Sudan

Escalating violence in and around the Sudanese city of El Obeid is putting civilians at increased risk and disrupting essential services, the UN aid coordination office OCHA said on Monday. 

Following reports of a significant troop build-up by the Rapid Support Forces and allied forces around El Obeid [the capital of North Kordofan state], as well as intensified drone strikes and artillery shelling, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Thursday issued a stark warning that an imminent offensive risked fresh commission of serious international crimes and deepening the catastrophic impact on an already beleaguered civilian population.

[EU Ambassador to Sudan Wolfram] Vetter said the EU delegation urged Sudanese officials to push for a durable ceasefire, open humanitarian corridors, and immediately halt attacks on civilians and infrastructure.

The number of internally displaced persons in Sudan has fallen to 8.8 million, driven by a significant increase in people returning to their home areas, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Monday. The current figure represents a 24% decrease from the peak of 11,585,384 displaced individuals recorded in January 2025.

Escalating attacks on bridges, roads and other civilian infrastructure in Sudan are disrupting humanitarian access and putting civilians at further risk, the United Nations said on Tuesday. … A senior UN official addressed how the Sudan war is affecting Chad in a briefing to the Security Council on developments across the Central Africa region. 

The United Nations Special Envoy to Sudan, Pekka Haavisto, on Sunday requested that Sovereign Council Chairman and army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan back ongoing consultations led by a five-party mechanism regarding a future political process.

[…] Although its roots are domestic, it is non-Sudanese actors that have kept the war alive. Externally procured weapons and cross-border logistical pipelines have sustained the battlefield capacity of both the SAF and RSF. That support shapes each side’s calculus, making continued fighting appear more rational than a negotiated exit.  This diagnosis is increasingly articulated by policymakers and diplomats. Yet a coherent international strategy to disrupt flows of arms and funding into Sudan has yet to emerge.

The protection environment across Sudan has entered a catastrophic phase, characterized by systematic violence against civilians, severe movement restrictions, and the near-total collapse of protective infrastructure, a joint review of UN and humanitarian assessments revealed on Sunday.

The Sudan Protection Cluster warned that the breakdown of civilian defence systems is most acute across Darfur, Kordofan, and Khartoum.

Drones caused more than 80 per cent of civilian deaths in Sudan’s war during the first four months of 2026, killing at least 880 people, the UN human rights chief said on Monday, warning that escalating drone warfare could push the conflict into an even deadlier phase. 

Sudan has accused neighbouring Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of orchestrating drone strikes on its main airport, describing the assault as "direct aggression". The international airport, located in the capital, was hit on Monday, along with military installations in the Greater Khartoum area. Recent drone strikes have shattered a period of relative calm in Khartoum, which came after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) was pushed out by the Sudanese military last year.