Sudan war

Uganda Ministry of Foreign Affairs says Mohamed Dagalo’s meeting with President Yoweri Museveni focused on ending war.

Sudan has condemned Uganda for hosting the head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, as an “insult” to humanity and the Sudanese people.

In a statement on Sunday, Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced the reception of Dagalo, also known as “Hemedti”, in the “strongest terms” and his meeting on Friday with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

“This unprecedented step insults humanity before it insults the Sudanese people, and at the same time, it disregards the lives of innocent people killed due to the behaviour of Hemedti and his terrorist militia,” the Foreign Ministry wrote.

Rights groups and international organisations have accused the RSF of war crimes and targeting civilians in Sudan.

Khartoum said hosting Dagalo “disregards” human values.

It “completely disregards the laws governing relations between member states of regional and international organisations that prohibit providing any support for rebel forces against a legitimate, internationally recognised government”, the Foreign Ministry added.

In 2023, Sudan was plunged into a civil war between the Sudanese army, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the RSF.

According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), at least 11.7 million people have been displaced by the conflict and an estimated 150,000 people have been killed.

Last week, the United States imposed sanctions on three RSF commanders over their alleged roles in the 18-month siege and capture of el‑Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State in western Sudan.

In a statement, the US Department of the Treasury accused the RSF of perpetrating “a horrific campaign of ethnic killings, torture, starvation, and sexual violence” during the siege and capture of el-Fasher, which fell to the RSF in October.

Separately, a UN mission found that the RSF campaign in el-Fasher was a “planned and organised operation that bears the defining characteristics of genocide”.

‘Poisonous’ identity politics

Uganda’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued its own statement on Dagalo’s visit and said his meeting with Museveni focused on “ending the ongoing conflict in Sudan and restoring regional stability”.

Museveni reiterated in his remarks to Hemedti that peace in Sudan could only be achieved through dialogue and warned against what he described as identity politics.

“When I last came to Sudan, I met [former] President [Omar al-] Bashir and advised against the politics of identity instead of the politics of interest,” Museveni said.

“Identity politics is poisonous. It does not yield good results. What is important are shared interests that unite people,” he said while calling for both parties to prioritise “peace over military confrontation”.

For his part, Dagalo thanked Museveni and said he shares the Ugandan president’s “principles and your commitment to peace”, according to a statement released by the Ugandan government.

“He noted that Sudan continues to face serious humanitarian and institutional challenges as a result of the conflict and stressed the need for a peaceful resolution,” the statement added.

Markets reopen in Dilling, South Kordofan’s second largest city. Yet residents face critical medical shortages and persistent aerial attacks.

Life is cautiously returning to the streets of Dilling, the second largest city in South Kordofan state, after the Sudanese army broke a suffocating siege that had isolated the area for more than two years.

For months, the city had been encircled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), cutting off vital supply lines and trapping civilians in a severe humanitarian crisis.

While the lifting of the blockade has allowed goods to flow again, local authorities and residents said the city remains under the threat of drone attacks.

Al Jazeera Arabic’s Hisham Uweit, reporting from Dilling, described a city “recovering slowly” from the economic strangulation.

“For over two years, heavy siege conditions were imposed on the city. Movement disappeared, goods vanished and livelihoods narrowed,” Uweit said.

“Now the eyes of buyers pick through the few available goods … as if the market itself is announcing its recovery at a leisurely pace, drawing determination from the patience of its residents.”

Markets return to life

The immediate impact of the army’s advance is visible in the local markets, which were largely shuttered during the blockade. Fresh produce, absent for months, has begun to reappear in stalls.

“The market and vegetables have all returned,” a local trader told Al Jazeera. “Before, the market didn’t exist. Now we have okra, potatoes, sweet potatoes, chillies and lemons. Everything is with us, and the market has returned to normal.”

However, the resumption of trade masks deep scars left by the isolation. The blockade devastated the local economy, stripping residents of their savings and leaving infrastructure in disrepair.

‘The price of isolation’

While food supplies are improving, Dilling’s health sector remains in critical condition. The city’s main hospital is struggling with a severe lack of equipment and essential medicines, a shortage that has had life-altering consequences for the most vulnerable.

Abdelrahman, a local resident suffering from diabetes, paid a heavy price for the siege. During the months of encirclement, insulin supplies ran dry. His condition deteriorated rapidly, ultimately leading to the amputation of both his legs.

“He had a medical appointment after a month, but the month closed off his check-ups,” a relative of Abdelrahman said. “He is suffering severely. He is missing his insulin. There is a shortage of food, and he is tired. His health has declined sharply.”

