Sudans

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have killed 31 people from the Salha area, including children, in the largest documented mass killing in the area, the Sudanese Doctors Network said yesterday.

The network warned that the mass killing of “unarmed civilians” threatens the lives of thousands of people in Salha, south of Omdurman.

It considered the mass killings a war crime and a crime against humanity, calling on the international community to take urgent action to rescue the remaining civilians and open a safe exit for them to leave the Salha area.

It also calls on the international community to pressure the RSF leaders to stop crimes and violations against civilians under their control.

UN: More than 480 killed in Sudan’s North Darfur state in past two weeks

The Sudanese Armed Forces say they have withdrawn from the area as part of its ‘defensive arrangements’.

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have said their fighters have seized a strategic zone on the border with Egypt and Libya, as the regular government-aligned army, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), announced its withdrawal from the area.

The announcements on Wednesday came a day after SAF accused forces loyal to eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar of launching a cross-border attack alongside the RSF, the first allegation of direct Libyan involvement in the Sudanese war.

“As part of its defensive arrangements to repel aggression, our forces today evacuated the triangle area overlooking the borders between Sudan, Egypt and Libya,” army spokesperson Nabil Abdallah said in a statement.

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

القيادة العامة للقوات المسلحة

تعميم صحفي

الأربعاء ١١ يونيو ٢٠٢٥م

في إطار ترتيباتها الدفاعية لصد العدوان، أخلت قواتنا اليوم منطقة المثلث المطلة علي الحدود بين السودان ومصر وليبيا.

(نصر من الله وفتح قريب)

مكتب الناطق الرسمي باسم القوات المسلحة

General… pic.twitter.com/3o5Z1xDfb0

— القوات المسلحة السودانية (@SudaneseAF) June 11, 2025

Since April 2023, the brutal civil war has pitted SAF chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan against his erstwhile ally Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who leads the RSF, in a bitter power struggle.

In a statement on Wednesday, the RSF said its fighters had “liberated the strategic triangle area”, adding that army forces had retreated southward “after suffering heavy losses”.

SAF said on Tuesday that Haftar’s troops, in coordination with the RSF, attacked its border positions in a move it called “a blatant aggression against Sudan”.

Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also accused the United Arab Emirates of backing the assault, describing it as a “dangerous escalation” and a “flagrant violation of international law”.

It also described the latest clash as part of a broader foreign-backed conspiracy.

Haftar, who controls eastern Libya, has long maintained close ties with both the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.

While Cairo has supported Sudan’s leadership under Burhan since the war began in April 2023, Khartoum has repeatedly accused the UAE of supplying the RSF with weapons, which the Emirati government has denied.

Tensions between Khartoum and Abu Dhabi escalated in May after drone strikes hit the wartime capital of Port Sudan for the first time since the outbreak of the war.

After the attacks, Sudan severed its diplomatic ties with the UAE and declared it an “aggressor state”.

Since the war began more than two years ago, multiple countries have been drawn in. It has effectively split Sudan in two, with SAF holding the centre, east and north, including the capital Khartoum, while the paramilitaries and their allies control nearly all of Darfur and parts of the south.

The fighting has killed tens of thousands and displaced 13 million, including four million who fled abroad, triggering what the United Nations has called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Efforts by international mediators to halt the fighting have so far failed, with violence continuing to escalate across the western Darfur region and the Kordofan region in the country’s south.

Severe levels of ‘hunger, destitution and desperation’ found in the town of Jabal Awliya, south of Khartoum.

The risk of famine in Sudan has extended close to the capital Khartoum, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has warned as the country’s brutal civil war grinds on into its third year.

The agency has discovered “severe” levels of hunger in the town of Jabal Awliya, some 40km (25 miles) south of Khartoum, the WFP’s Sudan representative Laurent Bukera said on Tuesday.

Speaking upon his return from a visit to Khartoum state, Bukera described “widespread destruction” in the town and other areas around Khartoum, and called for urgent international action to prevent famine.

“The needs are immense,” Bukera said from Port Sudan, describing “limited access to water, healthcare and electricity”, as well as a cholera outbreak.

“Several areas in the south of the city are at high risk of famine,” he added. “The international community must act now – by stepping up funding to stop famine in the hardest-hit areas and to invest in Sudan’s recovery.”

