas about reform that could vastly reshape the way the United Nations doles out aid.

Humanitarian workers often face dangers and go where many others don’t — to slums to collect data on emerging viruses or drought-stricken areas to deliver water.

The UN says 2024 was the deadliest year for humanitarian personnel on record, mainly due to the war in Gaza. In February, it suspended aid operations in the stronghold of Yemen’s Houthi group, who have detained dozens of UN and other aid workers.

Proponents say UN aid operations have helped millions around the world affected by poverty, illness, conflict, hunger and other troubles.

Critics insist many operations have become bloated, replete with bureaucratic perks and a lack of accountability, and are too distant from in-the-field needs. They say postcolonial Western donations have fostered dependency and corruption, which stifles the ability of countries to develop on their own, while often UN-backed aid programs that should be time-specific instead linger for many years with no end in sight.

In the case of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning WFP and the UN’s refugee and migration agencies, the US has represented at least 40% of their total budgets, and Trump administration cuts to roughly $60 billion in US foreign assistance have hit hard. Each UN agency has been cutting thousands of jobs and revising aid spending.

“It's too brutal what has happened,” said Egeland, alluding to cuts that have jolted the global aid community. “However, it has forced us to make priorities ... what I hope is that we will be able to shift more of our resources to the front lines of humanity and have less people sitting in offices talking about the problem.”

With the UN Security Council's divisions over wars in Ukraine and the Middle East hindering its ability to prevent or end conflict in recent years, humanitarian efforts to vaccinate children against polio or shelter and feed refugees have been a bright spot of UN activity. That's dimming now.

Not just funding cuts cloud the future of UN humanitarian work

Aside from the cuts and dangers faced by humanitarian workers, political conflict has at times overshadowed or impeded their work.

UNRWA, the aid agency for Palestinian refugees, has delivered an array of services to millions — food, education, jobs and much more — in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan as well as in the West Bank and Gaza since its founding in 1948.

Israel claims the agency's schools fan antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiment, which the agency denies. Israel says Hamas siphons off UN aid in Gaza to profit from it, while UN officials insist most aid gets delivered directly to the needy.

“UNRWA is like one of the foundations of your home. If you remove it, everything falls apart,” said Issa Haj Hassan, 38, after a checkup at a small clinic at the Mar Elias Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut.

UNRWA covers his diabetes and blood pressure medication, as well as his wife’s heart medicine. The United States, Israel's top ally, has stopped contributing to UNRWA; it once provided a third of its funding. Earlier this year, Israel banned the aid group, which has strived to continue its work nonetheless.

Ibtisam Salem, a single mother of five in her 50s who shares a small one-room apartment in Beirut with relatives who sleep on the floor, said: “If it wasn’t for UNRWA we would die of starvation. ... They helped build my home, and they give me health care. My children went to their schools.”

Especially when it comes to food and hunger, needs worldwide are growing even as funding to address them shrinks.

“This year, we have estimated around 343 million acutely food insecure people,” said Carl Skau, WFP deputy executive director. “It’s a threefold increase if we compare four years ago. And this year, our funding is dropping 40%. So obviously that’s an equation that doesn’t come together easily.”

Billing itself as the world's largest humanitarian organization, WFP has announced plans to cut about a quarter of its 22,000 staff.

The aid landscape is shifting

One question is how the United Nations remains relevant as an aid provider when global cooperation is on the outs, and national self-interest and self-defense are on the upswing.

The United Nations is not alone: Many of its aid partners are feeling the pinch. Groups like GAVI, which tries to ensure fair distribution of vaccines around the world, and the Global Fund, which spends billions each year to help battle HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, have been hit by Trump administration cuts to the US Agency for International Development.

Some private-sector, government-backed groups also are cropping up, including the divisive Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has been providing some food to Palestinians. But violence has erupted as crowds try to reach the distribution sites.

The future of UN aid, experts say, will rest where it belongs — with the world body's 193 member countries.

“We need to take that debate back into our countries, into our capitals, because it is there that you either empower the UN to act and succeed — or you paralyze it,” said Achim Steiner, administrator of the UN Development Program.