1,000 days of war in Sudan: 30 million people in need as key cities bombed

A thousand days of war in Sudan has left millions deprived, displaced and longing for a political solution to the disastrous armed violence tearing the country apart.

Nearly 70% of Sudan's population is in need of assistance - with 30 million people relying on aid as large-scale humanitarian funding dwindles and volunteers carry the brunt of supporting their own devastated communities for a chance to survive the sprawling disaster. No one is left untouched by the violence as the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) continue to bombard key cities for territorial control, and nothing captures the brutality of this war like the takeover of North Darfur's capital Al Fashir by the RSF in late October.

Exclusive footage secretly filmed for Sky News in Al Fashir shows half-standing buildings pockmarked by bullets and blasted by bombs. The city's streets are empty and squares which once brimmed with market stalls are littered with twisted metal warped by munitions.

Civilians who returned to the city to retrieve their valuables and search for missing loved ones told us videos shared by the RSF and their partners showing cheering crowds of happy people are propaganda. Eyewitnesses describe a barren, abandoned city still haunted by the massacres carried out by the RSF as they took control.

Doctors, journalists and politicians are among the hundreds of civilians held for ransom by the RSF in the aftermath. One doctor using a pseudonym for her safety told us she was assaulted by their fighters and detained in a camp full of wounded, elderly and children, later forced to service the remaining hospital.

"I saw five corpses on the street in our neighbourhood," 28-year-old Dr Fatima* said. "At the hospital, there were people with maggots in their wounds from how infected they were.

There was no capacity to offer any healthcare and the videos of people being medically treated were just for show." Read more:Investigating Al Fashir's 'killing fields' in SudanSudan: UK sanctions four paramilitary commanders over 'mass killings' Many of the blast injuries came from the barrage of shells dropped on them by the RSF in the weeks before the capture. "There were C-5s, the three types of drones - strategic, suicide and bomb-carrying drones - R-23, tanks, Howitzers," says Dr Fatima, listing off the weaponry on her two hands.

Sudan has been flooded with foreign weapons over the 1,000 days of war. Videos shared by fighters online show the RSF using foreign equipment across the country - including sites of some of its more severe atrocities and key territorial gains.

A video from October 2025, shows an armoured vehicle during the RSF's capture of Al Fashir. The vehicle, identified by its distinctive polygon-shaped rear compartment and unique window configuration, appears to be a Panthera T2, produced by UAE-based company Minerva Special Purpose Vehicles (MSPV).

Footage shows the vehicle again in November, as RSF forces approached Babanusa, a key town in Sudan's West Kordofan. The same vehicle was seen being operated by the Libyan National Army, backed by the UAE, in Libya.

"The supply lines have been set up through networks and proxies that are supported by the United Arab Emirates and forces either in Libya or in Chad," says Emaddedin Badi, senior fellow at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC). "What we are seeing is essentially not one but two arms embargoes being contravened - obviously the Sudanese one but also it's been a long-standing reality that the Libyan arms embargo is recurrently contravened." The UAE categorically denies supporting either warring party and told Sky News weaponry like the AH-4 Howitzer seen in Sudan have been on the market for nearly a decade and that the assertion only one country has procured or transferred this system is invalid.

A statement said: "The UAE operates a comprehensive and robust export control regime in line with its applicable obligations under international law, including with respect to arms control." They did not respond to our request for comment on the use of Panthera T2s produced by UAE-based company Minerva Special Purpose Vehicles (MSPV). Our previous reporting supports allegations the Gulf state is militarily backing the RSF.

Additional videos analysed by Sky News' Data and Forensics team showing the use of heavy artillery by RSF fighters includes evidence of captured Chinese-produced AH-4 Howitzers. According to the SIPRI arms transfer database, these Howitzers were imported to the UAE from China in 2019.

The proliferation of foreign arms in Sudan is so advanced and diverse that weapons analysts suspect that weaponry is being battle-tested in the vast warscape. "By October 2024, open source analysis indicated that weapons manufactured in the same year had already entered the battlefield.

By early November 2025, weapons produced in 2025 were being deployed inside Sudan," says Faisal Al-Sheikh, an open-source investigator specialising in Sudan. "There is credible evidence that German-origin small arms (including G36, MP5, and G3 variants), German-manufactured components such as Webasto systems, and U.S.-origin rifles (including AR-10 and M110 SASS platforms) are present in Sudan's battlespace.

"These systems likely entered via retransfer or integration through third-party states; including Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, and the UAE, or through battlefield capture following the seizure of key strategic locations." Our visual analysis shows RSF fighters carrying a U.S-made semi-automatic M110 SASS rifle, manufactured by Knight's Armament Company (KAC), based in Florida. It was seen in videos of the RSF's capture of Babanusa in West Kordofan state and later during their capture of Heglig.

We have not identified widespread use of the M110 SASS among RSF forces, and this rifle was likely captured from Egyptian forces in 2023 but its presence shows the scale and spread of foreign weapons used in Sudan's deadly war. Among the civilians forced out of their homes and relegated to camps across the country are military soldiers also displaced by the war.

In one camp in North Darfur near the rebel-held town of Tawila, SAF soldiers who laid down their arms after the fall of Al Fashir are living among civilians with no support from the military. They describe a doomsday scenario as the city fell.

"There were no instructions from the top command. Everyone just scattered.

Everyone had to save themselves. We don't know where the area commander left from or where the national intelligence left from or where the military intelligence left from," says Ali Adam.

His eyes widen and tear as he describes the chaos that unfolded as the city collapsed. "It was every man for himself.".