Sudanese Army Repelled in Blue Nile State as RSF Regains Strategic Border Town
The advance comes amidst intensifying drone and artillery warfare across Sudan, with the conflict now displacing nearly 15 million people and causing widespread casualties since April 2023.
Military and government sources have confirmed that Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), alongside allies including the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement – North (SPLM-N), have advanced into the strategically significant border town of Kurmuk in Blue Nile State. The incursion occurred on Thursday as the Sudanese army began to withdraw from the area, repositioning its forces outside the town.
An RSF-led coalition statement asserted that it had inflicted heavy losses on army troops, forcing the retreat and resulting in the seizure of weapons and ammunition. The local administration in Kurmuk corroborated the escalation, confirming that the town had endured intensive attacks over the preceding three days. These assaults involved drones and artillery shelling, which officials stated originated from the regional neighbourhood. Despite the army’s withdrawal, the local administration noted that troops continued to confront the attacks in defence of public institutions and residents.
Kurmuk occupies a critical position on a cross-border route linking Ethiopia with Blue Nile and the wider Nile Valley. Control of the town has shifted frequently; the RSF-led coalition seized Kurmuk in March, only for the Sudanese army to recapture it last month. The current advance marks a significant reversal for government forces in this sector of the conflict.
In a separate development in North Kordofan, the Sudanese army claims to have repelled an RSF assault on the town of Jabra al-Sheikh. Military sources told Al Jazeera that the paramilitary group attacked using heavy artillery and drones, deploying more than 250 combat vehicles. The army reported that dozens of RSF fighters were killed and others captured during the engagement. Jabra al-Sheikh serves as a key transport hub, and its strategic value lies in its proximity to el-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan, and Omdurman near the capital, Khartoum.
These territorial shifts follow a day of coordinated drone strikes by the RSF targeting five army-controlled cities hundreds of kilometres apart. The strikes on Wednesday killed two people in el-Obeid and paralysed the city’s market, according to the rights group Emergency Lawyers. The ongoing war, which began in April 2023 over plans to integrate the RSF into the regular military, has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and displaced nearly 15 million people, creating what the United Nations describes as a “war of atrocities” and the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.
