As Sudan enters the final weeks of 2024, the country remains trapped in a cycle of conflict, humanitarian crisis and political uncertainty, with the civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces continuing to devastate the country.

The war, which erupted in April 2023, has displaced millions of people, killed hundreds of thousands and left countless others suffering from hunger and in need of urgent assistance.

The country had been embroiled in political turmoil since the ouster of longtime leader Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. The civilian-military transitional government that replaced Bashir’s rule collapsed after army commander Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his then-ally Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (known as Hemedti), who heads the RSF, staged a military coup against their civilian partners in October 2021.

After rival forces reached an agreement in December 2022 to pave the way for a democratic transition in Sudan, a dispute emerged between Burhan and Dagalo over the integration of the RSF into the army and over who would assume leadership of the military, culminating in the deadly clashes.