Desperate Sudanese civilians who fled the catastrophic conflict in Khartoum are trickling back into the war-ravaged capital, confronting hollowed-out neighbourhoods, severed utilities, and the ever-present threat of renewed urban violence.
The return of these displaced families comes more than a year after intense fighting erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), turning what was once a bustling commercial hub into an apocalyptic battleground. While frontlines have shifted towards the south and west of the country, Khartoum remains heavily militarised, scarred by relentless artillery shelling and air strikes.
Skeletons of a shattered metropolis
For many who fled to overcrowded camps or expensive rental accommodation in safer provinces such as Gedaref and River Nile, returning was less a choice than a financial necessity. Exhausted savings and diminishing aid have driven families back to suburbs where multi-storey buildings lie in ruins, roads are choked with debris, and the stench of decay still lingers.
Al Jazeera reported that returnees are finding their homes ransacked, with residential districts stripped bare by looters during the height of the clashes. Basic municipal infrastructure has almost entirely collapsed. Entire suburbs remain without municipal running water or electricity, forcing residents to navigate unexploded ordnance merely to forage for basic provisions.
Astronomical living costs stalk the ruins
Surviving in the capital now demands navigating a predatory wartime economy. With the banking sector largely paralysed and commercial supply chains severed, the price of staple foods has spiralled far beyond the reach of ordinary households.
According to Al Jazeera, water must often be purchased from private donkey carts or mobile tankers at extortionate rates, costing households dozens of Australian dollars a week—an astronomical sum in a country where civil servant salaries have gone unpaid for months. Fuel shortages have driven transport fares to historic highs, leaving those without private vehicles effectively marooned within their local districts.
Healthcare collapsed amid disease outbreaks
The plight of those returning is further compounded by a decimated public health system. Local medical organisations estimate that up to eighty per cent of Khartoum’s hospitals and clinics are non-operational, having been shelled, occupied by combatants, or stripped of essential drugs and generators.
Aid workers warn that the absence of functional sewage systems and the contamination of the Nile water supply have created fertile ground for epidemics, including cholera and dengue fever. With local pharmacies shuttered and humanitarian convoys routinely blocked by bureaucratic hurdles and military checkpoints, even routine infections risk becoming fatal.
No guarantees of safety on shifting frontlines
Perhaps the most acute danger facing returnees is the sheer volatility of the military situation. Control over Khartoum and its twin cities of Omdurman and Bahri remains fractured, with SAF and RSF forces contesting key bridges, military bases, and transport corridors.
Civilians re-entering these contested zones face arbitrary arrest, extortion at paramilitary checkpoints, and the constant peril of falling victim to stray artillery rounds. For the thousands who have chosen the perils of their ruined city over the indignity of exile, peace remains a distant prospect, overshadowed by the grim reality of daily survival.