Civil War in Sudan

As war in the Middle East freezes critical shipping lanes, humanitarian groups in Sudan say securing access to half a billion dollars’ worth of medical supplies stranded in Dubai—including pediatric medicine, antimalarials, and antibiotics—is essential to preventing outages across Sudan within the next two weeks (Reuters).

Rebel militants launched a series of attacks on towns peripheral to El-Obeid, Kordofan state’s regional capital, in the latest escalation intended to secure Sudan’s critical central corridor—an area where cities and villages have continued to rapidly change hands between the SAF and RSF in recent months (AFP).

In what observers described as an attempt to distance Khartoum from anti-American sentiment among its ranks, Sudan’s armed forces arrested an SAF-allied paramilitary commander and religious teacher who previously vowed support for Iran and Hamas (Sudan Tribune).

Doctors Without Borders accused Sudan’s army of a drone strike on a market near the country’s border with Chad in the besieged Darfur region, where four died, and dozens more were injured as the SAF targeted fuel reserves in the market (AP).

Local officials and humanitarian observers blamed the RSF for a drone strike south of Khartoum that targeted a secondary school and a hospital, killing seventeen civilians—most of them students (AP).

The U.S. State Department announced that it will designate the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization, a label that will make it illegal to provide the group with material support (Al Jazeera).

Researchers at the Yale Humanitarian Lab said satellite imagery suggests RSF militants have engaged in a sustained, strategic campaign to stunt agricultural production in North Darfur (Guardian).

After drone strikes on crowded markets in Sudan’s central Kordofan corridor killed dozens of civilians, locals said the SAF bore responsibility for the attacks—an accusation the Sudanese government has vehemently denied (France24).

As fighting has continued to rage around Khartoum, cultural heritage experts have said thousands of ancient relics have been destroyed and looted—an incalculable loss to Sudan’s historical memory (NBC).

A barrage of air strikes and troop movements allowed Sudanese government forces to capture Bara, the second-largest city in Sudan’s North Kordofan state; the news comes as the SAF continues to secure its position in the state capital, el-Obeid (Al Jazeera).

As violence and famine continue to menace civilians and aid groups in Kordofan, the UN Security Council “expressed grave concern” over the deteriorating security situation in the embattled region (Al Jazeera). The statement comes as the UN announced sanctions against RSF leaders—including the so-called Butcher of El-Fasher—in response to atrocities committed during the prolonged siege of El Fasher (BBC).  

A civil society organization in Sudan accused RSF rebels of storming Mastariha, a village in North Darfur state, where the group said militants burned homes and used drones to attack key infrastructure points (Anadolu Agency). Separately, a new report detailed how the RSF rebel forces taunted and murdered disabled individuals—including point-blank executions of amputees and people with Down syndrome during last October’s siege on El Fasher (HRW).

After RSF militants killed five Chadian soldiers and three civilians in a cross-border assault, officials in N’Djamena—who have accepted upwards of one million Sudanese refugees—announced they would limit border crossings to humanitarian aid in an effort to curb violence against Chadian citizens (Al Jazeera).

In response to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s Friday meeting with RSF Commander Hemedti, Sudan’s government slammed Kampala for what it described as an “affront to humanity” and the Sudanese people (BBC).

RSF forces killed three aid workers in a drone strike on a humanitarian convoy intended to bring supplies to South Kordofan state, where Sudanese government forces have made inroads in recent months (Al Jazeera). The attack comes as SAF General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan rejected calls for a truce or UAE-mediated peace deal until RSF forces withdraw from occupied territory (Middle East Monitor).

Members of a UN fact-finding mission in El-Fasher described evidence that RSF forces inflicted widespread death, sexual violence, and starvation against Sudan’s Fur and Zaghawa communities—circumstances that prompted investigators to declare the situation in Darfur bears the “hallmarks of genocide” (BBC). Their report marked the first time a UN-backed body had leveled a genocide allegation against the RSF (OHCHR). The RSF did not immediately comment on the report, though their commander has previously acknowledged the forces committed some atrocities (NYT). Additionally, the United States announced new sanctions on three RSF commanders for their actions during the siege of El Fasher; Washington reiterated its stance that the RSF has committed genocide in the conflict (Treasury). It also updated a previous sanctions announcement about another RSF commander to note that he holds a passport from Kenya, which maintains its neutrality in the conflict (Treasury).