‘Chased like locusts’

Despite the Sudanese army asserting control over access routes, the security situation in Dilling remains precarious. Authorities said the city is subjected to almost daily drone strikes launched by the RSF and SPLM-N, targeting infrastructure and residential areas.

For Maryam, a mother displaced multiple times by the conflict, the breaking of the siege has not brought peace. She described the terror of the unmanned aerial vehicles that hover over their homes.

“Now the drones bombard and chase us. They chase us like locusts,” Maryam said. “When they come, we just run to hide. When they hover over us, they burn the thatch [roofs], start fires and force you to leave your home.”

She added that the constant threat of aerial bombardment makes normal life impossible: “If you are having a meal, like porridge, … the moment you see them, you leave it.”

Uweit said that while the lifting of the siege is a “glimmer of hope” and a first step towards recovery, the dual challenge of rebuilding a shattered health system and fending off persistent military attacks means Dilling’s ordeal is far from over.

The Sudan Doctors Network said the deadly strike was carried out by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

A drone attack on a mosque in central Sudan has killed two children and injured 13 more, according to a Sudanese doctor’s association, amid a rise in similar attacks across the region. 

The Sudan Doctors Network said the attack was carried out at dawn on Wednesday by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group engaged in a three-year civil war with the Sudanese Armed Forces.

The children were reportedly studying the Quran at the Sheikh Ahmed al-Badawi Mosque in North Kordofan State when the building was hit by a drone in a “blatant violation of international humanitarian law and a grave assault on places of worship”, the doctors’ group said in a Facebook post.

“Targeting children inside mosques is a fully constituted crime that cannot be justified under any pretext and represents a dangerous escalation in the pattern of repeated violations against civilians,” the doctors said.

The Sudan Doctors Network said the RSF has previously targeted other religious buildings for attack, including a church in Khartoum and another mosque in el-Fasher, reflecting a “systematic pattern that shows clear disregard for the sanctity of life and religious sites”.

“The network calls on the international community, the United Nations, and human rights and humanitarian organizations to take urgent action to pressure for the end to the targeting of civilians, ensure their protection, open safe corridors for the delivery of medical and humanitarian aid, and work to document these violations and hold those responsible accountable,” it said.

The UN separately said on Wednesday that a recent series of drone attacks have been reported on civilian infrastructure in Sudan’s South Kordofan, North Kordofan and West Kordofan states.

A World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse in Kadugli was also hit by a suspected rocket attack on Tuesday night, according to UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric. He did not say which group was responsible for the attack.

“The fact that we have to reiterate almost every day that civilians and civilian infrastructure, places of worship, schools and hospitals cannot and should not be targeted is a tragedy in itself,” Dujarric told reporters.

The UN has warned that Sudan’s civil war is expanding from western Darfur into the Kordofan region.

It has documented more than 90 civilian deaths and 142 injuries caused by drone strikes between the end of January and February 6, which were carried out by the RSF and Sudanese Armed Forces.

Targets included a WFP convoy, markets, health facilities and residential neighbourhoods in southern and northern Kordofan, the UN said.

United Nations human rights chief also decries ‘preventable human rights catastrophe’ in Sudan’s el-Fasher.

Fatal drone strikes on civilians persist in Sudan’s Kordofan, as the central region has emerged as the latest front line in Sudan’s nearly three-year conflict, the United Nations has said.

Addressing the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk painted a grim picture of the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has plunged the country into widespread bloodshed and humanitarian catastrophe.

“We can only expect worse to come” unless decisive steps are taken by the international community to stop the fighting, Turk said, emphasising that inaction would lead to even greater horrors.

Turk also highlighted harrowing survivor testimonies from el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, which fell to RSF forces in October following an 18-month siege. He described accounts of atrocity crimes committed by the paramilitary after it overran the city, including mass killings and other grave violations targeting civilians.

“Responsibility for these atrocity crimes lies squarely with the [RSF] and their allies and supporters,” he said

As Sudan’s devastating civil war expands beyond the western Darfur region into the central Kordofan areas, Turk cautioned that the shift in fighting is likely to bring even more severe violations against civilians, expressing deep concern over the potential for additional grave abuses, specifically highlighting the increasing use of “advanced drone weaponry systems” by both warring parties.

“In the last two weeks, the SAF and allied Joint Forces broke the sieges on Kadugli and Dilling,” Turk said. “But drone strikes by both sides continue, resulting in dozens of civilian deaths and injuries.”

Turk’s office has documented more than 90 civilian deaths and 142 injuries caused by drone strikes carried ⁠out by both the RSF and the armed forces from late January to February 6, he said.

Among those incidents were three strikes on health facilities in South Kordofan that killed 31 people last week, according to the World Health Organization.

