Thursday, November 5, 2026

📍 From the Field From the paediatric centre of the Emergency organisation in Mayo, on the outskirts of Khartoum, the organisation's paediatrics coordinator, Laura Ina, said in a field update dated November 5 that "Khartoum is completely destroyed", and that large parts of the city are still without electricity or water, and that people are returning to homes levelled by bombs and standing before what remains of them. She added that about 140 people, mothers, children and infants, wait every morning in front of the centre before it opens its doors, and that the displaced people's camp around the centre has become so crowded with tents that some families have been driven to pitch their shelters inside cemeteries in search of a place to live, while hospitals visited by the organisation in the area are trying to reopen slowly but lack oxygen and the means to pay the wages of medical staff (Source: Emergency organisation, field update from Mayo in Khartoum, November 5).

In El Obeid in North Kordofan, the UNICEF country director, Angelina Kearney, at the head of a high-level delegation and accompanied by government officials, inspected the scale of the destruction inflicted on the organisation's warehouses at the headquarters of the Ministry of Education in the city, where drone strikes attributed to the Rapid Support Forces burned school textbooks and food supplies and damaged buildings, and the delegation declared its readiness to support the printing of books and the provision of educational supplies (Source: Sudan Horizon, on the UNICEF field visit to El Obeid, November 4). On displacement, the International Organization for Migration estimated the displacement of about 2,000 people during the past week from villages in the localities of Kernoi and Um Baru in North Darfur, and about 120,000 people in Blue Nile State between January and mid-October, while the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said that more than 100,000 displaced people in Blue Nile face grave protection risks amid the deteriorating security situation, and the International Organization for Migration reported the displacement of 345 people in Hebila locality in South Kordofan, while a local update raised the toll of the bombing of the fuel station in Al-Abbasiya Tagali in South Kordofan to more than 19 civilians after three of the wounded died in hospitals (Sources: Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the International Organization for Migration and the Refugee Agency, and Darfur24).

In South Sudan, Médecins Sans Frontières warned in a statement from Juba dated November 4 that funding cuts and the withdrawal of relief organisations have left about 150,000 displaced people in the Bentiu and Malakal camps without basic services for water, sanitation and primary healthcare, exposing them to the risk of cholera and waterborne diseases, and a field assessment by the organisation in Bentiu, which hosts about 111,000 people, documented that about 60 people share each functioning latrine and that only 109 handwashing stations serve the entire camp (Source: Médecins Sans Frontières, via ReliefWeb).

1️⃣ Sudan and Ethiopia exchange consulate closures and expulsion of diplomats Sudan and Ethiopia each closed the other's consulate near their shared border, as Addis Ababa closed the Sudanese consulate in Asosa in the Benishangul-Gumuz Region and ordered its six diplomats to leave within 48 hours without announcing an official reason, and Khartoum responded by closing the Ethiopian consulate in Gedaref and expelling its diplomats, amid mutual accusations that each side supports the other's opponents. Khartoum accuses Addis Ababa of allowing the Rapid Support Forces to use Ethiopian territory to launch drone attacks on civilian infrastructure, and last Sunday it filed a complaint with the United Nations Security Council and the African Peace and Security Council, while Ethiopia accuses Khartoum of supporting rebels in the Tigray region, and in Cairo the Minister of Culture and Information, Khalid Al-Aiser, called on the Council of Arab Information Ministers to take a firm Arab position regarding the attacks launched on Sudan from Ethiopian territory and to condemn any support for the militia. (Sources: Reuters, Associated Press and Agence France-Presse, from officials of both sides, and the Sudan News Agency (SUNA)) 💡 Quick reading: Analysis — closing the border consulates specifically, rather than the two embassies, keeps the escalation diplomatically contained, but it moves the accusations over the drone war from statements to the Security Council and the African Union, and opens a regional front parallel to the internal war.

2️⃣ Australia imposes sanctions on Al-Burhan, Hemedti, leaders and the Al-Baraa bin Malik Battalion Australia imposed targeted financial sanctions and a travel ban on four Sudanese men: the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, the commander of the Rapid Support Forces, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo "Hemedti", the former governor of West Darfur, Al-Tijani Al-Taher Karshom, and the Rapid Support Forces field leader Hussein Barsham, in addition to financial sanctions on the Al-Baraa bin Malik Battalion, under the Magnitsky human rights regime and against the background of what it described as grave violations including the targeting of civilians, killing, torture and sexual violence. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong called for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, the protection of civilians and ensuring unimpeded access for humanitarian aid. (Sources: Australian Government — Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) 💡 Quick reading: Analysis — the inclusion in the sanctions of the commanders of both sides together, along with a fighting entity loyal to the army, puts Canberra in a position of parallel accountability rather than bias, and expands the map of Western sanctions on the war beyond Washington, London and Brussels.

3️⃣ Drone strikes on electricity reach 18 strikes in a week, and the United Nations warns Drone strikes today targeted three electricity stations in New Halfa and Aroma in Kassala State in the east and the Al-Ghazali station in Northern State, raising the number of strikes that have targeted the electricity network to 18 strikes in a week, with wide power outages in parts of the country, while a source in the Sudanese army said that ground defences shot down at dawn today all the drones that tried to target vital facilities in Khashm El Girba in Kassala State, without any casualties. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned that the continuation of attacks on vital energy infrastructure causes wide outages, disrupts basic services and clean water supplies and forces residents to resort to untreated water sources, and the spokesman for the Secretary-General, Stéphane Dujarric, said that the Sudan relief appeal of about $2.9 billion has been funded by only about 47%. (Sources: Al Jazeera, from local media and a source in the Sudanese army, and Ultra Sudan, and the United Nations — OCHA) 💡 Quick reading: Analysis — the shift of strikes from the fronts to electricity and water stations makes the effects of the war reach cities that have not witnessed direct fighting, and turns power and water outages into a daily face of the humanitarian crisis no less significant than the battles themselves.

— Editorial Team