The WFP, which says it is assisting four million people across the country, has had to reduce food rations in areas at risk of famine to 70 percent due to a major funding shortfall.

‘Meeting basic needs critical’

The government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been locked in a battle for power since April 2023. The army took control of Khartoum in March and declared the city “completely free of rebels” in late May.

Now that WFP has access to the area and is able to make regular aid deliveries, the agency said it was doing everything it could to bring the local population back from the brink of famine.

Bukera said “the level of hunger, destitution and desperation” found in Jabal Awliya was “severe, and basically confirmed the risk of famine”.

The war has killed tens of thousands of people and created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises. Over four million have fled the country and some 10.5 million are internally displaced, according to United Nations estimates.

Bukera said that with people expected to return to heavily damaged areas like Khartoum, the pressure on already overstretched resources would intensify.

“WFP is deeply concerned, and meeting basic needs – especially food – is critical and urgent,” he said.

Famine has already been declared in five areas across Sudan, including three displacement camps near el-Fasher in the southwest.

It has been all but confirmed in el-Fasher itself, where aid agencies say a lack of access to data has prevented an official famine declaration.

Across the country, nearly 25 million people are suffering dire food insecurity.

Aid workers and activists are fearful that new regulations announced by Sudan’s army-backed government will lead to a crackdown on local relief volunteers, exacerbating the catastrophic hunger crisis affecting 25 million people across the country.

A directive announced by Khartoum state on its official Facebook page this month said all relief initiatives in the state must register with the Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC), a government body that oversees humanitarian operations in Sudan.

The HAC was given expanded powers to register, monitor and – critics argue – crack down on local and Western aid groups by former leader Omar al-Bashir in 2006, according to aid groups, local relief volunteers and experts.

“HAC is trying to monitor and restrict the work of ERRs by forcing us to register, … and I fear they will arrest volunteers if we keep working but don’t register,” Ahmed*, a local volunteer in Khartoum, said, referring to the Emergency Response Rooms, grassroots committees that are spearheading the humanitarian response in Sudan.

Khaled Abdelraheem Ahmed, the HAC commissioner for the state of Khartoum, confirmed the new directive to Al Jazeera.

He said registration requires paying a fee of roughly $800 and submitting a list of names of the employees or volunteers in each relief initiative.

“[Nobody] is allowed to carry out humanitarian activities without registering,” Abdelraheem said.

Indispensable relief

The new directive is raising concern among ERRs. They have been instrumental in feeding, protecting and rescuing civilians from attacks since the civil war erupted between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in April 2023.

The ERRs maintain a public stance of neutrality in an effort to preserve humanitarian access irrespective of who controls the areas they operate in at any given time.

Still, they have been attacked by both sides throughout the war.

Local activists, foreign aid workers and experts now suspect that the HAC is trying to register ERRs in Khartoum to try to monitor and coopt their activities and profit from their already meagre budgets.

Any constraints or impediments to their work could have devastating consequences for civilians in Khartoum, said Kholood Khair, a Sudan expert and the founder of the Confluence Advisory think tank.

“In Khartoum, it’s one meal a day for a lot of people in a lot of areas,” she told Al Jazeera.

“If people start missing that one meal because [ERR] volunteers are not turning up because they don’t feel safe enough to [show up and feed them], then obviously that means that famine levels will go through the roof,” Khair added.

Experts and aid workers previously told Al Jazeera that they consider the HAC an outfit for military intelligence.

Al Jazeera contacted army spokesperson Nabil Abdullah to comment on the accusations against the HAC.

He did not respond before publication.

The head of the HAC, Najm al-din Musa, previously denied allegations that the commission was involved in aid diversion, telling Al Jazeera that they were “lies”.

Politicising aid

The HAC has long been accused of imposing bureaucratic impediments to prevent international aid groups from reaching regions outside the army’s control.

It often forces aid agencies to apply for multiple – seemingly endless – permissions from various ministries and security branches as a way to significantly delay or outright block access to regions outside the army’s control and in urgent need, aid workers previously told Al Jazeera.

This practice has led experts, global relief workers and human rights groups to accuse the army of using food and aid as a weapon of war.

