IOM Deputy Director General Sung Ah Lee said the returnees were mainly concentrated in the capital Khartoum and neighboring Al Jazeera state, where she was speaking to reporters.
“I was in Khartoum yesterday and I saw large numbers of people returning to areas where homes and critical infrastructure including water, health, electricity were heavily damaged,” she said.
running out of options
Ms Lee said that despite the harsh reality, going home reflected the determination of the displaced people and the difficult circumstances motivating them to return.
IOM indicates that more than two million additional people are expected to return to Khartoum alone in 2026.
“Many are returning because they believe security has improved,” he said, “while for others, life in displacement has become unbearable, especially due to economic pressures and increasingly difficult conditions in neighboring countries.”
According to IOM, at the peak of the conflict that erupted on 15 April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), approximately 12 million people fled heavily affected areas, particularly Al Jazira, Khartoum and parts of Sennar and Kordofan. More than 4.5 million people fled to neighboring countries, first of all Egypt, South Sudan and Chad.
Today, approximately nine million are internally displaced.
“Host communities in Eastern and Northern Sudan… Kassala, Gedaref, Red Sea, Northern and Nile States have borne much of this burden, welcoming displaced families even as they already face economic hardship and climate-related pressures,” Ms Lee stressed.
“It has stretched the available infrastructure almost to the limit.”
low chance of survival
While the increasing returnees in Khartoum have placed additional pressure on war-damaged urban infrastructure, in Al Jazeera, a key agricultural region, returnees are finding levels of destruction that could jeopardize their chances of growing anything to survive.
“Farmers are returning to farms where irrigation systems and equipment have been damaged, threatening livelihoods and food production at a critical moment for the country,” Ms Lee said.
While the humanitarian response is severely underfunded, “without immediate investment to restore essential services and rebuild infrastructure and revive livelihoods, safe and sustainable returns are at serious risk,” they concluded.
Hopes for a ceasefire were dashed
Despite repeated diplomatic efforts to achieve a ceasefire, the war between the SAF and the RSF has continued unabated since April 2023, becoming the world’s largest displacement and security crisis.
The conflict has been marked by severe violence against civilians and widespread human rights violations, including sexual violence, torture, arbitrary killings, extortion, and the targeting of specific ethnic groups.
The resulting humanitarian crisis has affected the country and the wider region.
And as the Sudan conflict enters its fourth year, the UN refugee agency, unhcr, caution Both the scale and complexity of the crisis are intensifying.
The Agency continues to see large-scale internal and cross-border displacement, as well as secondary or repeated movements driven by insecurity, but due to gaps in services in neighboring countries, clinics have closed, nutrition programs have been suspended, and protection services have been cut.
