A rebel group aligned with Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed 27 people, including four children and several women, in attacks on civilian communities in South Kordofan, a province in south-central Sudan. The Sudan Doctors Network, a medical advocacy organisation, said fighters from the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) struck the areas of Qardud and Abu Hamama, home to the Otoro, a minority tribe living in the Nuba Mountains region. The attacks triggered large-scale displacement toward the Abu Hitan area and the city of Kadugli, the provincial capital.
The Sudan Doctors Network condemned the killings as a violation of international humanitarian law, warning that ethnically targeted attacks risk transforming what is already a multi-front civil war into a broader ethnic conflict. The Otoro and SPLM-N forces have clashed repeatedly this year, with tensions rooted in longstanding land disputes. The SPLM-N is a breakaway faction of the SPLM, the ruling party of neighbouring South Sudan; its leader, Abdel Aziz al-Hilu, has thrown his forces behind the RSF and joined the RSF-aligned parallel government operating in Sudan. The civil war itself erupted in April 2023, when the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF — previously uneasy partners following the 2019 removal of longtime president Omar al-Bashir — turned on each other, shattering Sudan's fragile transition toward civilian rule.
On the diplomatic front, the United States pressed the UN Security Council this week to expand existing arms embargo measures beyond the Darfur region to cover all of Sudan, explicitly including drones and related technologies. US adviser Massad Boulos argued that continued foreign military, financial, and logistical support from outside actors is prolonging the conflict. Sudan's army chief, General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, rejected the proposed sanctions, saying his forces would fight until all RSF-held territory was recaptured. Egypt has openly backed the Sudanese military, while the United Arab Emirates has denied allegations of arming the RSF.
A parallel political effort has also stalled. A gathering of Sudanese opposition parties and civil society groups meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, rejected Burhan's proposed national dialogue, saying it cannot deliver peace while active fighting continues and while the RSF is excluded from the process. Former Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok echoed that position, insisting no credible peace process is possible without a cessation of hostilities. Critics accused Burhan of using the initiative to legitimise his authority following the 2021 military coup.
The scale of suffering makes the diplomatic deadlock deeply consequential. The war has killed at least 59,000 people and displaced around 13 million — roughly 8.7 million of them internally, across all 18 of Sudan's states. The UN human rights office documented approximately 1,400 civilian deaths in the first half of this year alone, with around 1,100 attributed to drone strikes carried out by both sides on markets, schools, and water infrastructure. Some 33.7 million people — two-thirds of Sudan's population — now require humanitarian assistance, according to the World Health Organization. UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher urged the Security Council to prioritise food, water, and medicine over weapons, as efforts to broker a lasting ceasefire remain elusive.