Yet Hamid Khalafallah, an expert on Sudan’s grassroots movements and a PhD candidate at Manchester University in the United Kingdom, believes the HAC is further politicising aid by forcing ERRs to register.

“[The HAC] wants to control the programming of [the ERRs] and make sure that it matches their priorities, … which are obviously politicised and follow the guidelines of the de facto [army] government,” he told Al Jazeera.

In addition, local relief workers and experts fear that if ERR members in Khartoum register with the HAC, then their names could be handed over to intelligence branches, exposing them to unwanted harassment or arrest.

Shortly after the army recaptured most of Khartoum in March, a number of “hit lists” circulated over social media, Khalafallah said.

The lists accused hundreds of civilians who did not have the resources to flee from the RSF while it controlled Khartoum of cooperating with the group.

The names of some ERR members were on the lists.

Competition and autonomy

The army has created some of its own humanitarian committees called “Karama” (Dignity), which have been providing some services to civilians in Khartoum, four local relief workers told Al Jazeera without providing details.

The relief workers did say that the Karama committees have not tried to obstruct the work of the ERRs.

Local volunteers still worry that the Karama committees were designed to help the army build a loyal constituency through aid provision.

“The [army] wants the services to go through the people they appoint. They will handle distribution of food, medicare and whatever else,” said Noon*, a local volunteer from one of the ERRs.

“It’s a type of propaganda,” she told Al Jazeera.

ERR volunteers worry that if they register with the HAC, then they will be prohibited from aiding their communities if they ever come back under RSF control.

This could significantly harm the trust that ERR volunteers have built with their communities since the start of the war, they said.

Others worry that the HAC will try to restrict and impede the work of ERRs once they register as part of a broader ploy to empower Karama committees at their expense.

However, experts and international aid workers both said the army is not doing enough to repair basic services in a city that has been destroyed by the RSF.

In contrast, the ERRs have been effective in acting quickly to mitigate the humanitarian catastrophe in Sudan because volunteers do not need approval from a state authority before making life-saving decisions, Khalafallah said.

“This requirement [to register] with HAC is absolutely damaging for ERRs because the work they do is based on being totally independent and … [on having a model] where accountability looks downwards to the beneficiaries,” he said.

Profiteering off aid?

The ERRs are struggling to raise enough money to support their communities.

They now worry they will be forced to cough up money to the HAC if they have to register with it.

“We know that HAC will take a cut from our budgets. … This is the main problem [with registering] really,” Noon said.

The HAC has a long history of shaking down aid agencies for money. Even before the war, they forced aid groups to hire HAC staff to deliver aid and sit in on job interviews.

One foreign relief worker who did not wish to be named said international aid agencies who have supported ERRs since the start of the war will likely continue to do so quietly whether they register or not. However, the source warned that United Nations agencies may make concessions to the HAC.

“What the UN agrees to [with the HAC] will have an impact on everybody else, and it will undermine the position of everybody else,” the source said.

Daniel Tengo, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) spokesperson for Sudan, told Al Jazeera that the UN has not decided whether it will maintain or cease support to ERRs that do not register with the HAC.

He added that OCHA is in touch with ERRs and waiting for them to make a decision.

“OCHA is aware of the recent communication from Khartoum HAC and has reached out to the coordination body of the Emergency Response Rooms to better understand the implications,” he said.

“ERRs confirmed awareness of [HAC’s directive] and indicated that internal discussions are ongoing on how best to respond,” Tengo told Al Jazeera.

Local relief workers in Khartoum explained that each ERR in Khartoum will deliberate among its own members and then share their opinion with other ERRs.

In the end, they will reach a unanimous decision.

“Maybe we will find another creative solution,” said Salma*, a local volunteer.

“We are just trying to find a way to keep working without creating more fights and problems,” she told Al Jazeera.

*The names of local aid workers have been changed due to safety concerns.

South Sudan relies on oil for more than 90 percent of its government revenues, and the country depends entirely on Sudan to export the precious resource.

But this month, Sudan’s army-backed government said it was preparing to shut down the facilities that its southern neighbour uses to export its oil, according to an official government letter seen by Al Jazeera.

That decision could collapse South Sudan’s economy and drag it directly into Sudan’s intractable civil war between the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), experts warned.