On February 7, a drone attack carried out by the RSF hit a vehicle transporting displaced families in central Sudan, killing at least 24 people, including eight children, the Sudan Doctors Network said.

The latest attacks follow a series of drone attacks on humanitarian aid convoys and fuel trucks across North Kordofan.

The UN human rights chief said he has witnessed the destruction caused by RSF attacks on Sudan’s Merowe Dam and its hydroelectric power station.

“Repeated drone strikes have disrupted power and water supplies to huge numbers of people, with a serious impact on healthcare,” he said.

Riyadh condemns RSF’s ‘criminal’ attacks in Kordofan, blames foreign fighters and weapons for fuelling Sudan’s three-year conflict.

Saudi Arabia has reaffirmed its support for Sudan’s territorial unity and integrity, denouncing “criminal attacks” by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in North and South Kordofan states that have killed dozens of people, including women and children.

In a statement on Saturday, the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned “foreign interference” by “some parties” in Sudan, including the “continued influx of illegal weapons, mercenaries and foreign fighters” for the continuation of the nearly three-year-old war.

The statement did not specify the parties, though.

It came a day after the Sudan Doctors Network, a humanitarian group, said a drone attack by the RSF on a vehicle transporting displaced families in North Kordofan killed at least 24 people, including eight children.

The attack followed a series of drone raids on humanitarian aid convoys and fuel trucks across North Kordofan, including an assault on a World Food Programme convoy on Friday that killed at least one person.

Fighting between the RSF and Sudan’s army has intensified across Kordofan in recent months following the fall of el-Fasher to the paramilitary group in October. The nearly three-year-long conflict has killed an estimated 40,000 people and pushed more than 21 million — almost half of Sudan’s population — into acute food shortages.

The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Saturday the deadly RSF attacks “are completely unjustifiable and constitute flagrant violations of all humanitarian norms and relevant international agreements”.

The ministry demanded that “RSF immediately cease these violations and adhere to its moral and humanitarian obligation to ensure the delivery of relief aid to those in need in accordance with international humanitarian law” and a ceasefire deal agreed by the warring parties in Jeddah in 2023.

It added that “some parties” were fuelling the conflict by sending in weapons and fighters, despite “these parties’ claim of supporting a political solution” in Sudan.

The statement comes amid allegations by the Sudanese government that the United Arab Emirates has been arming and funding the RSF. Sudan filed a case against the UAE at the International Court of Justice last year, accusing it of “complicity in genocide” committed by the RSF against the Masalit community in West Darfur state.

The UAE has denied the allegations.

Separately, Saudi Arabia has also accused the UAE of backing the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) in Yemen. The STC, initially part of the Saudi-backed internationally recognised government of Yemen, launched a major offensive last December in the country’s Hadramout and al-Mahra provinces, seeking to establish a separate state.

The offensive resulted in a split in Yemen’s internationally-backed government, and prompted Saudi Arabia to launch deadly raids targeting the STC.

The UAE pulled out its troops from Yemen following the Saudi allegation, saying it supports Saudi Arabia’s security.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE were members of the Arab military coalition, formed to confront the Houthis, who took full control of the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, in 2015.

Food security experts say famine thresholds for acute malnutrition exceeded in Darfur’s Um Baru and Kernoi.

Acute malnutrition has reached famine levels in two more areas of western Sudan’s Darfur region, United Nations-backed experts warn, as a civil war between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese army has caused widespread hunger.

In an alert issued on Thursday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), global food security experts said famine thresholds for acute malnutrition had been surpassed in North Darfur State’s contested areas of Um Baru and Kernoi.

The IPC alert is not a ‍formal famine classification, but it highlights alarming levels of hunger based on the latest data.

In Um Baru, the rate of acutely malnourished children aged under five was ​nearly double the famine threshold with 53 percent affected, the report said.

Nearly a third of children in Kernoi suffered from acute malnutrition, it added.

“These alarming rates suggest an increased risk of excess mortality and raise concern that nearby areas may be experiencing similar catastrophic conditions,” the report said.

Thursday’s alert, based on data available up to February, comes nearly three months after the IPC confirmed famine conditions in el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, and Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan, about 800km (500 miles) to the east.

El-Fasher, long the Sudanese army’s final stronghold in the Darfur region, fell to the RSF in October after 18 months of bombardment and starvation.

Um Baru and Kernoi are near the border with Chad and have received some of the tens of thousands of displaced people who fled el-Fasher when it fell to the RSF. Fighting subsequently has been reported in both locations.

Since April 2023, Sudan has been engulfed in a devastating war between the army and the RSF, which has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced nearly 11 million and driven multiple regions into famine and hunger.

