Sudan’s uneven reconstruction risks becoming its next major conflict zone
By Suraiyya Aziz
Sudan’s war has not ended, yet the country is already rebuilding. Amid active frontlines, mass displacement, and a humanitarian collapse, reconstruction has begun – but not as a neutral exercise in recovery. In Sudan today, reconstruction is political. It is a contest for power, a reordering of space, and a preview of the conflicts to come. What the government builds, where it builds, and whom it chooses to include are not administrative decisions. They are acts of authority. And in a country fractured by decades of marginalization, these choices will shape the next chapter of Sudan’s instability.
Sudan’s rebuilding has taken on an uneven, fragmented character. The capital region, Greater Khartoum – particularly Khartoum proper – is recovering at a pace unmatched anywhere else in the country. Roads are being cleared, ministries restored, and security posts re-established. Yet Darfur, Kordofan, the east, and large swaths of the north remain locked in siege, famine, displacement, and disease. The contrast is stark: While some districts of Khartoum have revived markets and partially restored water supplies, communities in Al-Fasher, Zamzam camp, Tawila, and dozens of surrounding areas are trapped without functioning clinics, clean water, or protection from violence.
This unevenness is not incidental. It follows a long-standing pattern of centralization that has defined Sudanese governance since independence. The capital has always absorbed the lion’s share of infrastructure, investment, and political attention. The war has only amplified this disparity. As soon as the Sudanese Armed Forces retook Khartoum in early 2025, the government announced an aggressive reconstruction plan promising to rehabilitate the city in nine months. The symbolism of the capital rising again – the army’s seat of power, the state’s administrative core – became an urgent priority that the rest of Sudan simply does not enjoy.
Governors from devastated states still travel to Khartoum to declare loyalty to the capital’s revival, even as their own regions lack food, medicine, and security. A Higher Committee for Reconstruction, dominated by military figures, is focused almost entirely on the capital. This has created a lopsided system where Sudan’s physical recovery is reproducing the political inequalities that fueled decades of rebellion.
Perhaps nowhere is the divide more pronounced than in the energy sector. Even before the war, two-thirds of Sudan lacked electricity. Greater Khartoum consumed nearly half of the national supply. But war damage – which knocked out roughly 40 percent of the country’s generation capacity – has deepened the divide.
Reconstruction planners now prioritize the capital’s grid because it is the “easiest” to restore: It has higher demand, more intact substations, and stronger political backing. As a result, parts of Khartoum have regained modest but visible improvements in electricity access. In Omdurman, some neighborhoods have even organized fundraisers to install solar water pumps and power local clinics.
Beyond the capital, the picture is grim. Hybrid solar-diesel plants have stalled due to fuel shortages. Mini-grids in small towns are collapsing. Rural clinics rely on tiny solar kits that barely power a light. Without electricity, hospitals cannot refrigerate vaccines; irrigation pumps cannot run; food storage becomes impossible. The energy gap is widening – and with it, the developmental divide.
In effect, Sudan is creating islands of reconstruction surrounded by vast regions slipping further into deprivation. Those islands will attract investment, labor, and population flows, while the abandoned regions will face economic decline, depopulation, and rising tensions.
Infrastructure does not only shape economies; it shapes migrations. As reconstruction proceeds unevenly, Sudanese are beginning to move not according to ethnic lines or political loyalties, but according to where water flows, where clinics reopen, and where electricity returns.
A single functioning hospital can draw thousands of displaced families across provincial borders. A repaired road can redirect entire trade routes. Conversely, the absence of services pushes whole communities into displacement corridors, famine belts, or unsafe improvised settlements.
Already, Sudan sees a complex movement pattern: Some return to Khartoum to reclaim homes or jobs, only to flee again during renewed insecurity. Others send family members to Atbara, Port Sudan, or al-Jazira in search of schools or clinics. Future Sudanese mobility will follow the geography of reconstruction – and this will redefine political power in ways the government may not anticipate.
As certain corridors stabilize and others empty out, Sudan risks producing demographic imbalances that deepen existing tensions and create new ones.
Reconstruction is never just physical. It is also social. In Khartoum, recent policies point to a reconstruction agenda that privileges certain populations while marginalizing others.
The most alarming example is the removal of informal housing, which disproportionately affects displaced families, the urban poor, and migrant workers. Thousands have been evicted under the justification of “city planning” and “beautification,” even though they have nowhere else to go. The government’s deportation of refugees to other states – accompanied by xenophobic, anti-migrant rhetoric – further reveals a reconstruction vision that seeks to reshape who belongs in the capital and who does not.
If these exclusionary practices become national policy, they will ignite widespread anger. Reconstruction that restructures population distribution without public consent risks creating new lines of conflict, rooted not in ideology but in identity, access, and belonging.
In Darfur, Kordofan, and Blue Nile, solar projects and irrigation schemes that could transform local economies have already failed due to poor planning, lack of consultation, and shortage of spare parts. Implementing development without involving the people living there only duplicates the governance failures that fueled previous rebellions.
Sudan’s postwar order cannot survive if its reconstruction strategy centers on rebuilding the capital while leaving the periphery in ruins. A capital-first recovery, without parallel investment in war-torn regions, will only harden grievances that already run deep.
Sudan’s future hinges on how it rebuilds. A country where Khartoum enjoys restored grids, functioning hospitals, and investment opportunities while Darfur and Kordofan inherit mass graves, famine zones, and collapsed infrastructure will be a country primed for renewed conflict. Grievances over electricity, water, land, and public services could become the next drivers of violence – not abstract political ideologies, but concrete questions of survival and dignity.
Yet Sudan is not without hope. Community-led initiatives – neighborhood reconstruction drives, volunteer debris clearing, local repair markets, and grassroots solar projects – show that Sudanese society retains remarkable resilience and organizational capacity. But resilience is not a substitute for policy. Without a national plan that prioritizes equitable recovery, protects civilians, and redistributes services beyond the capital, these efforts will remain isolated successes in a sea of collapse.
Reconstruction is no longer Sudan’s postwar challenge; it is Sudan’s present battlefield. What the government builds – and what it neglects – will shape its political future. The choices made now will determine whether Sudan emerges from war as a unified state or fractures further into zones of prosperity and zones of abandonment.
Whether reconstruction becomes a bridge to a stable future or the trigger for the next conflict depends on one thing: whether Sudan’s recovery is built for all, or only for the few.
