Symbolic Return, Limited Control

Sudan’s decision to move its seat of government back to Khartoum marks a major political signal amidst the chaos that engulfed the once strong East African country. Sudanese Prime Minister Kamil Idris said on Sunday that the army-aligned government had ended nearly three years of operating from Port Sudan, its wartime capital, following the military’s gradual recapture of the capital. The move underscores confidence in relative security gains since March 2025, when the Sudanese army pushed the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) out of most of the city, despite greater challenges ahead in reconstruction and governance.

“Today, we return, and the Government of Hope returns to the national capital,” Idris told reporters in Khartoum, promising “better services” for residents. The government fled the capital in April 2023, in the opening days of the war with the RSF, after Khartoum was rapidly overrun. Since then, Port Sudan on the Red Sea has served as the administrative center for an embattled state struggling to project authority beyond military lines.

War Damage and Service Collapse

For close to two years, Khartoum, comprising Khartoum city, Omdurman, and Khartoum North (Bahri), functioned as an active battlefield. Artillery exchanges crossed the Nile River, neighborhoods were besieged, and civilian life collapsed. The war is estimated to have killed tens of thousands of people in the capital alone, though no comprehensive toll exists, as many families buried their dead in makeshift graves scattered across residential districts.

Between March and October, 1.2 million people returned to Khartoum, according to the United Nations, often to find homes destroyed and basic services barely functioning. Entire neighborhoods remain scarred by improvised cemeteries, which authorities are now exhuming as part of urban rehabilitation efforts. Prime Minister Idris said the government was committed to restoring electricity, water, healthcare, and education, sectors hollowed out by prolonged fighting and looting.

The UN estimates that rehabilitating Khartoum’s essential infrastructure will cost about $350 million, a figure that excludes wider economic recovery and social services across the metropolitan area. In recent months, the government has held cabinet meetings in the capital and launched early reconstruction projects, signaling a phased re-entry rather than a full normalization.

Fragile Calm, Wider War

Security conditions in Khartoum remain uneven. While the city has seen relative calm since the army’s advance, the RSF has continued drone strikes, particularly targeting infrastructure, underscoring persistent capability gaps and the limits of state control.

Battles continue elsewhere in Sudan. South of Khartoum, RSF units have advanced through the Kordofan region after dislodging the army from its last stronghold in Darfur last year.

The broader conflict has displaced an estimated 11 million people inside Sudan and across its borders, creating what international agencies describe as the world’s largest displacement and hunger crises.