• Prime Minister Dr Kamil Idris returned to Khartoum on Friday evening after taking part in the twenty-fifth COMESA summit in Harare from 19 to 22 October, and held meetings with the leaders of Zimbabwe, Zambia and Kenya and officials from Somalia, Egypt and Uganda. He discussed with COMESA Secretary-General Chileshe Kapwepwe the return of the permanent headquarters of the COMESA Court of Justice to Khartoum and the border crossings and solar energy files, while the Egyptian side affirmed its support for Sudan's stability, the unity of its territory and its national institutions. (Source: Sudan News Agency (SUNA) via Akhir Khabar) • The Quad group on Sudan — Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the United States — announced after meetings in Geneva that it had agreed there is no military solution to the conflict, and called for an urgent humanitarian truce paving the way for a permanent ceasefire and ensuring the delivery of aid. The US President's Senior Advisor for Arab and African Affairs, Massad Boulos, said the Quad would use its influence collectively and individually to engage with the two parties to the conflict, in support of an inclusive dialogue led and owned by the Sudanese and a transition to civilian rule, in complementarity with the efforts of the Quint group. (Source: Massad Boulos via the X platform, reported by the Sudan and Sudan Today platform, 24 October 2026) • The UN Security Council condemned in the strongest terms the drone attack on 19 October on Amit market and the Todash area in Abyei, disputed between Sudan and South Sudan, warning that attacks on civilians may amount to war crimes, and demanding a full, transparent and swift investigation and accountability for those responsible. The Council affirmed that Abyei must remain demilitarised and free of any forces other than the UN interim force "UNISFA", which continues to verify the victims after the United Nations confirmed the killing of more than 80 people while local authorities say the number exceeds 150, and the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs for its part denied any link between the armed forces and the Naam market incident in Abyei. (Sources: The United Nations and the Security Council via UN News and Global Issues; Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs via Al-Ahd Online) • The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights documented the killing of no fewer than 306 people and the injury of hundreds in drone strikes during the first three weeks of October alone, attributed to the armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces together, which struck homes, markets, hospitals, displacement sites, power stations and water sources in Kordofan, Darfur, Blue Nile, Khartoum and other states. High Commissioner Volker Türk said the increasing use of drones, which now accounts for the majority of conflict-related civilian deaths this year, is "deeply concerning and leaves a horrific toll". (Source: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) via UN News, 23 October 2026) • The Minister of Education and National Education, Dr Al-Tohami Al-Zain Hajar, received in Omdurman the penultimate group of returnees from Egypt among the ministry's personnel, more than 500 teachers, students and members of their families who arrived aboard 11 buses, with the final group due to set off with five buses or more and arrive next Monday. In parallel, the Voluntary Return Committee announced that the total number of people it has dispatched from Egypt to date has reached about 4,000, including 1,225 people it dispatched on Saturday in 25 buses from Cairo, among them general education students, civil service personnel and their families. (Sources: Sudan News Agency (SUNA); Voluntary Return Committee via On Sudan, 24 October 2026) • The Embassy of Sudan in London launched on Thursday evening, 23 October, the first sessions of its monthly media forum, and Ambassador Babiker Al-Siddig Mohamed Al-Amin gave a briefing in which he renewed that what Sudan is witnessing is not a civil war but an external aggression targeting its resources and its location, reviewing the requirements of a humanitarian truce, foremost among them the withdrawal of the Rapid Support Forces from civilian properties in accordance with the Jeddah Declaration. Taking part in the forum, which was held a few days before the first anniversary of the Rapid Support Forces' takeover of El Fasher after an 18-month siege, were journalists from the BBC, editors-in-chief of Middle East Eye and Middle East Monitor, and British researchers and legislators. (Source: Embassy of Sudan in London via On Sudan and Atheer News) • The Embassy of Sudan in Ankara held a press conference on Friday, on the first anniversary of the El Fasher massacre, in cooperation with the Turkish workers' union "Hak-İş" and the General Federation of Sudanese Workers' Unions, and Ambassador Nader Yousif said El Fasher had lived through 18 months of siege before its fall in October 2025, citing United Nations documentation of the killing of more than 6,000 people in the first three days, and demanding a halt to military support for the rebel militia and an independent international investigation and accountability for those responsible. The two unions issued a joint statement demanding that the United Nations and the Security Council classify the Rapid Support Forces as a terrorist organisation and impose sanctions on its leaders and funders, and rejecting any parallel government. (Source: Embassy of Sudan in Ankara via Atheer News, 24 October 2026) • Talks began in Saint Petersburg between a delegation of the Red Sea State government led by the Wali, Lieutenant General Mustafa Mohamed Nour Mahmoud, and the city's governor, Alexander Beglov, to launch the twinning project between Port Sudan and Saint Petersburg; the delegation includes the Sea Ports Corporation, the mineral resources sector, the University of the Red Sea and the Employers' Federation. The visit, which covers ports, minerals, higher education and trade, comes ahead of the anticipated Russian–African summit in Moscow on 28 and 29 October, in which Sudan is taking part with a delegation led by the Chairman of the Sovereignty Council. (Source: Sudan News Agency (SUNA) via Nabd Al-Sudan; Embassy of Sudan in Russia via Atheer News) • In South Sudan, the UN humanitarian update as of 15 October reported that about 4 million people were affected by drought-like conditions, and that about 1.2 million people need mental health and psychosocial support services, according to the World Health Organization. The World Food Programme reintroduced the full cash assistance package for newcomers among refugees and returnees entering via Renk, while 8.66 million people received insecticide-treated mosquito nets in a nationwide campaign to reduce malaria. (Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) via ReliefWeb, 16 October 2026) • The Medical Consultancy of the Embassy of Sudan in Cairo, during the closing of the Arab Union for Voluntary Work's Pink October activities, called for dealing effectively with breast cancer and turning awareness into practical practices and real solidarity with every woman on her journey of diagnosis, treatment or recovery. The representative of the Medical Advisor, Dr Alaa Abubakr, affirmed the importance of partnership between health institutions, diplomatic bodies and civil society organisations to spread health culture and access to documented medical information. (Source: Medical Consultancy of the Embassy of Sudan in Cairo via Toteel News)
— Editorial Team