As famine and food insecurity continue to threaten Sudan’s besieged east and central regions, researchers have charted the extractive, biased processes that sustain the RSF and SAF’s vast agricultural empires across the country (The Conversation).

The Sudanese government entered into an initial research and exploration agreement with the privately owned Saudi Gold Refinery, which plans to open a series of mines in Sudan’s Red Sea state (The National).

A series of drone strikes killed dozens of civilians in a crowded market in North Kordofan state, though the missiles’ source remains disputed; the assault comes after Volker Türk, the UN’s top human rights official, described the Kordofan region as “a focus of hostilities” (Al Jazeera). Despite the Sudanese army’s recent breakthroughs in South Kordofan state, the near-constant threat of drone strikes continues to suffocate Sudan’s decimated markets (Al Jazeera).

Residents of El-Fasher described last year’s RSF siege on the town as “a scene out of a horror movie” in a UN report that tallied at least six thousand deaths over the course of just three days (BBC).

Sudan’s Foreign Minister said government forces in his country are protecting the African continent in “a war against foreign interference,” a nod to Khartoum’s longstanding allegations that the UAE has provided material and logistical support to RSF rebels (Reuters).

Human rights observers renewed safety concerns related to river travel after at least twenty Sudanese civilians died when a passenger boat overturned in the country’s River Nile state (BBC).

RSF militants killed two pupils attending a morning Quranic lesson in a morning drone strike on a mosque in North Kordofan state’s al-Rahad city; the attack comes days after a similar RSF drone attack killed dozens outside the same town (AP).

Tucked away in dense forest just across the Ethiopian border from Sudan’s Blue Nile state, thousands of RSF soldiers have received training at an expansive secret camp; eight sources, including a senior Ethiopian official, claimed the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had provided financial and logistical support for the camp (Reuters).

Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, warned that deadly attacks against civilians will continue in Sudan’s contested Kordofan region as RSF troops aim to consolidate their power in the country’s central corridor (Al Jazeera).

As civilians and international humanitarian convoys continue to come under RSF attack across North Kordofan state, Saudi Arabia decried “flagrant violations of all humanitarian norms” and called for coordinated international action in Sudan (Al Jazeera).  

RSF fighters killed dozens, including eight children, in a drone strike targeting a vehicle transporting displaced civilians; the attack comes a day after rebels struck a World Food Programme convoy headed for El Obeid in the famine-stricken North Kordofan state (AP).

Ahead of Sudan’s rainy season, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council warned of an imminent “epic biblical famine” in the besieged Darfur region unless aid groups are met with the financial and logistical resources needed to surge humanitarian aid (PBS).

Medical experts described “catastrophic conditions” in pockets of North Darfur state as they warned that up to 53 percent of children in some towns exhibited signs of acute malnutrition (AP). The news comes as the Sudan Doctors Network said RSF rebels killed twenty-two at a hospital in South Kordofan state, among them the center’s director and three medical personnel (Anadolu Agency).

White House Senior Advisor for Africa Massad Boulos told attendees at a fundraiser that the Trump administration had finalized a roadmap to peace in Sudan; despite an expected $1.5 billion in aid pledges, diplomats remain skeptical that Sudan’s warring parties will agree to the deal (Middle East Eye).

Days after Sudan’s military broke an RSF siege on another key town, its leaders announced their troops had retaken famine-stricken Kadugli (AP). According to SAF General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, control of Kadugli—the capital of the critical Kordofan region—has opened a continuous supply route to Khartoum (Al Jazeera).

As Turkish-made Akinci drones continue to pound RSF targets across Sudan, investigative reporting reveals the weaponry’s unlikely launch point: a remote base in Egypt’s barren south (NYT). Though Ankara’s role in the partnership remains murky, the shift shows Cairo’s increased willingness to act in Sudan to pre-empt domestic security concerns (Reuters).

Interviews conducted by Reuters revealed that paramilitary fighters abducted children, and in some cases killed parents first, during their takeover of al-Fashir in October and other attacks in the Darfur region (Reuters). Further, as Sudan’s rival militias entrench themselves in the country’s critical Kordofan corridor, analysts fear regional players could disregard international borders in an effort to destabilize the Horn of Africa (FP).

Sudan’s army reported that it broke an RSF siege in al-Dalanj; the siege began in April 2023, and survivors report an acute hunger crisis in the region (Reuters).

After two years under RSF control, SAF forces entered Dilling in South Kordofan state—a linchpin for supply lines in the crucial Kordofan region; the move comes as SAF General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan met with Qatari leaders in Doha to seek regional military support (Al Jazeera).

