Estimates of the number of people directly killed in Sudan's civil war vary widely, with one conflict monitoring organisation reporting around 19,000 direct deaths from political violence in 2025. Other research teams put the toll at more than 70,000. A model developed by conflict researcher Paola Vesco and her team helps measure the uncertainty around such conflict death estimates. Their approach takes into account the tendency of conflict datasets to underestimate fatalities.
The number of people killed in Sudan's war since it began in April 2023 remains contested. Deaths in 2025 have been especially hard to establish as communications were cut and humanitarian access was blocked. In 2025, fighting intensified as the Rapid Support Forces advanced in Darfur and North Kordofan. Civilian deaths and displacement rose. A UN fact-finding mission concluded that the Rapid Support Forces' killings in El-Fasher bore the hallmarks of genocide.
The Rapid Support Forces' capture of El-Fasher in the Darfur region in October 2025 marked a significant territorial and strategic shift in the war. It consolidated the Rapid Support Forces' control over much of Darfur and strengthened their position in western Sudan. It was also one of the war's deadliest episodes. ACLED reported around 19,000 deaths, which it describes as a conservative minimum count of deaths directly caused by political violence in Sudan in 2025.
The Uppsala Conflict Data Program estimated that attacks against civilians killed at least 60,000 people, with more than 10,000 dying in fighting between the army and armed groups. Yale's Humanitarian Research Lab estimates that at least 60,000 people were killed during and after the paramilitary group's capture of El-Fasher between late October and the end of December 2025. These figures capture only direct deaths from violence in Sudan.
The true number of war deaths can never be known with certainty, but scholars understand reasonably well why estimates vary. Much of the difference across reports stems from how organisations select and handle sources. The Uppsala Conflict Data Program's estimate of 60,000 killed in El-Fasher draws directly on Yale's Humanitarian Research Lab. It is corroborated by independent reporting from Sudanese media, NGOs and UN agencies.
Vesco and her team built an uncertainty estimate by surveying Uppsala Conflict Data Program's expert coders to build a model converting any single number into a range of people that have plausibly died in a given war. Applying this model to Sudan in 2025, the peak of the curve indicates that the most likely death toll is close to 80,000 deaths. The team finds that the true number of people killed in 2025 is very likely to fall between 73,000 and 90,000.
The estimates suggest that the true number of people killed in 2025 could be as high as 100,000. Understanding how conflict death estimates vary across sources, and why, increases transparency. The evidence suggests that the El-Fasher massacre could have been prevented. Throughout the siege, NGOs and academic institutions repeatedly warned of the humanitarian crisis unfolding.
Key points
- The 2025 death toll in Sudan's civil war could reach 100,000.
- Estimates of Sudan's 2025 death toll vary widely, ranging from 19,000 to over 70,000.
- A model developed by conflict researchers provides a more realistic range of possible death tolls.
