Khartoum’s Return is becoming one of the most consequential measures of whether Sudan can move from war toward genuine peace. The return of displaced people to the capital carries hope, determination, and a desire to restore normal life. Yet it also exposes a troubling gap between physical return and sustainable reintegration. A person may come back to Khartoum, unlock the remains of a damaged home, reunite with relatives, or reopen a small business, while still lacking reliable electricity, clean water, medical care, affordable housing, school access, and protection from insecurity.

Around 2.1 million people have arrived in Khartoum State after being displaced inside Sudan or across borders. This movement forms a major part of the 4.7 million returnees cited in the wider return figures, placing Khartoum at the centre of Sudan’s recovery challenge. The scale is substantial, but it should not be used as a shortcut for declaring success. Return figures show that people are moving; they do not prove that people are safe, economically secure, or able to rebuild a dignified life.

The distinction is more important because Sudan’s war has forced nearly 13 million people from their homes. In this context, Khartoum’s Return is not simply a local story of residents coming back to a capital city. It is part of a national struggle over displacement, reconstruction, Human Rights, public authority, and the future legitimacy of the Sudanese State Policy response to war.

As UNHCR warned, returnees face

“a range of interconnected challenges that limit their ability to sustainably reintegrate.”

The language is significant because it rejects the idea that return alone constitutes a durable solution. Sustainable reintegration requires more than reduced fighting or a visible return of traffic and markets. It requires homes that are safe to occupy, schools that can teach, clinics that can treat patients, reliable water networks, functioning power systems, and institutions capable of protecting residents from renewed harm.

The real political question, therefore, is not how many people have returned to Khartoum. It is whether Sudan’s authorities and partners can create the conditions that allow them to remain. If returnees are forced into overcrowded housing, unaffordable rents, dark homes, damaged hospitals, or unsafe streets, the capital may experience a return that looks successful on paper but becomes another stage of displacement in reality.

A Capital Struggling to Provide Basic Services

The daily crisis in Khartoum is rooted in the failure of essential public services. Electricity, water, health care, transport, sanitation, schools, and livelihoods are interdependent. When power fails, refrigeration fails, small businesses stop working, water pumping becomes harder, hospitals face operational risks, and households spend more money on alternatives. When waste accumulates and drainage channels remain blocked during the rainy season, public-health risks increase. When families cannot afford water or rent, education and medical care are often the first needs to be sacrificed.

A resident described this contradiction clearly, saying that

“health and education services are beginning to recover, but repeated power cuts remain the largest obstacle to normal life.”

That observation is not only about inconvenience. It captures the difference between institutional reopening and practical functionality. A school may reopen without adequate teachers or affordable fees. A health facility may reopen without medicines, electricity, or laboratory capacity. A household may return without being able to store food, operate a fan during extreme heat, or keep a small business running.

The same resident described widespread unemployment, rising transport costs, fluctuating prices, limited movement after dark, waste accumulation, and blocked drainage infrastructure. These are all signs of a city where the cost of survival is increasing while the opportunities to earn an income remain narrow. Khartoum’s Return cannot be sustained if returnees must spend more to access basics at the same time that work opportunities remain scarce.

The power crisis has become especially destructive because it affects both households and the wider economy. Saadeldin, the Khartoum State government spokesperson, attributed outages to damage to electricity infrastructure, looting of copper wiring, fuel and equipment shortages, damage connected to the Merowe Dam, and delayed rains affecting other dams. These explanations reveal the depth of the repair challenge, but they also raise questions about planning. The public needs clarity on what infrastructure has been damaged, what work is under way, what funding exists, and when households and businesses can expect reliable supply.

Responsibility for the destruction is disputed. An RSF source rejected allegations that the group had targeted the electricity grid, calling the accusations “incorrect and army propaganda.” Such competing claims demonstrate why the protection of civilian infrastructure should be at the heart of any peace process. Civilians cannot wait for political narratives to be resolved while hospitals, workshops, schools, and homes endure blackouts. Whether power facilities were damaged through attacks, looting, neglect, or failures of protection, the State Policy response must be transparent, accountable, and centred on the needs of affected communities.

The effect on livelihoods is immediate. Mohammed, an Omdurman welder, said that repeated power cuts stopped furniture work and deprived him of income. The loss is not limited to one worker. Across Khartoum, artisans, traders, food sellers, repair workers, and service providers depend on electricity to earn money. When electricity arrives only briefly or late at night, work becomes unpredictable and recovery stalls. His sister, Awatef, also described how unreliable power interrupted laundry and made food storage difficult, pushing families to spend more on street food.

This is why electricity should be treated as a Human Rights and economic-recovery issue. A family deprived of dependable power may lose food, income, safety, and access to basic domestic life at the same time. It is impossible to separate energy policy from poverty, public health, dignity, and the right to an adequate standard of living.

Housing, Water and Health Define Dignity

Housing is another point where the language of return can conceal a deeper crisis. Many returnees have found homes damaged, looted, unsafe, or inaccessible because of mines and unexploded ordnance. Others have been forced to rent unfinished properties or stay with relatives in crowded arrangements. These conditions may permit people to come back to Khartoum, but they do not provide security, privacy, stability, or protection.

In Jebel Awlya, south of Khartoum, reported monthly rents range from SDG 300,000 to SDG 600,000. The upper figure is twice the lower end of the reported range. For families facing unemployment, high food prices, rising transport expenses, water costs, medical bills, and school-related charges, these rents can turn return into an unsustainable financial burden. The article does not provide average income or wage data, which makes a precise affordability calculation impossible. However, the testimony of residents strongly suggests that housing costs are outpacing the means of many households.

