The U.N.’s top human rights official warned on Thursday of “another wave of atrocities” in Sudan’s civil war as paramilitary groups intensify an offensive on an oil-rich crucial region bordering Darfur.
In October, one of the groups, the Rapid Support Forces, seized the famine-stricken city of El Fasher from the Sudanese military, unleashing widespread violence against civilians. Heavy fighting has now surged across the sprawling Kordofan region, which connects central Sudan to Darfur.
“It is truly shocking to see history repeating itself in Kordofan so soon after the horrific events in El Fasher,” said Volker Türk, the U.N. human rights chief. “We must not allow Kordofan to become another El Fasher.”
The region is important for both sides of the conflict. To regain its territorial foothold in Darfur, the Sudanese military will need to secure key routes through Kordofan. Control of the region would allow the Rapid Support Forces to build on its momentum and choke the flow of movement between the center of the country and Darfur.
Nearly 40,000 people have been displaced in the state of North Kordofan, according to the International Organization for Migration, where paramilitary forces captured the city of Bara in late October. The U.N. has documented deaths from aerial strikes, shelling and summary executions, and believes the number of civilian casualties is likely to be “much higher” than what is being officially recorded.
In West Kordofan, the Rapid Support Forces said on Monday that it had claimed the town of Babnusa, a key economic center. The Sudanese Armed Forces denied on Tuesday that it had lost control of Babnusa, saying that fighting was still taking place.
And in South Kordofan, civilians in the towns of Kadugli and Dilling have been trapped in “siege conditions,” according to UNICEF, with those trying to escape facing dangerous conditions.
Sudan’s long-running civil war is widely considered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. The fighting has raged for more than two years, forced 12 million people from their homes and left as many as 400,000 people dead, by some estimates.
The U.N. migration agency estimates that nearly 100,000 people have fled El Fasher in recent weeks, but only about 10,000 have arrived in Tawila, the nearest city with a sizable international aid presence. On the way out of El Fasher, civilians have faced gunfire and abductions.
Pranav Baskar is an international reporter and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers.
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