Returnees find chronic need for investment with homes, water supplies, health provision, electricity ‘heavily damaged’.

Nearly 4 million people have voluntarily returned to their places of origin in Sudan in the hope of rebuilding their lives, according to the United Nations, but still face a new “struggle for survival”.

Although the war in Sudan grinds on, 3.99 million returnees have been counted, mainly concentrated in Khartoum and the agricultural state of Al-Jazirah, southeast of the capital, the UN’s International Organisation for Migration said on Tuesday.

However, the agency warned that these people are returning to find destroyed communities and an urgent need for investment to rebuild basic infrastructure.

“Many are returning because they believe security has improved,” said the IOM’s Sung Ah Lee. “Others are returning because life in displacement has become unbearable.”

However, she warned, their return would prove unsustainable without “urgent investment to restore essential services and rebuild infrastructure and revive livelihoods”.

The conflict between the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions since it erupted in April 2023.

The war internally displaced nearly 12 million people as they fled areas like Gezira, Khartoum, and parts of Sennar and Kordofan, according to the IOM. More than four million fled to neighbouring countries.

Farmers are now returning to their fields to find that irrigation systems and equipment have been destroyed. Such conditions leave food production at breaking point against a wider backdrop of food insecurity, Lee said.

Millions of people in Sudan are surviving on just one meal a day, according to NGOs, who warn that three years of conflict marked by violence, displacement and siege tactics have “systematically eroded Sudan’s food system”.

Lee said IOM had been able to reach four million people in Sudan with humanitarian aid since 2023, but that “the scale of needs remains immense”, with nearly nine million people still internally displaced.

IOM is seeking $170m for its 2026 Sudan crisis response plan, but the agency said that plan remained “underfunded” by $97.2m.