Beyond Darfur: Escalating Attacks in Kordofan, Gezira and Central Sudan

Having consolidated control of Darfur, the RSF has expanded operations into the Kordofan region and continued attacks in central Sudan through mid-2026, including drone strikes on cities and markets and ground attacks on villages during religious holidays, in a pattern the UN's Fact-Finding Mission warns could again amount to genocide.

The RSF now controls all of Darfur and is attempting to expand into the Kordofan region. The UN Fact-Finding Mission has warned that the conflict trajectory in the Kordofans "could amount to genocide," putting civilian populations at extreme risk. Since October 2025 the RSF has escalated air and drone strikes on the Kordofans, hitting civilians and civilian infrastructure including medical facilities and schools.

The International Organization for Migration estimates that between 25 October and 30 December 2025 alone, at least 42,780 people were displaced in North Kordofan; civilians attempting to flee are reportedly extorted, ethnically targeted, or killed in many cases.

In late May 2026, a Sudanese medical group, the Sudan Doctors' network, reported RSF-linked fighters killed 27 civilians, including elderly people, in North Kordofan villages near contested Barah during the Eid al-Adha holiday, in an area the group said lacked any military presence -- part of the RSF's tightening hold over resource-rich Darfur and Kordofan amid a worsening humanitarian crisis, with war deaths estimated to have surpassed 59,000 by that point.

"Targeting villages and civilian areas and liquidating citizens in this horrific manner constitutes a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law."
— Sudan Doctors' network

In central Sudan, a drone strike on a busy market killed 28 people and wounded dozens more, reported in late May 2026. Overnight drone strikes on the city of el-Obeid in southern Kordofan killed up to 23 people according to local rights group Emergency Lawyers and el-Obeid Hospital officials, hitting residential areas, a funeral gathering, and a food-supply truck, as well as areas near army positions, in an 11 June 2026 report. Emergency Lawyers blamed the RSF, which did not immediately claim responsibility.

Earlier in the year, in a separate incident in South Kordofan, clashes between forces linked to the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North and the Otoro tribe killed over 61 people, including nine children -- illustrating the broader multi-actor collapse of civilian protection in the region even where the RSF is not the sole party involved.

The Sudanese army separately regained near-total control of Gezira state, retaking it from the RSF in a reversal of the RSF's late-2023 seizure that had displaced hundreds of thousands from the city of Wad Madani. Khartoum itself, retaken by the army in March, was described as a "burnt-out shell," with government ministries, banks and office blocks blackened and hospitals and clinics destroyed by air strikes and artillery, in some cases with patients still inside.

Sources

  • Global R2P -- RSF control of Darfur, Kordofan expansion warning, Kalogi strike, IOM displacement figures
  • Los Angeles Times -- North Kordofan Eid al-Adha killings, market drone strike, Otoro tribe clash death toll, nationwide death estimate
  • Al Jazeera -- El-Obeid drone strikes, casualty figures from Emergency Lawyers and hospital officials
  • BBC News -- Gezira/Wad Madani recapture, condition of Khartoum after the RSF withdrawal