People ride with furniture and other items atop a truck moving along a road from Khartoum to Wad Madani at the locality of Kamlin, about 80 kilometres southeast of Khartoum. AFP
Fighting erupted in Sudan on April 15, 2023 between the army, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, headed by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
As the world marks the two-year anniversary of the devastating conflict, which has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 13 million, the UN's International Organization for Migration noted the need to prepare for many of the displaced to begin returning home to Khartoum.
The capital city became a battleground almost from the start, but since the army recaptured it last month, the agency said: "We are seeing people returning, we are seeing hope coming."
The organisation estimates "that over the next six months, we will have 2.1 million returning" to Khartoum, Mohamed Refaat, its chief of mission in Sudan, told reporters in Geneva, speaking from Port Sudan.
This calculation, he said, was "based on the numbers we understand that... left the capital when the war started".
The returns, he said, would depend on "the security situation and... the availability of services on the ground".
Since the war in Sudan began, Egypt has become the largest host of Sudanese refugees fleeing the conflict, the UN refugee agency said in November 2024.
'Regional impact'
Getting the city ready for a mass influx will be a challenge, Refaat acknowledged.
"We see that some spots in the Khartoum itself have been cleaned, but the process I'm sure will take longer," he said, adding that "the electricity system in the whole (of) Khartoum has been destroyed".
Some people who had sought refuge in Egypt were also beginning to return to Sudan, although most of those were not going to Khartoum, Refaat said.
"Over the last 12-13 days, we have seen almost 33,000 returning from Egypt to Sudan, and those mainly returning to Al Jazeera and to Sennar" in the east, he said.
Although people are returning, "the war is far from stopped," he added.
While many civilians in Khartoum celebrated what they called the "liberation" from the RSF, whose fighters were accused of widespread looting and sexual violence, the group has been seeking to cement its grip on the vast western region of Darfur.
It has launched a deadly assault on El-Fasher -- the last major city in the region outside its control.
More than 400 people were killed in the offensive which saw the paramilitaries overrun the nearby Zamzam displacement camp on Friday, the United Nations said, citing what it called credible sources.
Amid the chaos, a "startling" number of people from Darfur are now heading for Egypt, Refaat said.
"We see signs of regional impact of what's happening in El-Fasher, and it's not going to stop."
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