114 Killed in Past Week as SAF-RSF Fighting Intensifies in Sudan

By Al Mayadeen English

5 Jan 2026 08:28

At least 114 people were killed and thousands displaced this past week as fighting between Sudan’s army and the RSF escalated across Darfur and Kordofan, with drone strikes, ethnic targeting, and worsening humanitarian conditions deepening the crisis.

At least 114 people have been killed in a surge of violence across Sudan’s western regions, as clashes between the country’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) intensified over the past week, according to medical sources cited by AFP on Sunday.

Sudan has been engulfed in war since April 2023, pitting the military led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan against the RSF, commanded by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. In October, the RSF seized the army’s last remaining stronghold in Darfur, a turning point that enabled the paramilitary to push westward toward the Chadian border and eastward into Kordofan, raising fears among humanitarian agencies of a renewed cross-border refugee wave should fighting reach key army-held cities.

Darfur civilian deaths

In North Darfur, a series of drone strikes attributed to the army struck the RSF-controlled town of Al-Zuruq, killing 51 people on Saturday, a medical source said. The attacks reportedly hit a local market and surrounding civilian areas, underscoring the mounting toll on non-combatants amid the use of aerial warfare.

Al-Zuruq holds particular significance as it is home to relatives of RSF leader Dagalo, once deputy to Burhan before the alliance collapsed. An eyewitness attending a burial told AFP that “Two of the Dagalo family were killed, Moussa Saleh Dagalo and Awad Moussa Saleh Dagalo.”

Meanwhile, RSF forces advancing westward near the border with Chad carried out attacks around the town of Kernoi, where 63 people were killed and 57 wounded, according to a hospital source who spoke anonymously due to security concerns.

“Until Friday, 63 were killed and 57 injured ... in attacks launched by the RSF around Kernoi,” the source said. Local residents also reported that 17 people remain unaccounted for, heightening fears of further casualties amid ongoing insecurity.

Widening displacement

Kernoi and nearby villages have seen mass displacement, with aid agencies reporting chaotic flight from border communities. The United Nations says more than 7,000 people were forced to flee within just two days last month, many belonging to the Zaghawa ethnic group, which has repeatedly been targeted by RSF fighters. Zaghawa armed groups are part of the pro-army Joint Forces coalition.

Displacement has not been limited to Darfur alone. New movements have also been recorded from parts of North and South Kordofan, indicating that violence is spreading along multiple fronts and placing added strain on already overstretched humanitarian corridors.

Fighting has also escalated in Kordofan, where drone strikes hit infrastructure in the army-held city of El-Obeid, triggering a widespread power outage. Sudan’s national electricity company confirmed the attack, saying, “El-Obeid power station ... was attacked by drones, leading to a fire in the machinery building, which led to a halt in the electricity supply.” Local sources said civil defense crews responded to contain the blaze as technicians assessed damage to the facility.

Kordofan has emerged as one of the war’s most strategic battlegrounds, linking Darfur to the capital, Khartoum, and hosting major oil-producing areas vital to Sudan’s economy. Although the army lifted an RSF siege on El-Obeid last year, the paramilitary has continued attempts to encircle army-held cities across the region in what analysts describe as a bid to retake Sudan’s central corridor.

The Joint Forces said last week they had retaken several towns south of El-Obeid, a development that a military source said could “open up the road between El-Obeid and Dilling,” one of South Kordofan’s long-besieged cities.

Atrocity warfare

Large parts of Darfur remain inaccessible to journalists, compounded by a prolonged communications blackout, leaving local medics and volunteers reliant on satellite internet to relay information about attacks and displacement.

Both sides have been accused of targeting civilians in what the UN has described as a “war of atrocities.” The conflict has revived memories of the mass ethnic violence carried out in Darfur in the 2000s by the Janjaweed militias, from which the RSF later emerged.

Since the war began, tens of thousands have been killed, and more than 11 million people have been displaced internally or forced to flee across Sudan’s borders, making it the largest displacement crisis in the world. According to the International Organization for Migration, around 11,000 people have been displaced since mid-December from North and South Kordofan alone, as humanitarian conditions continue to deteriorate amid growing risks of starvation, disease, and the collapse of basic services.