Kamal Morsal Mahmoud has lived in Lebanon for 27 years. The 59-year-old Sudanese arrived a few years after the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), when the country boomed, attracting migrant workers from all over the region.
He is now the new president of the Sudanese Club , founded in 1967 and located at the heart of Beirut.
"These walls have witnessed our joys and sorrows," Kamal tells The New Arab , sitting at his desk, surrounded by stacks of mattresses, boxes of canned goods and hygiene products.
He describes the Sudanese community in Lebanon as one that loves to co-exist and connect in all circumstances.
The Sudanese migrant community in Lebanon is one of its most prominent, as well as one of the most impacted by the country's 2024 and 2026 wars with Israel.
This impact became more layered with the start of the Sudan civil war in April 2023 , which entered its fourth year on 15 April 2026.
"War reveals many things," Kamal continues. "The conflict in Sudan affected the Sudanese diaspora worldwide and caused a lot of destruction and death."
The war in Sudan is a brutal struggle for power between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), erupting in April 2023 after years of instability following the fall of Omar al-Bashir in 2019.
Increasingly shaped by external backing for both sides, the conflict has evolved into an attritional proxy war and triggered one of the gravest humanitarian catastrophes in the world.
More than 12 million people have been displaced, making Sudan the site of the world's largest and fastest-growing displacement crisis. War in both homes Omar* (name changed for anonymity) is a Sudanese refugee who arrived in Lebanon after April 2023 and left during the first Israeli escalation in Lebanon in September 2024 . "A Sudanese friend in Beirut helped me settle," the 33-year-old filmmaker tells The New Arab, "but living through two wars at the same time was too much."
What followed was a fractured journey out of Sudan: from Khartoum to Gezira, into Ethiopia, through Beirut, and at last to the UAE.
"The priority was to get the girls and women in my family out of Sudan as quickly as possible because of the widespread sexual violence," he says.
Sexual violence has become one of the defining brutalities of Sudan's war, with women and girls bearing much of its toll. Between January 2024 and November 2025, at least 3,396 survivors of sexual assault sought medical treatment at Doctors Without Borders-supported facilities in North and South Darfur, a figure the organisation says captures only a fraction of the abuse.
Yet crossing Sudan's borders offered no clean escape. In Lebanon, Sudanese migrants have found themselves trapped between one war and another, navigating economic collapse, repeated displacement and Israeli bombardment since October 2023 in a country that was meant to offer temporary shelter.
Sudanese officials say at least six Sudanese nationals have been killed in Israeli attacks in Lebanon, including two men killed in an airstrike on Beirut on 28 March 2026.
According to Dr Jasmin Lilian Diab, Assistant Professor of Migration Studies and Director of the Institute for Migration Studies at the Lebanese American University, Sudanese migrants in Lebanon face "layered displacement," fleeing war in Sudan to encounter precarity and insecurity in Lebanon.
"While the UNHCR and some NGOs have provided limited assistance, support has been inconsistent, neglecting the legal realities of Sudanese nationals," Dr Jasmin tells The New Arab .
Displaced Sudanese refugees have been demanding resettlement to a third country for a long time, reiterating that the files of many people are on hold at the agency with no explanation.
The UNHCR Communications Associate Liza Abou Khaled tells The New Arab that the agency provides protection and assistance based on the individual needs of refugees and their identified vulnerabilities.
"It is important to note that resettlement in third countries remains a limited protection tool, reserved for refugees facing acute protection risks that cannot be addressed in Lebanon. The process is also dependent on the commitment of said third countries to receive refugees under resettlement programmes," she explains.
The status of refugees and migrants in Lebanon has always been fickle, given that Lebanon has not ratified the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees , the primary global foundation for refugee protection, which covers basic human rights such as the right to work, education, shelter, and legal protection.
However, a 2003 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed with the UNHCR grants the agency jurisdiction over refugees' and migrants' asylum claims and classifies Lebanon as a country of transit rather than a country of asylum. Community solidarity as a survival strategy With the onset of the civil war in Sudan , an estimated 2,000 to 4,000 Sudanese arrived in Lebanon, bringing the community's total to approximately 14,600 , according to estimates based on IOM Lebanon's 2023 Migrant Presence Monitoring Report.
Sudanese migrants, like all other migrant communities in Lebanon, work under the Kafala System , a sponsorship system that legally binds a migrant worker to a Lebanese sponsor who controls all aspects of their working conditions.
In recent years, their wages have lost significant value, decreasing their remittances home and increasing poverty levels.
Socio-economic conditions continue to deteriorate today due to the drastic spike in food and fuel prices with the onset of the US-Israel offensive on Iran and the consequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
But Sudanese communal bonds, visible in spaces like The Sudanese Club, provide a lifeline, especially as the community found itself continuously neglected by the Lebanese government.
"It is a structural problem that has very deep roots. I don't know how this can be fixed," Kamal tells The New Arab, describing the dysfunction in Lebanon's system and how it impacts Sudanese migrants.
"No one contacted us from the Ministry of Social Affairs. Absolutely no one," he says. The New Arab reached out to the Ministry of Social Affairs for comment on its current emergency response strategy for displaced Sudanese nationals, but received no response by the time of publication. Deflected responsibility and fragmented support leave the Sudanese community with no option but to stand together and provide for itself.
Like many other community leaders, Kamal is closely involved in the club's initiatives.
"Crisis has a ripple effect," Kamal says, describing the impact of Lebanon's economic crisis and wars on his community, "but we are always there for each other."
The Sudanese Club's Ramadan iftar committee is one such example, becoming a disaster management committee at the beginning of the March 2026 escalation.
The club was forced to halt its membership fees temporarily, and was supported by other migrant groups with gas and generator fees.
The Sudanese club is regularly visited by Sudanese migrants from all over the country.
During both escalations, it hosted displaced families and provided for them by leveraging strong networks with solidarity collectives and organisations in Lebanon.
Dr Jasmin says these Sudanese community networks have become a vital yet under-recognised source of aid, information-sharing, and psychosocial support.
"These networks demonstrate strong forms of mutual aid and solidarity, yet remain severely under-resourced and are frequently excluded from formal humanitarian coordination mechanisms," she explains.
"In order for solidarity and communal support to continue, governmental institutions must include Sudanese nationals in decision-making that affects their communities." Nour Nahhas is an independent writer and researcher based in Beirut