12 MAY 26 - Over the last week, drones continued to shape the war in Sudan, allowing SAF to strike deep into RSF territory in an apparent attempt to target RSF leadership in South Darfur capital Nyala.
Another strike in Kordofan reportedly killed 15 civilians travelling in a truck, adding to a total of at least 880 people killed by drones this year and prompting calls for both warring parties to distance themselves from civilian populations.
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Drones target RSF meeting in Nyala
Senior members of the RSF and other strategic sites have reportedly been targeted in two days of drone strike on South Darfur capital Nyala.
A strike on Saturday evening targeted a house in the east of the city a short time after a meeting of unnamed senior members of the RSF leadership, according to Dabanga.
Further strikes on Sunday targeted a neighbourhood site as well as the city’s airport and an RSF training camp, Sudan Tribune reports.
Nyala serves as the administrative capital of the RSF-led parallel government, which comprises the member organisations of the Sudan Founding Alliance, also known as Tasis.
Recent months have seen repeated drone strikes on the city, sometimes occurring in spates over a period of days.
On 31 March, a member of Tasis’s leadership body, Osama Hassan Hussein, was killed in a strike on a house in the city, according to Darfur24. The incident was described as a “political assassination” by Tasis’s parallel government.
Earlier the same month, 10 civilians were killed and seven were injured in a strike on a market.
Last week, UNHCR said strikes on a neighbourhood housing “significant humanitarian offices and residences” in Nyala had caused “extensive structural damage and disrupted critical life saving operations”.
The city’s airport is also a key launch site for the RSF’s drones as well as an important node in its supply lines, and has previously been the target of SAF strikes.
Reports suggested that, following the latest attack, the RSF cut off telecommunications in Nyala.
Seventeen people killed in Kordofan drone strike
Seventeen people were killed in a drone strike on a truck as it travelled near a contested area of Kordofan on Saturday, according to reports.
Citing witnesses, the Darfur Victims Support (DVS) group said the truck was travelling on the road between El Dubeibat, South Kordofan and Abu Zabad, West Kordofan when it was hit at around 3pm local time.
The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said 17 people had been killed, while DVS said women and children were among the dead and that 22 people had been injured.
Footage shared by DVS showed a large, burned-out truck with a fire still burning on the flatbed.
The area where the truck was hit is close to the border between territories controlled by SAF and the RSF.
DVS said it believed SAF was “fully responsible” for the strike and called on the RSF to “stay away from populated areas”.
On Monday, the UN said drones accounted for at least 880 civilian deaths in Sudan between January and April of this year, with most of those in Kordofan.
“Armed drones have now become by far and away the leading cause of civilian deaths,” said UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk.
He called on the international community to pursue stronger measures to prevent the transfer of arms, and particularly advanced drone technology, to the warring parties.
“Drone attacks against civilians and civilian objects will only worsen if they are met with utter impunity, with this violence being increasingly normalized as a go-to tactic by both parties,” he said.
SAF recapture of garrison town stalls RSF gains in Blue Nile
The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have recaptured a key garrison town in Blue Nile after months of gains by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), according to reports.
In a statement, SAF said its forces had “succeeded in liberating” the town of Al Kili following fighting on Saturday.
The garrison, which fell to the RSF on 25 April, lies east of the main road connecting the town of Kurmuk on the Ethiopian border with Blue Nile state capital Damazin.
SAF posted footage, purportedly shot near Al Kili, showing its troops engaged in a gunfight in a remote area of woodland and claimed to have “inflicted heavy losses on the rebel militia”.
One social media video of SAF soldiers was geolocated to a medical facility inside the town, Sudan War Monitor reports.
Since launching the current spate of attacks in Blue Nile in January, the RSF has made sporadic gains across the south of the state, most notably taking control of Kurmuk in late March.
The offensive is thought to be part of a broader attempt to secure new supply lines from Ethiopia. Retaking Al Kili could allow SAF to target Kurmuk and hamper those efforts.
