Rising Tigers

Sudan

Free ways to help, and the context behind them.

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Lit places are where the groups, artists, and makers below work or come from. Tap one to jump to them.

Where things stand. The war between the army (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) began on 15 April 2023. The army retook Khartoum in 2025; the RSF took El Fasher in October 2025. Drones now harm civilians on both sides: in August 2026 the RSF struck Khartoum, El Obeid, and other army-held cities, and on 3 September UN investigators said foreign recruitment and weapons transfers are fuelling the war and found reasonable grounds to believe army drones have harmed civilians too. The UN estimated 13.6 million people uprooted in January 2026. Checked 21 September 2026. Every link goes to its own source. Download as PDF

Displaced13,600,000

Each box is 100,000 people, from our article.

Listen

Start with the music.

Streams and album sales pay artists directly. These are starting points, not a canon.

  • Alsarah & the Nubatones

    Sudanese-American singer and ethnomusicologist Alsarah. Her COLORS SUDAN playlist spans classic and modern Sudan.

  • Sinkane

    Ahmed Gallab, born in London to Sudanese parents. NPR talks with him about his album We Belong.

  • Mohammed Wardi

    The “golden throat” (1932–2012). Sang in Arabic and Nubian; spent 13 years in exile.

  • Two Niles to Sing a Melody

    Ostinato Records’ compilation of Sudanese cassette-era classics. Buy it on Bandcamp.

  • The new school of Sudanese music

    Alsarah, Oddisee, Sinkane, and Mo Kheir on home and identity.

Look

Look at the art.

Painters who carry the place with them, most now working in exile.

  • Ibrahim El-Salahi

    Born 1930 in Omdurman; a pioneer of the Khartoum School. Tate Modern gave him a retrospective in 2013.

  • Salah Elmur

    Born in Khartoum in 1966, lives in Cairo. Paintings of daily life along the Blue Nile.

  • Rashid Diab

    Painter and art theorist; author of Visual Art in Sudan (2025).

  • Disturbance in the Nile

    Works by eleven Sudanese artists, taken out of Sudan days before the war and shown in Madrid.

  • Assil Diab

    Painted portraits of protesters killed in 2019 on the walls of their families’ homes.

Read

Good news, and reporting you can check.

Stories of people building something, then outlets that show their sources.

Good news

Reporting

Follow

People and pages, close to the ground.

Follow widely and check claims against a second source. Local groups organize mostly on Facebook and WhatsApp; the sites below lead to their pages.

People and pages

Local groups

Give

Give where it lands.

We list organizations, not individual crowdfunding pages, which are the hardest to check. Rising Tigers doesn’t handle your money.

Watchdog lists: Charity Navigator’s Sudan page and CharityWatch. Check any charity before you give: Charity Navigator, CharityWatch, and Candid. Be wary of anyone who asks for gift cards, crypto, or a wire transfer.

Buy

Buy from the people who make it.

Buying supports makers. To fund relief, use Give.

  • Eilaf

    Sudanese-founded bag label working with artisans in Sudan, Chad, Uganda, and Rwanda.

  • El Tayeb Nation

    A Brussels-based couture house by Franco-Sudanese designer Abdelgader El Tayeb, built on Sudanese craft and embroidery.

  • Nine Sudanese-owned businesses

    Jewelry, streetwear, skincare, and more, from a MuslimGirl roundup.

Understand

A short history, with the disputes marked.

Dates and figures come from the sources linked; where sources disagree, the box says so.

1956
Independence from Britain and Egypt. Civil wars follow (1955–72, 1983–2005); South Sudan becomes independent in 2011.
1989
Omar al-Bashir takes power in a coup.
2003
Fighting in Darfur; government-backed Janjaweed militias, which later become the RSF. In October 2025 the ICC convicted a former Janjaweed leader of war crimes and crimes against humanity (HRW).
2018–2021
A popular uprising ousts Bashir in 2019 and a power-sharing deal follows. A military takeover ends it in October 2021.
April 2023
The army under Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the RSF under Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti) begin fighting in Khartoum.
2025
The army retakes Khartoum. In January the US State Department determines the RSF committed genocide. By the end of October El Fasher falls to the RSF, with reports of killings of people fleeing (HRW).
2026
UN investigators say the RSF’s conduct in El Fasher shows hallmarks of genocide (February). Drones now harm civilians on both sides: the RSF struck Khartoum, El Obeid, and other cities in August, and the UN found reasonable grounds to believe army drones have harmed civilians too (September). The Security Council weighs renewing sanctions in September.

Do

Two minutes, no money.

Small, free, specific.