A recent clash in southeastern Sudan’s Blue Nile state threatens to embroil the relatively stable region in the ongoing conflict between Sudan’s military and RSF paramilitary forces; observers say the RSF aims to open a new front in Blue Nile to stretch SAF forces (ACLED).

Recent estimates from aid groups report that war-related violence is keeping 50 percent of Sudan’s youth from regular school attendance, with only 3 percent of schools in North Darfur state remaining open (Reuters).

Despite labeling initial reports of the attack as “mere falsehood,” Nigerian government officials acknowledged they had begun to deploy search and rescue missions to the country’s northern Kaduna state (BBC).

Residents in al‑Obeid reported increasingly frequent drone strikes as the RSF continued expanding its control across the wider Kordofan region (Reuters).

Isolated communities in the Central African Republic’s remote border region with Sudan are facing an influx of refugees, sparking land-based tensions with locals as newly-arrived Sudanese seek work and education opportunities in the face of limited resources (UN).

Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, railed against corrupted humanitarian funding, widespread violence against civilians, and “the increasing militarization of society by all parties to the conflict” (Al Jazeera).

Barham Salih, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, applauded N’Djamena’s “generous welcome of refugees” from Sudan as the number of Sudanese refugees in neighboring Chad approaches one million (UN).

RSF forces struck a Sudanese army base in the capital of Sudan’s southeastern Sennar state, killing dozens in a move that came just days after Sudan’s military government announced it would return to Khartoum (Al Jazeera).

Generals in Sudan’s army are increasing strikes and shifting troop placements in an effort to regain territory in the central Kordofan region, a key corridor between Khartoum and Sudan’s embattled east (Al Jazeera).

After nearly three years of operating from Port Sudan, Sudan’s government returned to the capital, Khartoum (BBC).

Forced to flee rampant drone strikes and ethnically-motivated violence, Darfur’s last doctors described a lawless environment, famine, and acute civilian suffering in Sudan’s war-torn eastern regions (ABC). Over the past two and a half years of war, near-constant fighting has displaced 12 million people and resulted in the deaths of 150,000 more (Semafor).

Survivors of sexual assault in eastern Sudan report widespread rape, assault, and forced enslavement at the hands of violent militants; medical sources have documented over a dozen cases of infant rape (Al Jazeera).

The strike killed thirteen people, including eight children; no group claimed responsibility, but local medics alleged the RSF carried out the attack (BBC).

Medical sources report that intense fighting in Sudan’s Darfur region has killed at least 114 people in two separate drone attacks over the past week (France24).

Even as war rages across the country, Sudan’s government said it produced seventy tons of gold—its chief source of hard currency—last year; the statistics exceeded Khartoum’s goal by 13 percent (Jerusalem Post).

Child human rights experts at the UN reported that 53 percent of the children they surveyed in North Darfur state were severely malnourished as famine continues to threaten the besieged Darfur region (Al Jazeera).

Civilians and observers described acute hunger, deserted towns, and continuous violence in eastern Sudan as the country’s rival militia leaders indicated there is no end in sight to the years-long conflict (Al Jazeera).

According to a Beijing-affiliated think tank, China divested its last oil holdings in Sudan amid ongoing attacks on oil fields across the country (China-Global South Project).

A drone strike on a military camp near Sudan’s border killed two Chadian soldiers; while Chadian intelligence claimed the drone originated from Sudan, it remains unclear whether the RSF or the Sudanese Armed Forces were responsible (Reuters).

A senior Sudanese official declared that there would be no negotiations or ceasefire with the RSF; the comment came days after the prime minister outlined a plan to end the war (Al Jazeera).

In Darfur—which the UN described as “the epicenter of human suffering in the world”—Doctors Without Borders personnel reported a measles outbreak is overwhelming hospitals and endangering children (Al Jazeera).

At underfunded, overcrowded camps in eastern Chad, refugees from Sudan’s embattled Darfur region have described civilian executions, arbitrary detention, and rampant hunger in besieged El-Fasher (NYT).

As fighters in Sudan’s central Kordofan region continue to kill civilians, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the new year would present a “great opportunity” for military leaders to agree to a pause in fighting (Al Jazeera).

The UN attributed at least 319 deaths during an RSF siege on a Darfur refugee camp in April to summary execution, compounding existing accounts of torture, sexual violence, and abduction (CBC).