The Sudanese Army, with the support of allied forces, intensified its operations this Sunday in the west of North Kordofan state through a large-scale offensive that, according to military command, has allowed government troops to take control of up to eleven areas in a few hours and approach the positions that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) still hold in the region.
The most intense fighting is concentrated in the vicinity of Sodari, Umm Badr, and Hamrat al Sheikh, with active participation from the Joint Forces, aligned with the regular Army.
Military sources cited by the newspaper "Sudan Tribune" indicate that government units have forced the RSF to abandon several of their positions and retreat westward, towards Darfur, while the troops conduct search and tracking operations in the areas located west of El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan.
Among the areas whose recovery has been announced by the Army are Kajmar, Sharshar, Al Baniya, Al Kurayniya, Al Qulaiat, Awlad Hazma, Magwildat, Rayshan, Al Qaa, Ghabat al Laqad, Al Kukaiti, and the surroundings of Al Mazrub.
Military command maintains that the clashes have caused numerous casualties among the paramilitaries and that their forces have continued pursuing the RSF to the vicinity of the border with Darfur. However, the paramilitary forces have not yet responded to these assertions, and the actual control of some of the mentioned localities has not been independently verified.
The Army spokesperson, Assem Awad Abdel Wahab, has assured that the paramilitary forces have suffered "great casualties among their fighters" and has insisted that some of their members have been pursued "to the borders of Darfur."
The offensive was launched on Thursday, September 17, and represents one of the most significant military advances in this area in recent months. For its part, the spokesperson for the Joint Forces, Mutawakkil Ali Wakil, has indicated that their forces have seized more than 60 operational military vehicles and destroyed another 120, in addition to confiscating depots with weapons, ammunition, and "other types" of military equipment.
The Army has also resorted to the use of drones to strike the positions of the RSF and their supply routes. In this regard, military sources cited by the same media point to an increase in airstrikes since Wednesday in North Kordofan and West Kordofan, with the aim of halting or complicating the arrival of reinforcements from the west.
This new military campaign comes after several weeks of progress by government forces on the ground.
The increase in violence is immediately affecting the civilian population. Thousands of residents of Hamrat al Sheikh left the town this Sunday in the face of the advance of the troops and the severity of the clashes. Local human rights organizations have reported that the RSF had deployed numerous vehicles and heavy weaponry in residential areas, which has forced many families to take refuge in areas of vegetation or to move to places they consider safer, such as Al Dabbah, in the neighboring state of North.
The civil war in Sudan erupted in April 2023 due to deep disagreements over the process of integrating the paramilitary group within the Armed Forces, which ultimately derailed the transition that had been opened after the overthrow in 2019 of the regime of Omar Hasán al Bashir, already eroded after the coup that ousted then-Prime Minister Abdalá Hamdok.
The conflict, in which several countries are involved in support of the different parties, has plunged the country into one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, with millions of displaced persons and refugees, and has raised international alarm over the spread of diseases and the severe damage to essential infrastructure, which hinders care for hundreds of thousands of affected people.