More than 36,800 people have fled Sudan’s Kordofan region since 26 October, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said, after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized the city of El Fasher in neighbouring Darfur. The movement — recorded between 26 and 31 October — involved people from five localities in North Kordofan, many travelling on foot toward Tawila, a town west of El Fasher that is already hosting more than 652,000 displaced people.
The central Kordofan area, which links Darfur to the Khartoum-Riverine region and the capital, has become a new front in the two-year war between the Sudanese armed forces (SAF) and the RSF. Both sides are contesting control of El Obeid, the North Kordofan state capital and a key logistics hub with an airport, while the RSF has claimed control of Bara, north of El Obeid.
Humanitarian and rights organizations say the capture of El Fasher has been accompanied by widespread atrocities and forced displacement. The International Criminal Court prosecutors said they are collecting evidence of alleged mass killings, sexual violence and other crimes in El Fasher, and are taking immediate steps to preserve material for potential future prosecutions. Witnesses have reported house-to-house killings and sexual assaults, and the World Health Organization reported that gunmen killed at least 460 people at a hospital and abducted medical staff.
Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), described the situation as horrific and warned that patterns from past Darfur violence are reappearing. The RSF evolved from the Janjaweed militias that were implicated in mass atrocities in the early 2000s, and aid agencies fear reprisals against non-Arab communities where RSF advances occur.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification has detected famine in El Fasher and Kadugli in South Kordofan and warned that around 20 additional areas across Darfur and Kordofan are at imminent risk. The broader conflict has produced one of the worst humanitarian crises of the 21st century: UN and humanitarian reports estimate over 150,000 killed and more than 14 million people displaced across Sudan.
On the ground in North Kordofan, residents report heavier troop and vehicle presence from both RSF and army forces. Farmers say they have stopped going to their fields for fear of clashes, and aid workers in Tawila say many of those arriving are exhausted, wounded or collapsing and dying en route. The ICRC has warned that many people remain trapped in El Fasher without reliable access to food, water or medical care.
UN officials and rights monitors have sounded the alarm about large-scale atrocities, including ethnically motivated reprisals. Sudan’s ambassador to Egypt, Imadeldin Mustafa Adawi, accused the RSF of committing war crimes in El Fasher, said the government will not negotiate with the paramilitary group, and urged the international community to consider terrorist designations. The pope called for an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian corridors, appealing for protection of civilians and unfettered aid access, and Turkey’s president urged the Muslim world to speak out against the massacres.
ICRC and UN leaders cautioned that the conflict fits a broader global trend of intensifying wars and rising violations of the rules of armed conflict. Meanwhile, humanitarian agencies, courts and investigators are racing to document abuses, deliver relief where possible, and warn that the displacement and hunger unfolding in Kordofan and Darfur could deepen if fighting continues.
