2.2. Conscripts, draft evaders, forced recruitment to armed groups

2.2.1. Conscription, mobilisation and forced recruitment by the Sudanese Armed Forces

In Sudan, military service is governed by the 1992 National Service Law287 and the 2007 Sudanese Armed Forces Act288 amended in 2013.289 A COI report by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands published in December 2025 noted, based on consulted confidential sources, that while the 1992 National Service Law remained in force, it was not ‘actively applied and enforced by the TSC and the SAF’.290

Article 7 of the 1992 National Service Law states that ‘every Sudanese citizen aged from eighteen years to thirty-three years of age is subject to national service’.291 Article 9.1 of the 1992 National Service Law states that ‘the duration of service is 24 months’,292 that can be reduced to 12 months for university graduates, high institutes or equivalent, and to 18 months for those having completed secondary high school.293

One source stated that the 2013 amendment to the Sudanese Armed Forces Act of 2007 raised the maximum age for military service from 33 to 45.294 However, an army source interviewed by Dabanga in February 2025 stated that ‘the average age of soldiers in the army is over 35 years, which is a non-combat age’.295 Further and corroborating information on this raise of age limit could not be found amongst the sources consulted.

In June 2023, Al-Burhan called for a general mobilisation of ‘all youth and all those capable to defend’296 to join the SAF.297 In November 2025, after the fall of El Fasher, Al-Burhan and the Sudanese Security and Defence Council reiterated a declaration of general mobilisation.298

Recruits under these general mobilisations are called Mustanfareen (the mobilised).299 The SAF oversee initial mobilisation and training.300 Civilians have been mobilised under different structures, including directly enlisting in the SAF,301 joining neighbourhood defence units,302 and local resistance structures.303 Mobilisation committees were organised at local, state and federal levels.304 Mustanfareen have joined the Popular Resistance or Popular Mobilisation, a coalition of armed factions allied to the SAF, and have received direct support, including weapon supply, and training from the SAF.305 The Mustanfareen were described as ‘often young and unaccustomed to handling arms’.306 As reported by Dabanga based on a survey conducted among soldiers in Gedaref, more than 85 % of the soldiers ‘had no more than primary education and most of them said that they had enlisted in the army because they had no job options, and most of them were from poor or very poor classes’.307 One SAF soldier interviewed by Dabanga stated having undergone a three months training before being deployed, without having received teaching materials related to human rights concepts.308 As noted by Al Jazeera in 2023, another mobilised young man reported having received 10 weeks of training by the SAF.309

Volunteers were either armed to join military operations or tasked with reconstruction and service provision in territories regained by the SAF.310

Mobilisation was also conducted along tribal lines, such as the arming of the members of the Al-Shukryia tribe in Al Jazirah state in December 2024, 311 an Arab group in eastern Sudan.312 Islamist organisations reportedly have a level of influence on the popular mobilisation, such as recruiting as well as conducting training for mobilised civilians, and links to the army.313 For further information see section 1.2. Actors of the conflict of the EUAA Sudan: Security Situation report (February 2025).

For information on child soldiers, see section 2.7.2. Child soldiers.

A COI report published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands in December 2025 noted from a confidential source that in some instances members of the SAF had used fear or explicit coercion to recruit civilians.314 An article from The National reported in November 2025 on a recruitment campaign ‘that preys on the poor, fuelled by hate speech and accusation of treason against any man who refuses to join the army’s fight’.315

  • 287

    ICRC, IHL Databases, Sudan, The National Service Act 1992, 1992, url; IRB, Sudan: Information on military service, including for the purpose of attending university; information on punishment for refusing or evading military service, including upon return to Sudan after an extended absence, such as since 2002 (2014-September 2016) [SDN105640.E], 5 October 2016, url

  • 288

    ICRC, IHL Databases, Sudan Armed Forces Act, 2007, 5 December 2007, url; Refworld, Sudan: Armed Forces Act 2007, 5 December 2007, url

  • 289

    WRI, Country report and updates: Sudan, 21 April 2015, url, section 1 Conscription, military service.

