Sudan's RSF Advances on Strategic Border Town of Kurmuk as Army Withdraws
Sudan's army said the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and allies, including the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), advanced into the town of Kurmuk in Blue Nile State on 13 August 2026 as the army began to withdraw. An RSF statement said its coalition inflicted heavy losses on army troops, forced them to retreat, and seized weapons and ammunition. Al Jazeera
Kurmuk sits on the Sudanese border with Ethiopia, on a cross-border route linking Ethiopia to Blue Nile State and the wider Nile Valley. That makes it valuable as a supply corridor and a gateway between two countries. The local administration said the town came under intensive attacks over the three days before 13 August, involving drones and artillery shelling that originated from the regional neighbourhood.
The fall of Kurmuk, if confirmed, is the latest reversal in a town that has changed hands repeatedly this year. The RSF seized Kurmuk in March 2026. The army recaptured it in July. Before that, the army repelled a fourth attack in a month by a joint RSF and SPLM-N al-Hilu force in June. In May, the army said it retook a vital town in southeastern Blue Nile State near the Ethiopian border from the RSF, inflicting heavy losses on personnel and equipment. After the army retook Kurmuk in July, it discovered at least 25 bodies in a mass grave there. Al Jazeera
The Kurmuk assault was not isolated. The attacks came the day after the RSF launched coordinated drone strikes targeting five army-controlled cities hundreds of kilometres apart, killing two people in el-Obeid and paralysing its market, according to rights group Emergency Lawyers. Elsewhere, the army said it repelled an RSF attack on the town of Jabra al-Sheikh in North Kordofan. The army said the RSF attack involved more than 250 combat vehicles. Military sources said RSF fighters were captured and dozens were killed. Jabra al-Sheikh is a key transport hub in North Kordofan whose control could allow the RSF to put pressure on el-Obeid and Omdurman near Khartoum.
Sudan's latest conflict began in April 2023 when fighting started between the Sudanese army and the RSF over plans to integrate the paramilitary force into the regular military — essentially, a dispute over who would control a unified military command. According to UN figures, local authorities, and academic estimates, the war has killed tens of thousands and displaced or forced nearly 15 million to flee their homes. Across Sudan, aid workers estimate that more than 200,000 people have been killed in what the UN calls a war of atrocities.
The broader context here is a conflict entering its fourth year with no credible path toward resolution. The RSF's multi-front operations on 12 and 13 August reveal a force capable of coordinating drone strikes across hundreds of kilometres while simultaneously mounting ground assaults with hundreds of vehicles in North Kordofan and maneuvering with a coalition partner in Blue Nile. That operational tempo suggests the RSF retains significant mobilisation capacity despite successive army gains in earlier months.
The SPLM-N's involvement in Kurmuk adds another layer to the conflict. The partnership between the RSF and SPLM-N al-Hilu stretches the army across an additional theatre, forcing it to defend positions in Blue Nile, North Kordofan, and the greater Khartoum area all at once. For the army, the loss of Kurmuk after recapturing it only weeks ago points to the difficulty of holding territory along the Ethiopian border, where cross-border supply routes and the proximity of regional actors complicate consolidation.
The mass grave discovered in Kurmuk after the army's July recapture, and the pattern of intensive drone-and-artillery barrages preceding the RSF's August advance, point to the human cost embedded in each territorial reversal. Every change of hands displaces civilians, disrupts aid corridors, and leaves behind evidence of atrocities that the UN has documented across the conflict. The strategic significance of Kurmuk and Jabra al-Sheikh, combined with the coordinated drone campaign, indicates that both sides are pursuing escalation rather than the de-escalation that international mediation efforts have sought since the conflict's inception.
What remains is a war in which territorial gains are transient, alliances are multiplying, and the toll on civilians continues to mount beyond any figure that institutions can reliably track.
