PORT SUDAN: Violence in western and southern Sudan displaced more than 10,000 people within a three-day period this week, according to figures released by the United Nations’ migration agency on Sunday.

Since April 2023, Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have waged what the UN has called a “war of atrocities”, killing tens of thousands of people and uprooting more than 11 million.

Between December 25 and 26, attacks on the villages of Um Baru and Kernoi near Sudan’s western border with Chad displaced more than 7,000 people, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

After its takeover of the North Darfur capital of El-Fasher in October, the RSF has pushed westward in recent days, through enclaves inhabited by the Zaghawa ethnic group and controlled by an army-allied militia.

On Friday, two Chadian soldiers were killed by an RSF drone that hit the border town of Tine, a Chadian military source told AFP.

Between Christmas Eve and Friday, a further 3,100 people were displaced from the famine-stricken city of Kadugli in South Kordofan, which has been under siege by paramilitary forces for over a year and a half.

Resource-rich Kordofan is currently witnessing the fiercest fighting, as the RSF and its allies seek to recapture Sudan’s central corridor, leading from Darfur back towards the capital Khartoum.

The conflict has created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.

It has also effectively split Sudan in two, with the army controlling the north, east and centre while the RSF dominates all five state capitals in Darfur and, with its allies, parts of the south.

Published in Dawn, December 29th, 2025