Friday, November 6, 2026

📍 From the Field The head of the International Organization for Migration mission in Sudan, Mohamed Refaat, speaking from Khartoum during a United Nations briefing in Geneva today, said that 16 trucks that arrived in Darfur yesterday were the last remaining in stock, and that the organisation's warehouses are now completely empty after distributing more than 40,000 tons of aid this year. The deputy representative of the United Nations Refugee Agency in Sudan, Abubakar Jalloh, speaking by video from Khartoum, said that three out of every four internally displaced people in Sudan are women and children, and that for a woman who has lost everything, a tent means dignity, privacy and safety, not merely a roof to sleep under.

In South Sudan, Médecins Sans Frontières warned in a field update from Juba dated November 4 that about 150,000 displaced people in the Bentiu and Malakal camps have been left without basic services for water, sanitation and primary healthcare because of funding cuts and the withdrawal of relief organisations. An assessment by the organisation in Bentiu, which hosts about 111,000 people, said that about 60 people share each functioning latrine, and that only 109 handwashing stations serve the entire camp, while the organisation's adviser Rebecca Abang said that rubbish sometimes remains uncollected for weeks, even months, and that waste flows into the drainage channels. In Malakal in Upper Nile State, the organisation warned that the water supply for about 40,000 people and the servicing of about 900 latrines could stop without new funding.

In South Darfur, the spokesman for the General Coordination of Displaced People and Refugees, Adam Rijal, told Sudan Tribune on November 4 that the coordination recorded 45 cases of viral hepatitis in Kalma camp, at a rate of two to three cases a day, and that the health deterioration extends to other camps and displacement areas, including Tawila, El Fasher, Kassab and Fata Borno, and areas in Kordofan and Blue Nile. This comes as a government meeting held in Khartoum today approved, according to "Sudan Now", the formation of a coordination mechanism to count the displaced, prepare a unified register for them and carry out field visits to the places where they are, while directing the National Health Insurance Fund to provide basic medical services and issue replacement cards for those who lost their cards.

1️⃣ The army advances in Kordofan and the Rapid Support Forces presses in Blue Nile The Sudanese army entered its first locality in West Kordofan State, which borders Darfur, as its forces pushed on Monday into the Um Marahik and Al-Gharra areas, and on Wednesday into Shaq Al-Doud and the outskirts of Eyal Bakhit in Al-Khawi locality, according to a report by Al Jazeera Net today. The report said that the army now controls 97% of the area of North Kordofan State since its wide operations that began last August, with only the Um Kreidim and Um Badr areas remaining before it, and quoted the head of the Sovereignty Council and army commander, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, as telling a limited number of journalists that his forces are advancing towards the city of Al-Khawi and that other forces are approaching areas in Darfur. The army had announced yesterday, according to Al-Quds Al-Arabi, the recapture of Kazgeil and Abu Quoud in North Kordofan and Al-Hammadi in South Kordofan, while the "Tasis" alliance led by the Rapid Support Forces said it had seized the Sally base and other sites in the Blue Nile region, which a military source told Al Jazeera Net the withdrawal from had been planned. (Sources: Al Jazeera Net, Al-Quds Al-Arabi) 💡 Quick reading: Kordofan has become the gateway to Darfur in the calculations of both sides, and the army's advance there presses on the Rapid Support Forces' lines westwards, in return for the latter's attempt to open a pressing front in Blue Nile to ease that pressure and disperse the military effort.

2️⃣ The United Nations warns: 15.4 million Sudanese need shelter and the agencies are able to help only one in every ten The United Nations Refugee Agency and the International Organization for Migration warned in a joint statement today that millions of displaced Sudanese are threatened with losing emergency shelter as stocks run out because of a lack of funding. The two agencies said that 15.4 million people urgently need shelter and basic household items, but that financial constraints allow priority to be given to only about 10% of those in need, and that only 936,000 people have received assistance so far. There remain 8.6 million internally displaced people in Sudan, while more than 4.6 million have fled across the borders, and more than 5.2 million have returned to their areas, with many of them finding homes and services destroyed, and only 47% of the 2026 humanitarian response plan, amounting to $2.9 billion, has been funded so far. (Sources: Reuters, UN News, the joint statement of the Refugee Agency and the International Organization for Migration) 💡 Quick reading: The gap is no longer only a funding gap, but a survival gap as winter enters: empty warehouses in the world's largest displacement crisis mean that the announced return to areas of origin could turn into new displacement if water, electricity and shelter are absent.

3️⃣ The United Nations warns of escalating tension between Khartoum and Juba over the inclusion of Abyei in South Sudan's elections The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, warned in a report presented to the Security Council, covering the period from April 16 to October 1, that the South Sudan government's intention to include the disputed Abyei area within its electoral constituencies in the December 2026 elections will likely increase political tension with Sudan as the elections approach. The report said that Sudan formally objected on July 13, considering the step a violation of the signed agreements, while Juba affirmed on July 17 its adherence to the plan, and the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei, "UNISFA", recorded 191 security incidents up to October 1, compared with 282 in the same period last year. In a separate briefing before the Security Council on November 5, the Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, warned that drone attacks, the first of their kind in Abyei, had added a new and worrying dimension to the threats facing peacekeeping, despite the two governments resuming the meetings of the Joint Political and Security Mechanism in Juba on August 10 for the first time since January 2023. (Sources: Report of the Secretary-General of the United Nations to the Security Council, Briefing by Jean-Pierre Lacroix before the Security Council) 💡 Quick reading: Abyei returns to the forefront of the relationship between the two countries through the door of elections, not war, but the absence of a final settlement of its status makes any unilateral step capable of turning quickly from an electoral dispute into a security crisis on the border.

— Editorial Team