KHARTOUM: More than three million Sudanese people displaced by nearly three years of war have returned home, the United Nations migration agency said on Monday, even as heavy fighting continues to tear through parts of the country.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been locked in a devastating war pitting the regular army against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and created what the UN describes as the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis. At its peak, the war had displaced around 14 million people both internally and across borders.
In a report released on Monday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said an estimated 3.3 million displaced Sudanese had made their way back home by November of last year.
The rise in returns follows a sweeping offensive launched by the Sudanese army in late 2024 to retake central regions seized earlier in the conflict by the RSF.
The campaign culminated in the recapture of Khartoum in March 2025, prompting many displaced families to try to go back.
According to the IOM, more than three-quarters of those returning came from internal displacement sites, while 17 percent traveled back from abroad.
Khartoum saw the largest number of returns — around 1.4 million people — followed by the central state of Al-Jazira, where roughly 1.1 million have gone back.
Earlier this month, the army-backed government announced plans to return to the capital after nearly three years of operating from the Red Sea city of Port Sudan in the country’s east.
Reconstruction work in Khartoum has been underway since the army retook the city.
Although Khartoum and several army-held cities in central and eastern Sudan have seen a relative lull in fighting, the RSF has continued to launch occasional drone strikes, particularly targeting infrastructure.
Elsewhere, violence remains intense.
In the country’s south, RSF forces have pushed deeper into the Kordofan region after seizing the army’s final stronghold in Darfur last October.
Reports of mass killings, rape, abductions and looting emerged after El-Fasher’s paramilitary takeover, and the International Criminal Court launched a formal investigation into “war crimes” by both sides.