A returnee explained that

“rent levels are unsustainable,”

while host families are under growing pressure from overcrowding and the cost of accommodating relatives. This situation creates risks that go far beyond economics. Insecure housing, overcrowding, possible eviction, and dependence on relatives can increase the risk of gender-based violence, social tension, disputes, and renewed displacement.

Housing should therefore be understood as a protection issue rather than merely a construction issue. If families cannot afford a safe place to live, they may be forced into exploitative arrangements, unsafe buildings, or repeated movement between relatives. A serious State Policy on return must include clearance of explosive remnants, repair of damaged homes, temporary shelter, rent support where appropriate, legal protection against arbitrary eviction, and mechanisms to resolve property disputes fairly.

Water insecurity adds another layer to this crisis. UNHCR reported that

“families in some areas are buying water despite constrained incomes, while its quality is not monitored.”

This statement reveals two failures at once: inadequate access and uncertain safety. Families that must buy water are forced to divert scarce money away from food, rent, education, and medicines. If the water quality is not monitored, they also face preventable health risks.

The health-care system remains equally fragile. A resident reported that facilities had been extensively damaged, shortages of supplies and electricity had reduced the quality of care, and patients were travelling between hospitals to find treatment. Costly laboratory tests and shortages of lifesaving medicines further deepen the problem. For a family living with cancer, kidney disease, diabetes, hypertension, or another chronic condition, returning to Khartoum can become a dangerous decision rather than a hopeful one.

The Health Ministry is reported to be focusing on dialysis fluids and cancer treatments, but the wider treatment gap remains unresolved. This may reflect the necessity of emergency prioritisation, but it also shows that the health system is operating under severe constraints. A city cannot claim recovery while patients have to search from hospital to hospital, pay unaffordable costs for tests, or fear that basic medication may not be available.

A caregiver whose parents have diabetes and high blood pressure described return under existing medical conditions as “a dangerous gamble.” That phrase should guide policy thinking. The safety of return cannot be measured through the perspective of healthy adults alone. It must be judged by whether elderly people, people with disabilities, pregnant women, children, and people with chronic illnesses can live safely and obtain dependable care.

Education Cannot Be Treated as Optional

Education is another area where Khartoum’s Return exposes the limits of recovery. Government authorities told humanitarian monitors that more than 200 schools in Khartoum State remain closed. This is part of a wider national emergency in which nearly eight million children across Sudan have been pushed out of school by war and displacement. The closure of schools is not a temporary inconvenience; it threatens a generation’s learning, mental health, future income, and ability to participate in rebuilding the country.

A resident said that

“teacher wage problems have pushed schools to charge monthly fees or request parental contributions.”

In ordinary circumstances, this might be viewed as an administrative or labour dispute. In a city emerging from displacement and economic devastation, it becomes a barrier to a child’s right to education. Families already paying rent, transport, water, food, and health costs may be unable to absorb new school expenses.

Strikes, late enrolment, student displacement, and costly remedial lessons are reportedly worsening learning loss and increasing the risk of dropout. When parents must choose between food and education, they are not making a free choice. They are responding to a system that has shifted the cost of public failure onto households.

Algizouli, a school principal, said that student numbers remain below pre-war levels because many families are still displaced or abroad, while schools are trying to provide both educational and psychological support. The importance of psychological support should not be overlooked. Children affected by conflict may have experienced violence, separation, repeated displacement, loss of relatives, and prolonged disruption. Reopening a classroom cannot by itself repair that harm.

A teacher, Mohamed Elyas, said that schools and parents are attempting to compress years of lost learning into a short period despite financial and infrastructure constraints. That task cannot be solved through symbolic school reopening. It requires teacher salaries, accelerated learning programmes, learning materials, transportation support, psychosocial services, and a clear commitment that no child should be excluded because a family cannot afford informal fees.

Peace Must Be Visible in Everyday Life

Khartoum’s Return will remain fragile unless peace becomes visible in ordinary life. Residents need to be able to sleep safely, move without fear, access treatment, send their children to school, obtain safe water, afford a home, and earn an income. These are not luxuries that can wait until after political negotiations. They are the foundation of Human Rights and a meaningful peace.

The reported security picture remains deeply concerning. Residents describe theft, gunfire, drone activity, crime, mines, and unexploded ordnance, with some areas appearing relatively calmer during daylight but remaining unsafe at night. The reported killing of five civilians in an attack on a hospital in Jebel Awlya, alongside several reported drone attacks in April and May, shows how easily claims of normalisation can collapse when civilian protection remains inadequate.

Khartoum’s Return should not be judged by the number of people crossing back into the capital. It should be judged by whether those people can remain without facing another displacement caused by rent, hunger, illness, unsafe water, blackouts, school exclusion, or renewed violence. Sudanese families are demonstrating remarkable resilience by returning despite these conditions. That resilience should never be misused as an excuse for weak State Policy or delayed reconstruction.

A lasting peace will require transparent repair plans, protection of civilian infrastructure, mine clearance, housing support, restored health services, functioning schools, reliable power and water, and opportunities for people to rebuild livelihoods. Until these conditions exist, Khartoum’s Return will remain a powerful expression of hope—but also a warning that Sudan has not yet secured the peace its people deserve.