  • 290

    The Netherlands, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, General Country of Origin Information Report on Sudan (December 2025), 1 December 2025, url

  • 291

    ICRC, IHL Databases, Sudan, The National Service Act 1992, 1992, url, art. 7

  • 292

    ICRC, IHL Databases, Sudan, The National Service Act 1992, 1992, url, art. 9.1

  • 293

    ICRC, IHL Databases, Sudan, The National Service Act 1992, 1992, url, art. 9.2

  • 294

    WRI, Country report and updates: Sudan, 21 April 2015, url

  • 295

    Dabanga, Arming civilians in Sudan: chaos of war fuels spread of weapons and deepens divisions, 12 February 2025, url

  • 296

    SudaNile,  البرهان يعلن التعبئة العامة لكل من يستطيع حمل السلاح الانضمام للقوات المسلحة .. اعلان وقف إطلاق النار من جانب واحد [Al-Burhan announces a general mobilisation of all those capable of bearing arms to join the armed forces…a unilateral ceasefire declaration], Text of the 27 June 2023 speech of Al Burhan, 27 June 2023, url

  • 297

    Dabanga, El Burhan calls for Sudan’s ‘young and capable’ civilians to fight against RSF, 29 June 2023, url; UN SC, Situation in the Sudan and the activities of the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in the Sudan, 31 August 2023, url para. 5; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Sudan: armed popular resistance and widening civil unrest, 15 February 2024, url

  • 298

    The National, ‘No peace, no talks’: Abdel Fattah Al Burhan urges all Sudanese to take up arms, 15 November 2025, url; Nina

  • 299

    UN HRC, Report of the independent international fact-finding mission for the Sudan, A/HRC/57/23, 7 November 2024, url para.25; ECFR, Split decision: Why Sudan is on the bring of partition-again, 27 February 2025, url

  • 300

    Radio Tamazuj, Q&A: Popular Resistance group seeks unity of resistance in Sudan, 18 April 2024, url

  • 301

    UN HRC, Report of the independent international fact-finding mission for the Sudan, A/HRC/57/23, 7 November 2024, url para. 25

  • 302

    ADF, Rise of armed groups complicates Sudan’s brutal civil war, 10 June 2025, url

  • 303

    Radio Tamazuj, North Darfur governor launches popular resistance in El Fasher, 19 February 2024, url; Sudan Scoop, Sudanese Popular Resistance Expands, 1 January 2024, url

  • 304

    YeniSafak, Sudan expands volunteer mobilization against paramilitary RSF forces, 7 November 2025, url

  • 305

    Radio Tamazuj, Q&A: Popular Resistance group seeks unity of resistance in Sudan, 18 April 2024, url

  • 306

    Sudan Justice Hub and Ayin Network, Sudan’s mass arming of civilians, 24 February 2024, url

  • 307

    Dabanga, Arming civilians in Sudan: chaos of war fuels spread of weapons and deepens divisions, 12 February 2025, url

  • 308

    Dabanga, Arming civilians in Sudan: chaos of war fuels spread of weapons and deepens divisions, 12 February 2025, url

  • 309

    Al Jazeera, Sudan’s civilians pick up arms, as RSF gains and army stumbles, 24 December 2023, url

  • 310

    YeniSafak, Sudan expands volunteer mobilization against paramilitary RSF forces, 7 November 2025, url; AA, Sudanese government committee announces continued training, volunteer deployment to fronts against RSF, 7 November 2025, url

  • 311

    Emirates Policy Center, ‘Tribalization’ of Sudan’s conflict: incentives, restraints and potential trajectories, 22 November 2024, url; Atar Network, Militarising tribes: inside Sudan’s system of war mobilization, 6 October 2025, url

  • 312

    Joshua Project, Shukria in Sudan, n.d., url

  • 313

    Reuters, Insight: Sudan’s Islamists plot post-war comeback by supporting army, 25 July 2025, url; Eureporter, Khartoum: a ruined capital controlled by Sudan’s Islamists, 4 September 2025, url; ACLED, Two years of war in Sudan: how the SAF is gaining the upper hand, 15 April 2025, url under paragraph on Al-Baraa Ibn Malik Brigade

  • 314

    Netherlands (The), General Country of Origin Information report on Sudan, 1 December 2025, url, pp. 87-88

  • 315

    The National, Sudan army steps up recruitment drive but more battlefields setbacks may be in store, 14 November 2025, url