Screenshot showing refugees, including Syrians in Sudan, from the video ‘Syrian refugees in Sudan are trying to flee war, again,’ uploaded to YouTube by Al Jazeera English. Fair use.

By Ray Bechara

Saleh Ismail al-Badran fled war at home only to find himself trapped in another. “Since the beginning of the clashes, the situation has become very dire in the [Sudanese] capital, Khartoum,” said al-Badran, a Syrian refugee, in April 2023. 

Sudan’s descent into civil war in April 2023 has upended the lives of tens of thousands of Syrians who had built homes, businesses, and families there after fleeing the violence in Syria.

In 2025, Syrian refugees in Sudan continue to face renewed displacement amid the country’s deteriorating conflict. According to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, more than 10.7 million people have been forcibly displaced across Sudan, the largest internal displacement crisis in the world, and the refugee population, including Syrians, remains largely underserved and at risk, with limited access to protection or basic services.

Background and context

Sudan emerged as an unexpected refuge for Syrians fleeing the civil war that began in 2011. In contrast to other surrounding nations that instituted visa limits, Sudan had an open-door policy, allowing Syrians to come without a visa and live there without recognized refugee status. This made Sudan one of the few accessible havens in the region.

By 2022, an estimated 30,000 Syrians were living in Sudan, most of them in Khartoum, Omdurman, and other urban centres.

Although not officially recognized as refugees by the UNHCR, they were granted de facto residence and allowed to assimilate into the local economy. 

For a time, Sudan offered what felt like stability. Syrians sent their children to local schools, ran family shops, and contributed to their host society, often relying on mutual aid and diaspora networks in the absence of formal support.

But this fragile normalcy was shattered when war broke out in April 2023. The cities that had once been places of refuge became battlegrounds. For many Syrian families, it felt like reliving a nightmare they thought they had escaped.

New displacement

In April 2023, when violence began between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Khartoum rapidly transformed into a battleground. 

Markets ceased operations. Food and medicine became scarce. Electricity and water services were cut off in many regions. 

Thousands were forced to evacuate once again, fleeing from Khartoum toward Port Sudan or toward border crossings into Egypt, Chad, and South Sudan. As of 2024, UNHCR estimates that over 265,000 non-Sudanese refugees have been internally displaced by the conflict. 

Many people were confronted with the same bureaucratic and financial obstacles they had experienced years before when fleeing for the first time. Some families were divided; others were marooned without passports or with expired documentation.  

The UNHCR reports that Sudan now has one of the most rapidly escalating displacement problems globally. Some Syrians in Sudan were outside the protection of the UNHCR during the 2023 war, not due to oversight, but because they were no longer technically classified as refugees. 

According to research by the Chr. Michelsen Institute, an estimated 10,000 Syrians had obtained Sudanese passports before the conflict, often as a way to secure legal status and access to services. However, this change in legal identity excluded them from international refugee protection mechanisms during the war. And thus, they have had difficulties in obtaining relief or legal assistance. 

The 2023 conflict in Sudan exposed the structural vulnerability of Syrian refugees living there, especially those who resided there without the protection of official refugee status.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM), in its December 2023 report on displaced people in Sudan’s northern corridor, recorded a pervasive deficiency in access to humanitarian aid for non-Sudanese citizens. It was proven that they encountered impeded access to basic services, restrictions on mobility owing to absent or expired paperwork, and secondary or tertiary displacement.

This gap in legal and humanitarian recognition left Syrians stuck in limbo: they could not return to Syria, could not cross borders legally, and were rarely prioritized in evacuations led by foreign governments. The burden of survival shifted to informal networks and personal luck.

Voices and testimonies

Despite limited media access and a collapsing humanitarian infrastructure, Syrian refugees in Sudan have found ways to make their voices heard and document the terrifying experience of being displaced twice, first from Syria and now from Sudan.

In the early months of the conflict in 2023, Syrians in Sudan shared harrowing accounts of displacement and insecurity, fearing not only the armed factions but also opportunistic gangs exploiting the chaos. “Many Syrian families were threatened, robbed, and sometimes killed during their displacement from Khartoum at the hands of gangs,” al-Badran recalled.

As of mid‑2025, ongoing reports by UNHCR confirm that registered refugees, including Syrians, remain displaced. While one might assume that the fall of the Syrian regime in 2024 would encourage Syrians to return home, rights groups continue to warn that conditions inside Syria remain unsafe for return. 

As a result, there is no evidence that Syrians in Sudan have begun returning to Syria, even amid escalating violence in Sudan itself. While some Syrians in countries like Lebanon and parts of Europe have returned, most do not because of unsafe conditions.

As humanitarian organizations face challenges from theft, fuel shortages, and administrative collapse, community networks have stepped in to provide support. Among the most influential are The Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs), which are decentralized volunteer centers established during Sudan’s 2019 revolution. Although mostly established by Sudanese resistance committees, these networks have provided assistance to all those in need, including non-Sudanese groups such as Syrians.

For Syrian refugees in Sudan, war is not a historical episode, but a persistent cycle. They escaped bombings in Syria, only to encounter them once again in Sudan. They reconstructed lives just to see their disintegration. Between 2023 and early 2025, most Syrians remained displaced. According to UNHCR, while some refugees managed to relocate to other areas within Sudan or to neighboring countries, thousands still live in precarious informal settlements or shared housing, often in conflict zones with limited services. They now await not just help but also acknowledgment of their existence.

While headlines focused on international evacuations, thousands of stateless, undocumented, or simply unrecognized refugees were left on the margins. Their stories rarely made it into policy briefings or donor meetings. In Sudan, among a disintegrating state and a lack of diplomatic efforts, Syrian refugees persist. Not because of international protection, but in defiance of its inadequacy.