More than 16,000 people have been forced to flee their homes across several regions of war-ravaged Sudan within just one week, according to data released on Wednesday by the United Nations migration agency.
Fighting between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF)—ongoing since April 2023—has escalated recently in the west and south of the country. Since losing control of Khartoum in March, the RSF has pushed to seize more territory in Sudan’s remote regions, severing army supply routes while entrenching its own hold.
The UN’s International Organisation for Migration (IOM) reported that between Thursday and Saturday, nearly 11,000 people were displaced from 10 villages in Al Quoz locality in South Kordofan. The area sits just south of El-Obeid, a major army-held crossroads linking Khartoum to the Darfur region, where the RSF controls most of the territory.
In the far north, along the Sudanese borders with Libya and Egypt, an additional 4,278 people were uprooted between 15 and 17 June following reported clashes between army forces and the RSF, the IOM stated. On Saturday, the RSF captured the strategic border zone of Al-Muthallath after the army withdrew.
The 700-kilometre (430-mile) stretch from the border to El-Fasher—the last major town in Darfur not controlled by the RSF—serves as a vital desert supply corridor for fuel, ammunition, and troops. The RSF has kept El-Fasher under siege for more than a year, routinely attacking both the town and the nearby famine-stricken displacement camps.
According to the IOM, approximately 1,000 people were also displaced from El-Fasher and the Abu Shouk displacement camp between 10 and 11 June.
Sudan remains the site of the world’s largest displacement crisis, with more than 10 million people internally displaced amid a dire humanitarian catastrophe. An additional 4 million have crossed international borders since the conflict erupted.
