Fighting between Sudanese forces and rebel groups continued in Sudan's wartorn peripheries and was marked by serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.

In Darfur, authorities failed to protect people from intensified inter-communal clashes, particularly between Arab pastoral groups. Sudanese forces also attacked communities presumed to support rebel groups. In Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile, Sudan's indiscriminate bombing and ongoing clashes with rebels, and the obstruction of humanitarian assistance to rebel-held areas since the outbreak of conflict in June 2011, have displaced tens of thousands within those states and elsewhere in Sudan and forced more than 225,000 to flee to refugee camps in South Sudan and Ethiopia.

Sudanese security forces continued to arrest and detain activists, opposition party members, and people suspected of links to rebel groups. Authorities also censored the media and restricted space for civil society, stepping up at the end of 2012 the harassment of groups that receive foreign funding.

In September, protests, some of them violent, swept the country in response to hikes in the price of fuel and other basic commodities. Sudanese forces responded to the protests with live ammunition, and are implicated in the killing of more than 175 protesters. Security officials detained hundreds of protesters and opposition members and activists, many for weeks without charge, and stifled media coverage of the protests.

Conflict and Abuses in Darfur

More than 500,000 people were displaced by conflict in 2013, a number far exceeding previous years. The vast majority of Darfur's displaced population, estimated around 2.5 million people, remain in camps in Darfur and Chad.

Communal violence, especially between Arab pastoralist groups, significantly increased in 2013. Sudanese government forces were unwilling or unable to protect civilians and in some cases participated in the fighting. In April, Ali Kosheib, a known militia leader who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged crimes in Darfur, participated in large-scale attacks on ethnic Salamat villages in Central Darfur, before being seriously wounded in May.

Government forces and allied militia carried out large-scale attacks, including aerial bombing, on locations believed by the government to be controlled by rebel groups. In February, government forces attacked Golo and Guldo in eastern Jebel Mara, killing an unknown number of civilians and forcing tens of thousands to flee to safer areas.