Sunday, October 25, 2026

📍 From the Field In Abyei, the Medical Activities Manager of Médecins Sans Frontières at Ameth Bek Hospital, Christian Lindauer, said the organisation had received more than 20 wounded, including critical cases and people with burns, and was providing them with surgery, wound dressing and emergency care after the strike on Amit Market on October 19, while photographs published by the organisation showed the wounded receiving treatment on the ground because of the pressure of cases. Reuters reported in a field report from Abyei that Awad Osham al-Amin, a displaced person from Sudan who works unloading fuel and pushing carts in the market, was injured by shrapnel in his right hand and left leg and said: "I came as a refugee fleeing Sudan, but I faced another conflict here too", at a time when local officials said the fire had hindered the retrieval of bodies and that around 8,000 people had been displaced. And in North Kordofan, Reuters quoted Maryam Omar, a farmer near Umm Rawaba, as saying of her crop, which had withered in the dry sandy soil: "This year is terrible", while the farmer and trader Mohamed Abdel Rahman estimated that around 40% of the land in the Umm Rawaba area would have no harvest, and the livestock trader in El Obeid market, Siraj al-Din Abdel Latif, said: "Usually at this time the livestock are fat and everyone profits, but now, with the scarcity of this autumn, the livestock have become emaciated". OCHA stated in an access update presented at the coordination meeting on October 20 that physical access in parts of Darfur had improved compared with last year, but partners raised concerns about approvals, registrations and administrative obstacles affecting humanitarian operations in Darfur, Kordofan and Blue Nile.

1️⃣ Khartoum denies army responsibility for the Naam Market strike in Abyei and Juba protests diplomatically The Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation denied, in a statement issued on Thursday evening, October 22, and published by the Sudan News Agency (SUNA), any connection of the Armed Forces to the drone attack on Naam Market, known as Amit Market, in the disputed Abyei area on October 19, expressed its regret at the fall of victims and offered condolences to the families of those killed. The authorities of South Sudan had accused the Sudanese army of carrying out the strike, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Juba summoned the Sudanese ambassador to protest, while local officials in Abyei said the toll had reached at least 153 killed, a figure that has not yet been settled by an independent investigation. (Sources: Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs via SUNA, Reuters, Associated Press, South Sudan Ministry of Foreign Affairs) 💡 Quick reading: Analysis: The move of the Abyei file from conflicting field accusations to an open diplomatic crisis between Khartoum and Juba makes an independent investigation into the source of the drone the decisive test for containing the escalation.

2️⃣ United Nations: At least 306 killed by drone strikes in Sudan in three weeks The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said on Friday that his office had documented the killing of at least 306 people and the injury of hundreds of others by drone strikes in the first three weeks of October, attributed to the Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, which struck homes, markets, hospitals, displacement sites, power stations and water sources in Kordofan, Darfur, Blue Nile, Khartoum and other states. The office documented, among other incidents, the killing of at least 139 people in a double strike on a transport truck in Dabab in West Kordofan on October 18, the killing of 25 civilians in strikes on shelters for the displaced in Gubeish and El Nuhud between October 6 and 10, and the killing of 31 people, most of them women and children, near a displacement site in Abu Shandi in Blue Nile on October 9. (Sources: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN News) 💡 Quick reading: Analysis: The transformation of drones into the tool most deadly to civilians this year, in Türk's description, means that any truce that does not include a verifiable ban on targeting civilian objects will remain fragile on the ground.

3️⃣ Drones target fuel stations in Umm Rawaba and Gezira in a new escalation today Local sources told Sudan Tribune that drones attributed to the Rapid Support Forces targeted on Sunday morning two fuel stations in the city of Umm Rawaba in North Kordofan State, causing damage to the two stations and resulting in wounded, in an attack that is the second on the city within 72 hours after fuel stations there were targeted on Friday. The sources added that the army's ground defences confronted at dawn today in Gezira State drones that tried to target fuel depots east of Wad Madani, days after the bombing of four fuel stations in El Rahad on Thursday, which resulted in one person killed, and the bombing of the Tandalti power station last week. (Sources: Sudan Tribune) 💡 Quick reading: Analysis: The increasing focus of the two parties on fuel and electricity moves the war to logistical and service infrastructure, and civilians pay its price directly in transport, prices and services.

— Editorial Team