The announcement was made on May 9 after the RSF launched suicide drones for six consecutive days at Port Sudan, the army’s wartime capital on the strategic Red Sea coast.

The strikes destroyed a fuel depot and damaged electricity grids, shattering the sense of security in the city, which lies far from the country’s front lines.

Sudan’s army claims the damage now hampers it from exporting South Sudan’s oil.

“The announcement read like a desperate plea [to South Sudan] for help to stop these [RSF] attacks,” said Alan Boswell, an expert on the Horn of Africa with the International Crisis Group.

“But I think doing so overestimates the leverage that South Sudan has … over the RSF,” he added.

Predatory economics

Since South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011, the former has relied on the latter to export its oil via Port Sudan.

In return, Sudan has collected fees from Juba as part of their 2005 peace agreement, which ended the 22-year north-south civil war and ultimately led to the secession of South Sudan from Sudan.

When Sudan erupted into another civil war between the army and RSF in 2023, the former continued collecting the fees from Juba.

“[Sudan and South Sudan] are tied at the hip financially due to the oil export infrastructure,” Boswell told Al Jazeera.

Local media have recently reported that high-level officials from South Sudan and Sudan are engaged in talks to avert a shutdown of oil exports.

Al Jazeera sent written questions to Port Sudan’s energy and petroleum minister, Mohieddein Naiem Mohamed, asking if the army is negotiating higher rent fees from South Sudan before resuming oil exports, which some experts suspected to be a likely scenario.

Naiem Mohamed did not respond before publication.

According to the International Crisis Group, Juba also pays off the RSF to not damage oil pipelines that run through territory under its control.

In addition, South Sudan has allowed the RSF to operate in villages along the Sudan-South Sudan border.

The RSF has increased its presence along the sprawling, porous border after forming a strategic alliance with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement – North (SPLM-N) in February.

The SPLM-N fought alongside secessionist forces against Sudan’s army. It controls swaths of territory in Sudan’s South Kordofan and Blue Nile regions and has historically close ties with Juba.

South Sudan’s relationship with the SPLM-N and RSF has increasingly frustrated Sudan’s army, said Edmund Yakani, a South Sudanese civil society leader and commentator.

“[Sudan’s army] is suspicious that Juba is helping RSF in its military capability and political space to manoeuvre its struggle against Sudan’s army,” Yakani told Al Jazeera.

House of cards

According to a report by the International Crisis Group from 2021, about 60 percent of South Sudan’s oil profits go to the multinational companies producing the oil.

The report explained that most of the remaining 40 percent goes to paying off outstanding loans and to South Sudan’s ruling elites in the bloated security sector and bureaucracy.

South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir, will likely not be able to keep his patronage network together without a quick resumption in oil revenue.

His fragile government – a coalition of longtime loyalists and coopted opponents – could collapse like a house of cards, experts warned.

Al Jazeera emailed written questions to South Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation to ask if the country has any contingency plan in case oil exports stop indefinitely. The ministry did not respond before publication.

Experts warned that South Sudan has no alternative to oil.

Security personnel and civil servants are already owed months of back pay, and they may turn against Kiir – and each other – if they have no incentive to uphold the fragile peace agreement that ended South Sudan’s own five-year civil war in 2018.

“Kiir is on extremely fragile footing, and there is no backup plan for when the oil runs out,” said Matthew Benson, a scholar on Sudan and South Sudan at the London School of Economics.

A halt in oil revenue would also drive up inflation, exacerbating the daily struggles of millions of civilians.

The World Food Programme estimated that about 60 percent of the population is experiencing acute food shortages while the World Bank found that nearly 80 percent live below the poverty line.

The hardship and pervasive corruption have given way to a predatory economy in which armed groups erect checkpoints to shake down civilians for bribes and taxes.

Civilians will likely be unable to cough up any more money if the oil revenue dries up.

“I’m not sure people can be squeezed more than they already are,” Benson said.

Proxy war?

Some commentators and activists also fear that Sudan’s army is deliberately turning off the oil to force South Sudan to cut off all contact with the RSF and SPLM-N.

This speculation is fuelling some resentment among civilians in South Sudan, according to Yakani.

Meanwhile, some supporters of Sudan’s army argued that South Sudan should not benefit from oil as long as it provides any degree of support to the RSF, which they view as a militia waging a rebellion against the state.

