According to The Economist, the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces have fought for control of Khartoum since 2023. The RSF held most of the capital for nearly two years before being pushed out in March 2026. The city's industrial base, government infrastructure, and commercial networks have been systematically destroyed. Millions have fled, leaving behind a capital that exists in name only.
Khartoum housed Sudan's government, courts, banks, and transport hubs. Urban destruction on this scale amounts to the erasure of a state's operating system. Each month the city remains depopulated and non-functional, the harder it becomes for Sudan to rebuild. Economic collapse compounds the humanitarian crisis: no jobs, no services, no reason for people to return.
The real test begins now. Military victory over a city is straightforward; restoring water, power, courts, and public trust for millions is the long war. Whether the armed forces can transition from battlefield control to actual governance will determine whether Khartoum becomes a functioning capital again or remains a monument to state failure.
Sudan keeps getting framed as a forgotten conflict, but that phrase lets everyone off the hook. This war is being remembered in the worst possible way: in smashed factories, emptied neighborhoods, and a capital so wrecked that even a battlefield win by the army looks like control over a carcass, not a recovery plan for millions.
Filed to the World desk · 5 days ago