Description: The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have reported that they have successfully repelled several attacks by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in West Kordofan. The RSF has expanded their ground offensive after the fall of El Fasher towards the tristate Kordofan. SAF reported that attacks have been successfully repelled in the city of Babnusa where satellite images obtained by several media outlets demonstrated the RSF’s rapid withdrawal under immense pressure from the SAF. In the North Kordofan province, the RSF are targeting the city of El Obeid which is hosting a large military base and serves as a ground buffer zone for the country’s capital, Khartoum. Also, in North Kordofan, the military forces managed to overwhelm the RSF in the cities of Kazqil, Um Dam and Haj Ahmed. Reports from the cities in the Darfur province controlled by the RSF have emerged, attesting to the group’s genocidal practices.
Impact: Expectedly, the RSF has immediately started to expand their ground offensive towards the cities in the Kordofan province leveraging their previous success in Darfur. The SAF initially failed to prevent a rapid offensive but ever since managed to mobilize across crucial strategic cities such as the city of El Obeid which is central to the fortification of the North Kordofan province. Intense fighting will continue across all three states in Kordofan, the western, southern and northern parts, where the SAF are expected to invest significant military assets such as troops, equipment and aerial forces to counter the RSF’s rapid offensive. This in turn would enable the RSF to exploit their superiority in the air and launch drone strikes in other important cities under SAF’s control such as Khartoum and Port Sudan. Both warring parties have invested insignificant efforts to support the peace initiative proposed by the US, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates which signals indefinite continuation of the war in the foreseeable future. The country is also facing one of the largest outbreaks of cholera in the past couple of years as well as internal and external displacement of civilians which instigates large scale refugee and humanitarian crises. Since proposing the peace plan, no significant efforts have been made on the diplomatic front from the four countries asphyxiating any potential for diplomatic reengagement in the short to mid – term period.