Country: Sudan Source: ACAPS Please refer to the attached file. OVERVIEWSince 15 April 2023, the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has left 30.4 million people – at least 51% (15.6 million) of whom are children – in need of assistance, including for food, nutrition, health, WASH, and protection (UNICEF 20/02/2025; OCHA 31/12/2024). Clashes between SAF, RSF, and allied militias have disrupted the provision of essential services, especially healthcare, and led to a widespread economic crisis, loss of livelihoods, supply chain disruptions, and cash shortages. By July 2025, the conflict had internally displaced 7.66 million people, adding to the 2.39 million people displaced internally prior to April 2023, leading to a total of 10.01 million IDPs (IOM 09/07/2025).Since January 2025, conflict dynamics have shifted, with armed clashes decreasing in some areas and increasing in others, such as North Darfur and Kordofan region (SCR 01/06/2025). As a result, around 645,000 previously conflict-displaced IDPs and refugees have returned to their areas of origin, especially to Al Jazirah, Khartoum, and Sennar, while areas of increased conflict, including Al Fasher, North Darfur, are seeing new displacement (IOM 20/05/2025 and 28/04/2025).In 2025, protection remains a critical concern across the country, with civilians continuing to experience a wide range of protection risks (committed by all parties to the conflict) that threaten their immediate and longer-term safety and wellbeing. Some protection risks, such as air strikes, are indiscriminate and threaten whole communities, while others are targeted, with specific groups or categories of people at heightened risk depending on their sex, age, disability status, ethnicity, or displacement status. In 2025, 11.3 million children are expected to need protection services (OCHA 31/12/2024).KEY FINDINGS• Ethnically motivated physical and sexual violence continues to pose a significant threat to civilians. While there are information gaps relating to which ethnic groups are specifically affected in 2025, since the start of the conflict, these have included, but are not limited to, the Dajo, Fur, Kanabi, Massalit, and Zaghawa.• SAF, RSF, and other armed groups have also targeted humanitarian responders and health personnel, who face the risk of death, detention, or abduction.• While protection violations are occurring nationwide, certain locations are associated with an increased likelihood of protection risks, specifically those experiencing active conflict or recent shifts in control, such as Al Jazirah, Blue Nile, the Darfur states, Khartoum, and Kordofan region.• IDPs are at heightened risk of protection threats, including attacks on civilians while fleeing conflict, explosive ordnance (EO), gender-based violence (GBV), the forced recruitment of adults and children, family separation while fleeing, and abduction.• Women and girls are at heightened risk of multiple protection threats, including conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), early and forced marriage, and intimate partner violence. They are also vulnerable to kidnapping and abduction and forced recruitment. CRSV continues to be used as a tactic of community/familial humiliation or retribution, with women and girls systematically targeted based on their perceived ethnic, tribal, or political affiliations. While boys have also been subjected to sexual violence, such cases are reported less frequently.• In 2025, boys and girls continue to be subjected to gross violations, including association with armed forces and groups, sexual violence, and abduction. Although monitoring and reporting challenges mean the scale of these violations remains unclear, findings from the UNSG’s annual reports on children and armed conflict for 2022, 2023, and 2024 and anecdotal evidence from child protection actors indicate a rising trend across all categories of grave violations against children countrywide.• Limitations on data collection and reporting have resulted in significant gaps in information about key protection risks and their scope and scale. This includes insufficient information about the prevalence of certain risks (such as mine accidents and the forced recruitment of adults and children) and insufficient information about targeted and higherrisk population groups, such as people with disabilities. The unprecedented stop-work orders issued to USAID implementing partners in January 2025 further reduced access and suspended or reduced data collection, limiting the amount of secondary data available on protection risks.