Both the RSF and army have recruited South Sudanese mercenaries to fight on their behalf, Al Jazeera previously reported.

“What Port Sudan [the army] wants is for Juba to absolutely distance itself from aiding the RSF in any way, and that is the complication that the government of [Kiir] is in now,” Yakani told Al Jazeera.

“The majority of citizens of South Sudan – including myself – believe that South Sudan is becoming a land of proxy wars for Sudan’s warring parties and their [regional] allies,” he added.

Sudan’s army also believes that South Sudan’s government is relying increasingly on the RSF’s regional backers to buttress its own security.

Sudan’s army leaders were particularly spooked when Uganda, which it views as supporting the RSF, deployed troops to prop up Kiir in March, according to Boswell.

In addition, Sudan’s army has repeatedly accused the United Arab Emirates of arming the RSF.

The UAE has repeatedly denied these allegations, which United Nations experts and Amnesty International have also made.

“The UAE has already made absolutely clear that it is not providing any support or supplies to either of two belligerent warring parties in Sudan,” the UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs previously told Al Jazeera in an email.

Despite tensions between Sudan’s army and the UAE, analysts said Juba may request a large loan from the UAE to keep its patronage intact if Sudan’s army does not promptly resume oil exports.

“[Sudan’s army] has been worrying and watching closely over whether the UAE might loan South Sudan a significant amount of money,” Boswell said.

“I think a massive UAE loan to South Sudan would be … a red line for Sudan’s army”, he added.

The announcement comes weeks after the army made gains in and around the capital city to push back the RSF.

Sudan’s army has announced it has cleared the state of Khartoum of rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) after weeks of intensive battles, with the civil war now in its third year.

The General Command of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) said in a statement on Tuesday that the state – which comprises the capital Khartoum, its twin city Omdurman, and the city of Khartoum North (Bahri) – is now “completely free of rebels”.

“We also renew our pledge to our people to continue our efforts until every inch of our country is liberated of every rebel, traitor, and agent,” said the SAF, headed by Sudan’s de facto leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

This comes after Sudan’s army secured a number of victories in battles in and around the capital in March, including the recapturing of the presidential palace and major urban centres that culminated in taking back the Khartoum airport from the RSF, headed by General Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo.

In late March, al-Burhan had declared “Khartoum is free” hours after the recapture of the key airport, although smaller battles were ongoing with RSF militias in pockets around the state.

Reporting from Khartoum, Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan said intense battles raged in recent days in southern Omdurman’s Salha area, which was the last remaining major RSF stronghold and home to one of the group’s largest military bases.

“The army had been making gradual advances in the Salha area in the past few days until it was able to take control of the area completely from the RSF in the early hours of Tuesday morning,” she said.

“The army also said it was able to recover weapons and ammunitions that were used by the paramilitary, including drones and jamming systems.”

After more than two years of devastating civil war that has gradually attracted foreign funding and weapons, control of Sudan remains torn between the two generals and their allies.

The SAF dominates the north and the east – including the smallest state by area, but most populous, Khartoum – along with some central areas, while the RSF holds most of western Sudan, including most of Darfur.

Where the RSF has been forced back on the ground, it has been trying to inflict damage with drone strikes, including those that have targeted energy infrastructure in both Khartoum and Port Sudan.

Fighting has also been ongoing in el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state in western Sudan, as well as some key supply lines in Kordofan.

More than 12 million people have been forcibly displaced by the war so far, with tens of thousands killed and many exposed to ethnicity-based violence.

Dagalo, who leads the rival Rapid Support Forces paramilitary, also announces a government as war ravages Sudan.

Sudan’s army chief and de facto head of state, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has appointed former United Nations official Kamil Idris as prime minister as part of changes to his sovereign council as the nation’s civil war grinds on into its third year.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed, critical infrastructure has been destroyed and more than 12 million people have been displaced as a result of the war, which shows no signs of stopping as vying leaders seek to consolidate their power.

“The chairman of the sovereignty council issued a constitutional decree appointing Kamil El-Tayeb Idris Abdelhafiz as prime minister,” a statement from Sudan’s ruling Transitional Sovereignty Council read on Monday.

