• Voluntary return from Egypt: the Al-Amal Committee for Voluntary Return dispatched on Saturday, 24 October, a convoy of 25 buses carrying 1,225 Sudanese from Cairo to Sudan, and the committee's head, Mohamed Wadaa, said priority at this stage is for civil service employees and their families to resume their work, in implementation of the directives of Prime Minister Kamil Idris. (Source: Sudan News Agency (SUNA) via the Al-Amal Committee for Voluntary Return) • Sudanese in Europe: Sudanese recorded more than 31,000 asylum applications in Europe between March 2025 and August 2026, most of them concentrated in Greece and France, while the applications awaiting an initial decision exceeded 11,000. (Source: European Union Agency for Asylum) • Khartoum's position on the Abyei attack: the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied, in a statement it issued on the evening of Thursday, 22 October, and which SUNA published the following day, any link between the armed forces and the drone attack on Amit market — known as the Naam market — in Abyei, and expressed the government's regret over the civilian victims and offered condolences to their families, after South Sudan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Sudanese ambassador to Juba, Essam Karrar, to protest. (Source: Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation via Sudan News Agency (SUNA)) • Abyei toll between two sources: the United Nations said the attack on Amit market and Todash killed at least 80 people and injured 27, and that it has not yet determined the party responsible, and the UNISFA force deployed medical, firefighting and rapid-intervention teams to treat the injured and evacuate them, while the acting Minister of Information in the Abyei administration affiliated with South Sudan, Yohanna Akol Ngor, announced that the local toll had risen to 153 dead. (Source: The United Nations, the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) and the Abyei Area Administration) • UN warning over drones: the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, condemned on Friday, 23 October, the escalation of drone attacks in Sudan, and said his office had documented the killing of at least 306 people and the injury of hundreds during the first three weeks of October in attacks attributed to the army and the Rapid Support Forces that struck homes, markets, hospitals, displacement sites, power stations and water sources, and he called for a halt to the flow of weapons fuelling the war. (Source: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights) • The Red Cross: the International Committee of the Red Cross warned on 22 October that air attacks — most of them most likely by drones — had killed hundreds in recent weeks and struck residential neighbourhoods, markets and displacement shelter sites, and the head of its delegation in Sudan, Lorenzo Carafi, said "the use of drones does not change the rules of war", and that hospitals supported by the Committee had treated more than 2,700 weapon-wounded in the first half of 2026. (Source: International Committee of the Red Cross) • Geneva peace efforts: the sixth consultative meeting to coordinate peace initiatives in Sudan concluded in Geneva on 21 October, with the participation of 22 countries and 5 regional and international organisations, sponsored by the United Nations and Switzerland, and its summary affirmed the rejection of a military solution and support for an inclusive political process led by the Sudanese themselves, and for stopping the supply of the war with weapons, mercenaries, drones and financing, and it welcomed the efforts of the Quad — America, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Egypt — towards a humanitarian truce, and the US envoy Massad Boulos said Washington is committed to a peace in which the Sudanese decide their own future. (Source: The United Nations — Co-Chairs' summary of the sixth consultative meeting in Geneva) • Humanitarian work: the UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric renewed on 22 October the condemnation of the killing of civilians in Sudan, and said the United Nations and its partners are preparing to expand life-saving aid in Darfur and Kordofan over the next six months, warning that the severe funding shortfall is hampering the response and that rising fuel prices in parts of Kordofan and Darfur are raising the prices of basic goods for the weakest families. (Source: UN News) • The women of El Fasher after a year: UN Women said in a Geneva briefing on 23 October, a year after the fall of El Fasher, that a survey covering 50 women's organisations supporting the displaced showed that 49 organisations had observed psychological distress among women and girls and that 90% of them live in unsafe conditions and many had received no psychological or legal support, and the regional director, Anna Motavati, said "the scars of violence in El Fasher have not healed". (Source: UN Women — Geneva briefing, 23 October 2026) • South Sudan: the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and head of the UNMISS mission, Anita Kiki Gbeho, visited this week Malakal in Upper Nile State, and opened a new police centre in the Luakkat neighbourhood and met the acting governor and humanitarian partners, affirming that peace begins with collective action and listening to communities, while the state governor pointed to growing needs in communities hosting about 6,000 refugees and returnees from Sudan. (Source: United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS))
— Editorial Team
