When Sudan's war broke out on 15 April 2023, few imagined it would still be burning three years later .
Fewer still imagined the scale of what it would become: one of the worst humanitarian crises on the planet, a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of civilians, displaced millions within and beyond Sudan's borders, and reduced hospitals, water facilities, and entire neighbourhoods to rubble.
Yet as the war enters its fourth year, there is no credible horizon for ending it, and some analysts believe the worst is still to come.
The fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has long since outgrown the description of a clash between two generals. It has consumed Khartoum, torn through Darfur , and fractured the social fabric of a country that was already fragile.
International conferences have come and gone, Paris, London, and most recently Berlin, producing statements, pledges, and little else. The war, often described as "forgotten" in terms of global media attention, continues on its own logic. The case for cautious optimism and its limits Not everyone reads the current moment as hopeless. Professor Salah al-Douma, a Sudanese political analyst and academic, sees indicators that the war may be approaching an end, even if the timeline remains uncertain.
“We are close to peace and far from it at the same time,” he told The New Arab , a formulation that captures the contradictions more honestly than most.
Al-Douma points to signs of erosion within what he calls the pro-war camp: the designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation, the re-emergence of the committee to dismantle the structures of the June 1989 regime now operating from outside Sudan with international backing, and deepening internal fractures within that camp that have become visible to all.
Strikes on key positions - including Port Sudan and the Wadi Seidna base in Omdurman - have, in his view, shaken this bloc.
But al-Douma is candid about what is missing. The international community, he argues, is handling the parties with too much leniency, particularly the military authority backed by Islamist networks that were ousted by the December 2018 revolution.
Without a genuine deterrent mechanism, possibly including international intervention under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, the war camp has little reason to fold.
“If a strike force were available,” he said, “successive blows could weaken and destabilise this camp”. That force does not currently exist. A war designed to continue Others are less optimistic. Researcher and political analyst Abbas Mohamed Salih places the situation firmly in the category of continued conflict rather than de-escalation. His reasoning centres not on military balance but on political incentives, specifically, on the role of external actors whose interests are served by the war's continuation.
“As long as the international community continues to avoid focusing on the primary factor in igniting and fuelling the war,” Abbas said, pointing directly at the United Arab Emirates (UAE), “the local parties will continue fighting”.
In his analysis, the RSF functions as an instrument of Abu Dhabi's regional interests and will continue to fight so long as external support flows and a settlement that shields its leadership from accountability remains possible.
“The rebels are seeking to continue the war,” he said, “because they represent a tool for Abu Dhabi, which uses them as a pressure card to achieve its interests in Sudan”.
Abbas also dismissed the scenario that mutual exhaustion will eventually force both sides to the table, a thesis sometimes advanced in Western policy circles.
“This scenario is unlikely in the Sudanese case,” he said, “due to the complexity of external interventions and the sharp political divisions, meaning the humanitarian crisis will continue for years to come”.
Legal expert and political analyst Abdel Aziz Sam goes further in rejecting the framing of the conflict as a bilateral dispute.
“Describing the war as being between two generals is not accurate,” he told TNA . “Sudan has been attacked by several countries, with support, coordination, and weapons from the UAE”. He points to the presence of Colombian, Chadian, and Libyan fighters killed in Sudan as evidence of the scale of external involvement.
Sam is also scathing about the international mediation effort. The Berlin conference, he said, failed because preparation was poor and because many of its participants were backers of the RSF in Nyala.
The Jeddah Declaration, signed in May 2023, was never implemented under the Biden administration, and the appointment of Massad Boulos as Trump's Sudan envoy has produced no breakthrough.
“He has not been able to redevelop the positions of the warring parties or present acceptable negotiating packages,” Sam said. What comes before the end Sociologist Dr Khidr al-Khawad at the University of Nilein offers perhaps the starkest framing. Looking at the current indicators- mobilisation, arms, the prevailing narratives - he sees no signs pointing toward a halt or even toward negotiations.
“Without pessimism,” he said, “the indicators do not suggest the war is close to stopping”. More troubling is his assessment of what precedes any end.
“Any approach to the end of the war may be preceded by a major escalation, leading to further displacement and more killing and destruction.”
The social damage, he argues, is already severe and compounding - hate speech, ethnic divisions , exclusionary practices in areas under various forms of control, and the fragmentation of communities that social media is accelerating rather than healing.
The picture that emerges after four years is one of a war that has outpaced every mechanism designed to contain it.
International conferences have not translated into pressure, mediation processes lack the trust of both parties, and external actors with the most leverage have the least interest in a swift resolution. Inside Sudan, meanwhile, the political will for a settlement that both sides could accept remains absent.
What that means for Sudanese civilians, already living through what the United Nations has called one of the world's worst humanitarian catastrophes, is another year of the same, or worse.
The analysts who see an end approaching and those who see years of more conflict agree on one thing: before it is over, it will almost certainly get bloodier. Eisa Dafallah is a Sudanese journalist published in local and international outlets, whose coverage is mostly focused on Darfur This article is produced in collaboration with Egab Edited by Charlie Hoyle