The IPC said 20 more areas in Darfur and neighbouring Kordofan were at risk of famine.

Sudanese military officials say they’ve broken through a siege by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group of the South Kordofan capital of Kadugli. It’s the military’s second major advance in the Kordofan region in less than a week.

People who fled attacks by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Sudan are enduring tough conditions at a displacement camp in the north where funding cuts are making life harder for its new residents. Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan is there.

More than nine million people have been internally displaced in Sudan since fighting began between the Sudanese army and the RSF in 2023. Visiting a camp, UN Humanitarian Coordinator Denise Brown warns of scarce resources and growing dangers for civilians.

Celebrations as flight carries dozens of passengers from Port Sudan to Sudanese capital.

The international airport in Khartoum has received its first scheduled commercial flight in more than two years as the Sudanese government continues to assert its control over Sudan’s capital city after years of fighting.

The Sudan Airways flight travelled to Khartoum from the Red Sea city of Port Sudan on Sunday, carrying dozens of passengers.

Reporting from near the runway where the flight had landed, Al Jazeera’s Taher Almardi described scenes of jubilation following the arrival of the plane.

He said the reopening of the airport will help connect the capital to other regions in Sudan, with officials saying the facility is now ready to welcome as many as four flights daily.

Sudan Airways said in a statement that the flight, which was announced on Saturday with ticket prices starting at $50, “reflects the return of spirit and the continuation of the connection between the sons of the nation”.

The Sudanese military announced regaining full control of the capital from its rival, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group, in March of last year.

Last month, Sudan’s army-aligned authorities moved the government’s headquarters back to Khartoum from their wartime capital of Port Sudan, which has also housed the country’s international airport since the early days of the war that began in April 2023.

Khartoum International Airport has come under repeated attacks, including an RSF drone assault in October that Sudanese officials said was intercepted.

On October 22, the airport said it had received a Badr Airlines flight, which was not pre-announced. But no further operations of commercial flights resumed until Sunday.

The war started as two top generals – Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the leader of the military, and Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, the RSF chief – and their forces clashed for power and control over Sudan’s resources.

The fighting has ravaged towns and cities across Sudan, killing tens of thousands of people and forcing millions of others from their homes.

Violence continues to rage in central and western Sudan, particularly in Darfur, where the war has led to mass displacement and a humanitarian crisis.

“In Darfur today, reaching a single child can take days of negotiation, security clearances, and travel across sand roads under shifting frontlines,” Eva Hinds, spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said in a statement on Friday.

“Nothing about this crisis is simple: every movement is hard-won, every delivery fragile.”

Dilling, a key route for supply lines, had under the paramilitary group’s control for nearly two years.

Sudan’s military says it has broken a nearly two-year siege by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on a key town in the Kordofan region, gaining control over major supply lines.

In a statement late on Monday, the military said it had opened a road leading to South Kordofan province’s Dilling town.

“Our forces inflicted heavy losses on the enemy, both personal and equipment,” the statement said.

There was no immediate comment from the RSF, which has been at war with the army for control of Sudan for nearly three years.

Dilling lies halfway between Kadugli – the besieged state capital – and el-Obeid, the capital of neighbouring North Kordofan province, which the RSF has sought to encircle.

Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan, reporting from the Sudanese capital Khartoum, described the army’s takeover of Dilling as a “very significant gain” that may lead to more advances in the province.

“The army is trying to make use of this momentum to take territory not just from the RSF, but also from its ally, the SPLM-N, led by Abdel Aziz al-Hilu, which controls territory and has forces in South Kordofan,” Morgan said.

Paramilitary troops were likely to fight back and attempt to retake the lost territory by relocating fighters from el-Obeid and Kadugli, according to Morgan.

Morgan added that the humanitarian situation in Dilling would likely improve as the army will now be able to bring in medical supplies, food and other commercial goods that had been prevented from entering during the RSF’s siege.

After being forced out of Khartoum in March, the RSF has focused on Kordofan and the city of el-Fasher, which was the military’s last stronghold in the sprawling Darfur region until the RSF seized it in October.

Reports of mass killings, rape, abductions and looting emerged after el-Fasher’s paramilitary takeover, and the International Criminal Court launched a formal investigation into “war crimes” by both sides.

Dilling has reportedly experienced severe hunger, but the world’s leading authority on food security, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, did not declare famine there in its November report because of a lack of data.

A United Nations-backed assessment last year already confirmed famine in Kadugli, which has been under RSF siege for more than a year and a half.

More than 65,000 people have fled the Kordofan region since October, according to the latest UN figures.

The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and created what the UN describes as the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis. At its peak, the war had displaced about 14 million people, both internally and across borders.