Sunday, November 1, 2026

📍 From the Field In Blue Nile State, the International Organization for Migration announced that 119,782 people, representing 23,598 households, were displaced from various areas of the state between January 11 and October 15, 2026, an increase of 21% over last August's update, which recorded 99,277 displaced people, and that the displaced were distributed across seven sites inside the state, including the city of Damazin and the city of Roseires, against the backdrop of a military escalation and attacks by the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North allied with it on several areas of the state.

In Tawila, in North Darfur, where about 950,000 displaced people are sheltering, the acting Executive Director of the World Food Programme, Carl Skau, said in statements carried by Reuters following a tour he made in Darfur that the programme provides there each month only rations sufficient for two weeks, wondering how people manage the other two weeks, while the programme's country brief for October 2026 showed that the number of people its assistance reached in September fell to 3.1 million people, among them 880,000 in areas classified as threatened by famine, from 4.1 million people in August, because of a funding shortfall.

On the drone war as it is lived on the ground, Radio Dabanga reported today, quoting the official spokesman of the Sudanese Communist Party, Fathi Fadl, that drone attacks no longer target military headquarters but have hit markets, hospitals, electricity stations and infrastructure, and that they have resulted, according to his statement, in the deaths of more than 400 civilians and the wounding of hundreds, warning of a dangerous turn the war has taken after three years, and calling for popular and international pressure to stop it and save more than 25 million Sudanese facing poverty, hunger and a collapse in livelihoods, according to his statement.

1️⃣ Khartoum puts the "Assosa" drones file before the diplomatic missions, and Guterres condemns the escalation of the drone war The Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs briefed, on Saturday in Port Sudan, the diplomatic missions accredited to the country on attacks it said are launched by drones from Ethiopian territory, and the ministry's Undersecretary, Ambassador Muawiya Osman Khalid, said their pace has escalated in recent months and they have targeted electricity production facilities, water stations, schools, hospitals and fuel stations and caused hundreds of deaths and injuries, and that the Assosa base inside Ethiopia has become a centre for supplying the Rapid Support Forces with weapons and equipment and facilitating the passage of foreign fighters, affirming Khartoum's pursuit of de-escalation through diplomatic channels while retaining its right to respond in accordance with international law, while no immediate Ethiopian response was issued and Addis Ababa had previously denied supporting the Rapid Support Forces or that drones are launched from its territory. On the same day, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, strongly condemned the escalation of drone attacks by both parties to the conflict and their killing of hundreds of civilians, including women and children, across Sudan and in Abyei, calling for agreement without delay on a cessation of hostilities, and Egypt also condemned the escalation of drone attacks against civilian and vital facilities in Sudan. (Sources: Sudan News Agency (SUNA); UN News — statement by Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesperson for the Secretary-General, October 31; statement of the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs carried by SUNA and CNN Arabic) 💡 Quick reading: Analysis — the file is no longer military only; Khartoum is moving it to the arena of international law and the missions, and the United Nations is placing it in the category of violations against civilians, which makes the cost of continuing the drone war political and diplomatic as much as it is on the ground.

2️⃣ Minister of Health to SUNA: Operation of Khartoum's health institutions has exceeded 85%, and funding covers only 20% of needs The Federal Minister of Health, Haitham Mohamed Ibrahim, said in an interview with the Sudan News Agency (SUNA) that the rate of operation of health institutions in Khartoum State has exceeded 85% after about 70% of health facilities were out of service during the first year of the war, that 11 states have achieved full health coverage, and that medical services have reached, in cooperation with partners, all states, including Darfur and Kordofan. He added that the availability of essential medicines has risen from less than 40% to 72%, with a target of bringing it to 85%, that immunisation coverage rose from 38% in 2024 to 71% by the end of 2025, while the country lost more than 200 new ambulances that were at Ibn Sina Hospital during the war, and the actual need is 1,150 ambulances against more than 280 ambulances recovered and distributed to the states, and that the available funding does not exceed 20% of total health needs. (Sources: Sudan News Agency (SUNA) — interview with the Federal Minister of Health, carried by reports of October 31 and November 1) 💡 Quick reading: Analysis — the minister's figures paint a real operational recovery in Khartoum and the relatively safe states, but the 80% funding gap means this recovery is fragile and liable to relapse unless it turns into sustainable funding rather than intermittent emergency support.

3️⃣ South Sudan: Rising concern over the December 22 elections as voter registration lags With the start of November, fears among citizens and civil society leaders in South Sudan are growing over the approach of the general elections scheduled for December 22, 2026, while voter registration has not actually begun yet, amid insecurity, delayed civic education and weak trust among the parties implementing the peace agreement. The Executive Director of the Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO), Edmund Yakani, said preparations for registration are almost complete but time is passing very quickly, calling on the country's leadership to show political will and speed up registration throughout November, recruit and train registration staff, deliver electoral materials and release the funding of the National Elections Commission in due time, while women in Juba expressed their concern that continued fighting and the presence of armed groups may prevent women in conflict areas from registering and voting, and the Elections Commission said, through its chairperson Gabriel Bol Deng in an update dated October 28, that preparations are progressing and that it intends to move quickly despite financial and logistical constraints. (Sources: No. 1 Citizen daily newspaper — Juba, October 30; statements by the National Elections Commission carried by the newspaper) 💡 Quick reading: Analysis — the issue is no longer the polling date itself but its credibility; if registration does not actually begin within the first days of November in all states, the debate will shift from the election results to the legitimacy of holding it at all.

— Editorial Team