Drone strikes are disrupting daily life in Sudan's El Obeid, targeting fuel stations, power supplies and water infrastructure. The army says it remains in control of the strategic city, while the Rapid Support Forces continue attacks aimed at weakening its position and pressuring civilians to leave. Paramount-Warner merger: could it reshape the media? Pride despite defeat as Morocco's World Cup run ends

El-Obeid under siege by RSF: Could this be Sudan's next el-Fasher? Half a million people are trapped in the Sudanese city of el-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group tries to enforce its dominance over the Kordofan and Darfur regions during a civil war that has wrought devastation on the country for three years. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has warned of an impending humanitarian "catastrophe" as el-Obeid is expected to be the next site for major ground clashes between the RSF and Sudanese military. Many countries have also raised the alarm about atrocities being carried out in the city. El-Obeid, which has been cut off by continuous drone attacks for months, is under threat after the mass atrocities carried out by the RSF in el-Fasher, capital of North Darfur state.

'Digging with a needle': Generals stall peace as Sudan's el-Obeid burns As drone attacks rain down on el-Obeid and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) tighten their months-long siege, the capital of North Kordofan has emerged as the latest flashpoint in Sudan's grinding war of attrition. Despite mounting international alarm and renewed US diplomatic pressure aimed at securing a nationwide truce, Sudan's warring generals remain deeply entrenched. Both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF appear locked in a pursuit of outright military victory, largely sustained by a continuous flow of foreign weapons. Through the lens of the escalating crisis in el-Obeid, a grim reality is unfolding: Civilian suffering is increasingly weaponised amid polarised domestic narratives, while geopolitical manoeuvring repeatedly stalls any viable path to peace. El-Obeid holds immense strategic value.

More than 1,000 civilians in Sudan have been killed in drone strikes in the first five months of 2026, according to the United Nations. The death toll is due to a "sharp" increase in the use of drone warfare in the country's vicious civil war, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) Volker Turk said in a speech on Monday. On top of documenting more than 1,000 civilians being killed in the first five months of this year, the UN office also reported "rampant" levels of sexual violence, including rape. The war in the African nation started in April 2023 when a rivalry between Sudan's army chief, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, Mohamed Hamdan "Hemedti" Dagalo, exploded into war. The conflict, which had first started in the capital Khartoum, soon spread to several areas of the country.

Sudan's army has denied it carried out a deadly attack on a major hospital on Friday night in a city in the west of the country held by its rivals, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said 64 people - including 13 children, two nurses and a doctor - had died in the strike on el-Daein Teaching Hospital and 89 others had been wounded. Enough blood has been spilled, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted on X, urging the warring parties to end the conflict, which started nearly three years ago. The RSF said an army drone had hit the hospital in el-Daein, the capital of East Darfur state, on the day Muslims were marking the festival of Eid. Sudan was plunged into a civil war in April 2023 when a vicious struggle for power broke out between the military and the RSF, who had once been allies after coming to power in a coup in 2021.

A drone attack launched from Sudan has killed 17 people in Chad, according to the Chadian government, which has pledged to retaliate against any further strikes as the civil war in the neighbouring nation rages on. A spokesman for the Chadian government announced the death toll on Thursday from the attack on the border town of Tine, which had been targeted despite "various firm warnings addressed to the different belligerents in the Sudan conflict and the closure of the border". Local government sources said it was not immediately clear who was behind the attack, according to Reuters. Chadian President Mahamat Idriss Deby called a meeting of the defence and security council on Wednesday night, ordering the army to "retaliate starting from tonight to any attack coming from Sudan", according to a presidency statement. Early on Thursday, the government said Chad had strengthened its security presence at the border and could potentially carry out operations on Sudanese territory.

A drone attack on a busy market in western Sudan has killed 11 people and wounded dozens more, including children, as the United Nations warns that the country's rapidly escalating air wars have claimed more than 200 civilian lives in little over a week. The attack on Adikong market, near Sudan's border with Chad, ignited fuel reserves and sent flames tearing through the area on Thursday. MSF described it as the second deadly drone attack on the same area in less than a month. Drones have become a key weapon used by both sides in the war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that began in April 2023. UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said on Thursday he was appalled by the scale of intensifying aerial assaults on civilians in the war, warning that more than 200 people had been killed by drones across the Kordofan region and White Nile state since March 4 alone.

Three aid workers killed, 4 wounded in RSF drone attack in Sudan's Kordofan At least three aid workers have been killed and four others wounded in a drone attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on an aid convoy in Sudan's South Kordofan state, according to the Sudan Doctors Network, in the latest carnage against civilians caught up in the nation's brutal civil war. The convoy of trucks carrying food and humanitarian supplies was targeted by the RSF, and its ally, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North, while travelling through the Kartala area on its way to the cities of Kadugli and Dilling on Thursday. The network said that this attack marked the "second such incident in less than a month, following the shelling of a United Nations aid convoy in the town of Al-Rahad," adding: "this dangerous escalation threatens the safety of humanitarian operations and further exacerbates civilian suffering". The Sudan Doctors Network reiterated its call to the "international community, the United Nations, and human rights organisations to exert urgent and effective pressure on the leadership of the Rapid Support Forces to ensure the protection of aid convoys and their workers, to open safe and sustainable humanitarian corridors, and to hold those responsible for targeting aid accountable". Al Jazeera could not independently verify the latest RSF attack, which came a month after the government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) announced that it had broken a nearly two-year-long RSF siege on Dilling.

Aid reaches Sudan's Kordofan as over 30 countries alarmed by drone attacks United Nations aid trucks have reached an area in Sudan that has been cut off from relief efforts amid warnings that deadly drone strikes are making the hunger crisis in that part of the country worse. The UN said on Wednesday that its aid trucks had reached Dilling and Kadugli, in central Sudan's Kordofan region, with "life-saving" humanitarian supplies. "Dilling and the nearby city of Kadugli have been largely cut off from aid for more than two years, leaving communities with severe shortages of humanitarian assistance," the UN said. The aid delivery came as more than 30 countries issued a statement on Wednesday expressing "grave concern" at a recent "severe escalation" in drone attacks amid "heavy fighting" in the Darfur and Kordofan regions. The 28 European Union countries, plus Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, warned that "intentional attacks" against aid workers and "wilfully impeding" relief supplies, "may amount to war crimes".

War in Sudan: Life returns to South Kordofan's Dilling but drones keep residents in fear Drone-fired missiles have hit a market in central Sudan's Kordofan region, killing at least 28 people and wounding dozens of others, a rights group says. Emergency Lawyers, a group tracking violence against civilians, said in a statement on Monday that drones bombed the al-Safiya market in the town of Sodari in North Kordofan state. "The attack occurred when the market was bustling with civilians, including women, children and the elderly," the group said. "The repeated use of drones to target populated areas shows a grave disregard for civilian lives and signals an escalation that threatens what remains of daily life in the province. Therefore, we demand an immediate halt to drone attacks by both sides of the conflict," the statement said.