Sudan: Returnees Face Severe Challenges in Khartoum As Sudan's Capital Struggles to Recover From War

What the report says

Khartoum is facing a difficult and uneven recovery as displaced residents and former refugees return to Sudan’s capital after more than three years of war, according to Dabanga, citing eyewitness accounts and a recent UNHCR update. The report says returnees are arriving in a city where basic services, housing and livelihoods remain badly strained, even as some health and education services begin to come back online.

UNHCR estimates that about 2.1 million people have arrived in Khartoum state after displacement, out of 4.7 million people who have returned home overall. The agency says returnees confront overlapping problems, including damaged homes, power and water shortages, insecure neighborhoods, and limited access to schools, healthcare and work. Residents interviewed by Radio Dabanga described frequent electricity cuts, rising transport and food costs, unemployment, and difficulties linked to the rainy season, including blocked drainage and accumulating waste.

The article says education has been disrupted by unpaid teachers, school fees, strikes and the movement of families between states, while health services are constrained by destroyed facilities, medicine shortages and unreliable power. Some returnees are renting costly temporary housing because their homes were looted or are unsafe to enter due to mines or unexploded ordnance. The UNHCR also warned that reduced water access, night-time insecurity and drone attacks in some areas are adding pressure on households and increasing the risk of further displacement.