Close to 400,000 people from Sudan have returned to their homes in the last two and a half months after being forced away due to the ongoing conflict, according to a statement from the United Nations migration agency on Monday.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) reported that “approximately 396,738 individuals” have returned to areas reclaimed from paramilitary forces by the army, which has made progress through central Sudan in recent months.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been embroiled in a vicious conflict between army leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who heads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Most of the returnees have relocated to their residences in the central states of Sennar, which the army recaptured in December, and al-Jazira after it was regained in the following month. Additionally, thousands have returned to the capital, Khartoum, where the army recently reclaimed significant areas and seems close to removing the RSF.
Displaced families are returning en masse, even to homes that have been looted and burned, following more than a year of displacement. Nationwide, 11.5 million individuals are internally displaced, with many of them facing severe starvation amidst what the UN describes as the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
Since the outbreak of the war, another 3.5 million people have fled to neighbouring countries. Certain regions of the country have already experienced famine, with an additional 8 million people on the verge of extreme hunger.
On Monday, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN’s resident and humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, stated that only 6.3 per cent of the required funding for life-saving assistance had been received.
Nearly 25 million people across the nation are enduring severe food insecurity.
The conflict has split the nation in half, with the army controlling the northern and eastern regions while the RSF dominates almost all of Darfur and portions of the south.
