The Sudanese Armed Forces looked almost unstoppable in March after retaking Khartoum from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), ending nearly two years of the paramilitary group's control of the sprawling capital.
The victory came after another significant battlefield success in late 2024, when the military drove the RSF out of the agriculturally rich Al Jazira region, south of the capital.
Many observers anticipated that the army's next move would be to march west to Darfur, where at the time the RSF held sway over the vast region, except for the city of El Fasher.
Instead, army-allied militias advanced on Darfur from neighbouring Kordofan but were repelled by the RSF and sustained heavy losses. The army later suffered battlefield losses in Darfur and Kordofan that have, in many ways, altered the course of the war, which has raged since April 2023.
The changes in Sudan's front lines in 2025 were, in most cases, accompanied by harrowing violence against civilians, with accusations levelled at the army and the RSF.
A displaced Sudanese girl in Geda
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