Sudan: Sudan's Death Toll in 2025 Could Be As High As 100,000 - How We Did the Count

What the report says

A Conversation Africa analysis republished by AllAfrica says the number of people directly killed in Sudan’s war remains deeply contested, with estimates for 2025 ranging from roughly 19,000 to more than 70,000. The piece focuses on how conflict researchers try to count deaths in active war zones, where communications outages, blocked access and fragmented reporting make precise tallies difficult.

The article says fighting intensified in 2025 as the Rapid Support Forces advanced in Darfur and North Kordofan, while the war that began in April 2023 continued between the paramilitary group and Sudan’s army. It highlights El-Fasher as a major flashpoint after the RSF captured the city in October 2025 following an 18-month siege. The report notes that different monitoring groups use different methods, which helps explain why their totals diverge.

Using a model developed by conflict researcher Paola Vesco and colleagues, the article argues that a single figure can hide the uncertainty around casualty estimates. Their approach, based on expert input from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, suggests Sudan’s 2025 death toll was most likely around 80,000, with a 90% range of 73,000 to 90,000 and a small possibility it reached 100,000.

The analysis says the broader importance of these estimates is not only statistical but political and humanitarian. It places Sudan among the world’s worst displacement and aid crises, and says the uncertainty around deaths should be treated as a measurable scientific issue rather than a reason to dismiss reports of mass violence.