A report published last month by the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab used satellite images to conclude that vehicles and weaponry of the sort being used by the RSF in Blue Nile had been delivered to a military base in the Ethiopian town of Asosa.
Despite evidence of its support for the RSF, sports clubs around the world continue to maintain ties with the United Arab Emirates.
On Thursday, Crisis Action will host a briefing on the country’s role in the war in Sudan and the growing calls on the sporting world to cut ties.
Find more details and register to join here.
In a video statement, the Kurmuk regional governor, Abdul Ati Mohammed Al-Faki, described the recapture of Al Kili as the “beginning of the end" for the RSF.
Sudan Tribune reported that people gathered in streets of Damazin, to where thousands have been displaced by fighting in the south, to celebrate the recapture of Al Kili.
The RSF and SPLM-N have, however, reportedly continued to make gains elsewhere in Blue Nile.
On Saturday, the SPLM-N claimed to have taken the towns of Dukan and Keren Keren, which sit to the west of the Damazin-Kirmuk highway.
Footage shared by the group showed its soldiers engaged in a gunfight as well as moving through an empty village, purportedly after the withdrawal of SAF forces.
Two days earlier, insecurity displaced 4,650 people across Dukan, Keren Keren, and the more southerly village of Khor Hassan, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
The IOM has also said that, between 11 January and 4 May, more than 49,000 people were displaced across Blue Nile.
Efforts to stop further progress north by the RSF and SPLM-N include the deployment of the SAF-allied Sudan Shield militia to the state, Ayin reports.
Latest commander leaves RSF
A senior RSF commander has become the latest figure to leave the group, announcing that he is “no longer affiliated” with any party and calling for an end to the war.
In a video address on Monday, Ali Rizq Allah, also known as “Savannah”, described himself as an “advocate of peace, education, and more”, adding that “from today, I am no longer part of the Rapid Support Forces”.
“I officially and fully announce my defection... and I align my voice with the voice of the Sudanese people across all parts of Sudan,” he said.
“I am no longer affiliated with any other party.”
Savannah, who held the rank of brigadier general, led RSF operations in En Nahud and Al-Khawi, areas of West Kordofan that fell to the group last year, Sudan Tribune reports. He is also thought to have played a role in recruiting mercenaries from South Sudan, Chad, and Niger.
On Tuesday, the Emergency Lawyers human rights group said in a statement that “changes in military affiliation do not alter the reality of responsibility for grave violations of human rights, nor do they suspend their legal consequences”.
“Accountability remains tied to the act at the time it was committed and to the chain of command that enabled or allowed its continuation, and no transfer between formations can grant immunity or close the file of violations,” it said.
Savannah’s departure comes just weeks after another senior commander, General Al-Nour Ahmed Adam "Guba”, defected from the RSF to SAF.
Reports at the time of Guba’s defection suggested that Savannah was already frustrated with RSF leadership over supply shortages and favouritism towards members of the Dagalo family.
Guba’s warm treatment following his defection - which included a personal reception by SAF leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and a gift of a car - was thought to be intended to encourage other RSF commanders to defect.
Savannah was also previously allied with Musa Hilal, a prominent Arab tribal leader in Darfur who has clashed with the RSF in recent months.
Call for release of journalist detained in North Darfur
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on the RSF to release a journalist allegedly kidnapped by the group in North Darfur.
Adam Issac Minan was detained on 5 April in the city of Kutum, the CPJ said, citing two journalists who spoke on condition of anonymity.
He is believed to have been taken to El Fasher before being moved to Dagreis prison in Nyala.
Minan is a reporter at the North Darfur State Radio and Television Corporation and has previously worked for a number of other outlets, including Darfur 24.
His brother was also reportedly detained.
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CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah said Minan’s detention “underscores the RSF’s ongoing assault on press freedom and the climate of impunity surrounding attacks on journalists in Sudan”.
“The RSF must immediately reveal Minan’s whereabouts, ensure his safe release, and allow journalists to work freely without fear of abduction,” she said.
Another journalist, Muammar Ibrahim, remains held by the RSF having been detained following the fall of El Fasher more than six months ago.
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