Idris, a career diplomat, spent decades at the UN’s World Intellectual Property Organisation and was its director general from 1997 to 2008.

He also held various roles in Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and used to serve in the country’s permanent mission to the UN.

Idris, whose higher education was in international law and international affairs, also ran as an independent candidate in Sudan’s presidential election in 2010 against longtime military ruler Omar al-Bashir, who was later ousted in a 2019 coup.

The new prime minister replaces veteran diplomat Dafallah al-Haj Ali, who was appointed by al-Burhan less than a month ago as acting premier.

On Monday, al-Burhan also added two women to the council.

The military leader reappointed Salma Abdel Jabbar Almubarak and named Nowara Abo Mohamed Mohamed Tahir to the governing body.

The al-Burhan-led military and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary headed by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, have been at war for more than two years after the two generals failed to agree on a plan to integrate their forces.

As al-Burhan tried to form an army-led government, Dagalo also announced the formation of a rival administration last month, shortly after signing a charter with allies in Kenya’s Nairobi.

The army, which holds areas in the central, eastern and northern parts of Sudan, has managed to claim some military victories in recent months, including taking control of the capital, Khartoum.

The RSF, which holds most of the western region of Darfur and some areas in the south with its allied militias, has been striking Port Sudan repeatedly this month to devastating effect.

Meanwhile, a worsening humanitarian crisis continues to engulf Sudan.

International organisations and some countries have warned of the risks of further escalating the conflict, including in cities like el-Fasher in Darfur that have served as humanitarian aid hubs.

On May 4, Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) launched a barrage of suicide drones at Port Sudan, the army’s de facto wartime capital on the Red Sea.

The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) accused foreign actors of supporting the RSF’s attacks and even threatened to sever ties with one of its biggest trading partners.

The RSF surprised many with the strikes. It had used drones before, but never hit targets as far away as Port Sudan, which used to be a haven, until last week.

“The strikes … led to a huge displacement from the city. Many people left Port Sudan,” Aza Aera, a local relief worker, told Al Jazeera. “If the aggression continues … I think I’ll leave like everyone else.”

A drone war

When a civil war erupted between the SAF and RSF in April 2023, the army had aerial supremacy due to its fleet of warplanes and drones.

Yet the RSF is closing the gap with an arsenal of suicide drones, which it used on Port Sudan for six consecutive days, hitting an army base, a civilian airport, several hotels, and a fuel depot, which caused a massive blast.

“Sudan had already entered the phase of drone warfare over the last … few months at least,” said Suliman Baldo, the founder of the Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker think tank.

The army largely relies on the relatively affordable Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drones, reportedly receiving $120m worth of them since late 2023.

Bayraktars can travel long distances with a large payload, and the army says they helped it regain swaths of territory from the RSF in eastern and central Sudan between September 2024 and March 2025, including the capital Khartoum.

Despite losing significant ground, the RSF then stepped up its aggression against the SAF with Chinese-made drones, according to a recent report by Amnesty International.

The human rights group, Sudan’s de facto military government and other monitors all accuse the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of purchasing these drones – and other weapons – and supplying them to the RSF.

The UAE has denied the accusations as “baseless”.

“The UAE strongly rejects the suggestion that it is supplying weapons to any party involved in the ongoing conflict in Sudan,” said Salem Aljaberi, a spokesperson for the UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a statement on X.

Regardless, the increasing use of drones by both sides marks an escalation and risks exacerbating an already catastrophic situation for civilians, according to experts and human rights monitors.

Bold announcement

On May 6, the army-backed authorities in Port Sudan announced the severing of all ties with the UAE after accusing it of being behind the attacks.

That announcement was not well thought-out, according to Baldo.

Sudan’s army could lose tens of millions of dollars in gold revenue, as well as access to vital banking operations, he told Al Jazeera.

A UAE-backed company, Emiral Resources, owns a majority of shares in Sudan’s largest gold mine, the Kush mine.

Kush is administered by Sudan’s army, which likely sells tens of millions of dollars worth of gold to the UAE.

According to the Central Bank of Sudan, about 97 percent of gold exports from army-controlled areas went to the UAE in 2023.

Kush exported at least one tonne of gold in 2024, although it is unclear how much higher the number is for production.

