As millions return to Sudan, UN calls for investment in essential services

Three years into the devastating conflict in Sudan, nearly four million displaced people have returned to their places of origin across the country, only to face “another struggle for survival,” the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday.

IOM Deputy Director General Sung Ah Lee said that returns were concentrated mainly in the capital Khartoum and neighbouring Al Jazirah state, where she was speaking to reporters.

“I was in Khartoum yesterday and I saw large numbers of people are returning to areas where homes and critical infrastructure including water, health, electricity, have been heavily damaged,” she said.

Going home despite the very “stark” reality encountered there reflects the determination of the displaced and the difficult circumstances pushing them to return, Lee explained.

The 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,” she said, while for others, life in displacement has become unbearable, notably due to economic pressures and increasingly hard conditions in neighbouring countries.

According to IOM, at the height of the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) which erupted on 15 April 2023, nearly 12 million people fled heavily affected areas, particularly Al Jazirah, Khartoum and parts of Sennar and Kordofan.

More than 4.5 million crossed into neighbouring countries, first and foremost Egypt, South Sudan and Chad.

Today, almost nine million remain internally displaced.

“Host communities across the eastern and northern Sudan…Kassala, Gedaref, Red Sea, Northern and River Nile states, have carried much of this burden, welcoming displaced families while already facing economic hardship and climate-related pressures,” Lee stressed.

“This has stretched the available infrastructure almost to the limit,” she added.

While in Khartoum rising returns have placed additional strain on war-damaged urban infrastructure, in Al Jazirah, a major agricultural region, returnees are finding levels of destruction that may jeopardise their chances of growing anything to survive.

“Farmers are returning to fields where irrigation systems and equipment have been damaged,” Lee said, “threatening livelihoods and food production at a critical moment for the country.”

While the humanitarian response remains severely underfunded, “without urgent investment to restore essential services and rebuild infrastructure and revive livelihoods, safe and sustainable returns are at serious risk,” she concluded.