Sudan's army broke a months-long stalemate on the Khartoum road to al-Obeid, taking four towns on Sunday. RSF leader Dagalo answered by declaring Khartoum his target, while for civilians inside the encircled city nothing has visibly eased.
Al-Obeid is the capital of North Kordofan state in central Sudan and a strategic hub on the routes linking Khartoum to the country's west. It has been encircled for around 18 months, according to UN Women, as Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces fight for control of the region. Residents under siege depend on trips outside their homes for basic needs such as water, which the UN now describes as the principal point of exposure to both aerial attack and sexual violence. The UN human rights chief warned earlier this month of a humanitarian catastrophe in the city as fighting intensified. UN Women compares the situation to that of al-Fashir in North Darfur a year earlier, another besieged state capital in the same conflict.
The leader of Sudan's Rapid Support Forces told his fighters that 'Khartoum is our target' following a setback in the war, The National reported on Thursday. The remarks signal a renewed paramilitary push on the capital.
Residents in Sudan say there is no hiding from drone attacks, in what Koha describes as terror from the sky. Refugees who fled the war are battling water shortages in camps across the border in Chad and see fading hopes of returning home, Al Jazeera reports.
The Sudanese armed forces captured four strategic towns on the highway linking Khartoum to El Obeid, the besieged capital of North Kordofan, on Sunday 26 July, their first significant advance after months of a frozen front line, Le Monde reports. RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo told his fighters to march on despite the setback, according to The National.
The Sudanese army says it has regained full control of the Al Sadarat highway linking Khartoum with El Obeid, according to Al Jazeera. The road would help the army block the Rapid Support Forces' push to take El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan.
Sudan's army seized a town in Kordofan, according to The National. The advance eases pressure on the besieged city of Al Obeid.
The Joint Forces of Sudan, an alliance of the army and allied armed groups, said on Saturday they had retaken a strategic city and three further localities in North Kordofan in the centre of the country, according to Telesur. The claim is unconfirmed by independent sources; the UN has documented siege conditions and mass sexual violence in the state.
UN Women said on 24 July 2026 that women and girls in the besieged Sudanese city of al-Obeid face drone attacks when they fetch water by day and harassment, rape and other sexual violence when they go out after dark. The agency described the North Kordofan capital as a place with no safe time of day for water collection. It comes weeks after the UN human rights chief warned of a humanitarian catastrophe in the city amid intensified fighting between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.