Sudan's civil war reached its fourth anniversary on April 15 and Monday's ledger has not improved. [1] Nearly 34 million Sudanese — 65% of the population — need humanitarian assistance; more than 4.5 million have been displaced internally and across borders; the FAO estimates 21 million face acute food insecurity, including 6.3 million in emergency conditions. [2] The April 15 donor conference in London produced $1.5 billion in pledges against a UN appeal of more than $4 billion, and the gap is the policy.

The Sudanese Armed Forces under General Burhan retook Khartoum in March 2025 and continue to consolidate the capital and the eastern corridor. The Rapid Support Forces under Hemedti control most of Darfur and parts of Kordofan; the El Fasher operation produced the UN-confirmed 6,000-civilian killings the African Union has called the "hallmarks of genocide." [3] Al Jazeera reports thousands held by the RSF in El Fasher as of late April, with the paramilitary formalizing parallel administration structures across Darfur — taxation, courts, conscription. [1]

The war has reached the boundary at which "paramilitary" stops describing the RSF accurately. A force that taxes, conscripts, runs courts, and holds territory across a region the size of Spain is a state actor without the recognition. Sudan is producing two countries inside the same borders, and the international system that could refuse to ratify that outcome is busy elsewhere. The fourth-year anniversary is also a deadline; the fifth begins now.

-- LUCIA VEGA, São Paulo