Furthermore, UAE banks own a majority share in the Bank of Khartoum, whose digital platform, Bankak, facilitates money transfers for millions of displaced Sudanese and public institutions.

The UAE state also owns El Nilein Bank, which manages and approves international transactions on behalf of Port Sudan, according to a report that Baldo co-authored in March for the Chatham House think tank.

“This was a rushed decision [to cut ties with the UAE] that will have serious consequences … due to the UAE’s control over [Sudan’s] national economy,” Baldo told Al Jazeera.

Major escalation?

Sudan’s army has not clarified how and when it will sever ties with the UAE.

On May 6, SAF chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan vowed in a video to “defeat the militia (RSF) and those who help them”.

Al Jazeera sent written questions to army spokesperson Nabil Abdullah, asking if Port Sudan will implement the announced suspension.

No reply was received by time of publication.

For its part, the UAE’s Foreign Ministry told Al Jazeera in an email that it will not retaliate against Port Sudan.

“The statement issued by the so-called ‘Security and Defence Council’ will not affect the deep-rooted and enduring ties between the UAE and the Republic of the Sudan, and their peoples,” the emailed statement said.

Meanwhile, experts and observers believe the war in Sudan is trending towards a major escalation.

The army’s regional backers could respond to the RSF’s increased use of drones by doubling down on their support for the army, warned Alan Boswell, a Sudan expert for the International Crisis Group.

“The obvious risk [from the attacks on Port Sudan] is that it brings other [regional powers] into deeper involvement on the army’s side,” he told Al Jazeera.

“We could see an escalating war with greater and greater firepower, and nothing would be left of Sudan’s infrastructure by the end of it.”

The latest attacks come as the African Union rejects any ‘interference’ in the civil war, which has killed more than 20,000 people.

The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have said the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed seven people in artillery shelling on el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state in western Sudan.

A statement from the military-aligned government said on Monday that the RSF shelling that began late on Sunday targeted residential neighbourhoods, killing seven people, including women and children, and wounding at least 15, who were taken to hospitals.

On Sunday, the army also said the RSF shelling in the city killed nine people.

El-Fasher has witnessed intense fighting between SAF and RSF since May 2024, despite international warnings about the risks of violence in a city that serves as a key humanitarian hub for the five Darfur states.

For more than a year, the RSF has sought to wrest control of it, located more than 800km (500 miles) southwest of the capital, Khartoum, from the Sudanese army, launching regular attacks on the city and two major famine-hit camps for displaced people on its outskirts.

The RSF and the SAF have been locked in a brutal power struggle since April 2023, resulting in thousands of deaths and pushing Sudan into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, according to the United Nations.

More than 20,000 people have been killed and 15 million displaced in the brutal civil war now in its third year, according to UN and local figures. However, some United States-based researchers estimate the actual death toll to be as high as 130,000.

Won’t accept ‘any interference’

Meanwhile, the African Union (AU) said on Monday it would not accept “any interference” in Sudan after the RSF was accused of receiving weapons from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Last week, the Sudanese government severed diplomatic relations with the UAE, accusing it of supplying weapons to the RSF.

Amnesty International has also accused the UAE of supplying weapons to the RSF, in violation of a UN arms embargo.

The UAE has rejected the claims as “baseless”.

“The Commission’s position is that member states are sovereign states, and the AU Commission will not accept any interference in the internal affairs of Sudan,” said AU Chairperson Mahamoud Ali Youssouf.

“We will not support any intervention, any interference in the crisis in Sudan,” he said.

However, Youssouf declined to comment on the UAE’s possible role in the conflict. “It is not the role of the AU. Sudan has accused the Emirates; it is up to Sudan to provide this evidence,” he said.

The foreign minister of Djibouti was elected head of the pan-African organisation in February, inheriting multiple conflicts and a record of ineffectual statements.

Among the top of his priorities coming into the post was the Sudan civil war, which has effectively cleaved the country in two.

Both sides have been accused of committing war crimes.

In recent days, drone attacks attributed by the army to the RSF have increased, marking a turning point in the two-year conflict.

Drone attacks have also notably targeted strategic sites in Port Sudan, the temporary seat of government and the logistical humanitarian epicentre.

In February, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged a halt to the “flow of arms” into Sudan.