Sudan Nashra: RSF pushes into Dalang, military repels multi-front assault | RSF-bound Emirati supplies to Libya decline amid Iranian Gulf strikes | Military strikes RSF supplies in North Darfur entering from Chad | RSF, SPLM-N continue push in Blue Nile, region’s food security at risk | Burhan reshuffles top military command, Atta appointed chief of staff

Subscribe to our Lens on Sudan newsletter here . The repercussions of the war launched by the United States and Israel on Iran, and Tehran’s retaliatory strikes across the Gulf, are being felt along the RSF’s supply lines. Shipments sent via Libya from the United Arab Emirates — the group’s main backer — have been disrupted. The Libyan National Army (LNA), led by the Haftar family, has played a central role in facilitating Emirati military supplies to the RSF throughout the war. But two Libyan sources involved in Libya’s supply network told Mada Masr that the flow of new arms shipments declined markedly in March. A source in the LNA General Command said the slowdown is tied both to the war on Iran — as the UAE is among the worst hit by Tehran’s strikes — and to sustained airstrikes and surveillance linked to the military over desert routes in Libya, forcing more cautious and less frequent deliveries. Although arrivals in Libya have slowed, the RSF is yet to feel a supply crunch. According to a former Sudanese intelligence source based in Chad, supplies have been stockpiled in warehouses in northern Chad, with deliveries into Sudan recently accelerating. Five military sources say cross-border supplies of vehicles and ammunition from Chad have increased in recent weeks, coming through the Zaghawa tribe belt along the North Darfur border, which holds the last towns still held by the military and its allies. The RSF has been relentlessly pushing to seize these areas, which a senior military officer described as a critical logistical artery for the paramilitary group. According to two of the military sources, the military launched a series of strikes on Sunday targeting RSF supplies and troop movements around the border towns, which they said are aimed at capturing them and securing faster and safer supply routes to the North Kordofan front. On the other side of the country, in Sudan’s southeast along the Ethiopian and South Sudanese borders, RSF forces and the allied Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, led by Abdel Aziz al-Hilu, are moving to consolidate gains after seizing Blue Nile’s Kurmuk city and nearby towns last week. Attempts to expand into other parts of Kurmuk locality have been repelled by the military, but signs point to further escalation across the state as both sides mobilize. According to a local activist, RSF forces are continuing to gather in Asosa city, across the Ethiopian border in Benishangul-Gumuz, which a military source said served as a launch point for last week’s Kurmuk offensive. On the military’s side, the Fourth Infantry Division in the state capital Damazin has deployed newly trained units to front lines, with reinforcements drawn from neighboring states, according to the activist. The fighting has already forced thousands to flee the Kurmuk locality for Damazin, where displacement camps are severely overstretched. With the planting season approaching, a Blue Nile government source warned that continued clashes could disrupt agriculture and trigger a severe food crisis in the region. In South Kordofan, the RSF launched a multi-front attack on Dalang on Saturday, advancing briefly into the city’s neighborhoods before being pushed out by the military. A military source told Mada Masr that RSF forces, along with some SPLM-N fighters and South Sudanese mercenaries, carried out the attack after mobilizing for weeks in areas near Dalang. A former SPLM-N source told Mada Masr that the RSF’s failure to secure gains in Dalang is partly due to the fact that they recruited members of Arab tribes with a long history of rivalry with the African Nuba, from whom most SPLM-N fighters are drawn. Many refused to take part in ground operations alongside Arab fighters against the predominantly Nuban Dalang, they said. *** Military strikes RSF supply lines in North Darfur entering from Chad Military forces say they have repelled an RSF offensive on the town of Tina, North Darfur, February 21. - Courtesy: Ana Sudani on Facebook The military’s air force carried out a wave of strikes on Sunday targeting RSF positions and supplies in North Darfur along the western and southern outskirts of the Sudanese town of Tina, bordering Chad, as well as in Abu Qumra and Gargira, according to a military source in the joint force of the military-allied armed movements. The source told Mada Masr the operation was prompted by signs of heightened RSF logistical activity. RSF forces have been detected regrouping and moving supplies in recent days, in what the source said was preparation for another attempt to advance on Tina. The paramilitary group had briefly pushed into the strategic town earlier this month before being forced out. The source said that initial assessments suggest that several combat vehicles were destroyed and supply lines around the towns disrupted. No confirmed casualty figures are yet available. In mid-March, two military sources in the joint force told Mada Masr that flows of military equipment crossing in from Chad have increased. These shipments — including vehicles and ammunition —  are funneled into North Darfur in batches, according to the two sources, as well as three field sources who spoke to Mada Masr this week. The areas targeted on Sunday fall within Zaghawa tribal territories  — the last pockets in Darfur still held by military forces after the fall of Fasher in October. Since then, these areas have become a focal point of RSF operations. The terrain presents a dual advantage for the paramilitary group: open desert routes facilitate supply movement, while mountainous areas provide cover for incoming shipments and troop mobilization. With the RSF’s logistical hubs and air bridges in South Darfur and West Darfur repeatedly compromised by military airstrikes , and the Sudan-Libya-Egypt border triangle corridor effectively closed after Egypt cautioned eastern Libyan leaders not to use it to move RSF shipments, the strategic value of the Zaghawa border areas has significantly elevated. A senior military source at the forward command in North Kordofan’s Obeid described it as one of the RSF’s most critical logistical arteries, as well as a key fallback zone for withdrawals. A former Sudanese intelligence official in Chad who worked in the Sudanese embassy in N’Djamena said the recent intensified inflows are drawn from stocked warehouses in northern Chad, where Emirati supplies channelled through southeastern Libya are stored in the mountainous areas, providing a natural cover from targeting. According to the three field sources, supplies entering North Darfur from northern Chad are routed toward North Kordofan, supporting planned advances on the state capital Obeid and western Omdurman in Khartoum. This, they explained, makes Tina a vital node linking supply lines with operational fronts. The RSF’s western overland supply lines as described by sources speaking to Mada Masr. According to a Sudanese intelligence source, the RSF is seeking to separate its military supply lines from civilian trade routes in areas under its control, a move aimed at reducing exposure to military targeting to maintain administrative control. The RSF has relied on major cities such as Nyala, Geneina and Fasher as hubs for provisioning and logistics, which has driven traders and capital out and led to acute shortages of food and essential goods, the source told Mada Masr. The cities’ surrounding communities, meanwhile, are dependent on pastoralism and agriculture, sectors that risk disruption when weapon supply activity passes through them. But the increased supply movement running through Chad has heightened tensions in the western neighbor, according to a Chadian notable from the Zaghawa, whose lands straddle the border with North Darfur and stretch into Chad’s Wadi Fira. Figures linked to the government of President Mahamat Deby, himself a member of the Zaghawa, have been involved in facilitating and overseeing these flows, a fact the source said stirred domestic sensitivities. The Zaghawa communities — a key constituency in the Chadian military and government as well as the Sudanese joint force, and a group long at odds with the Janjaweed, the RSF’s precursor — have endured months of escalating violence. Fighting in North Darfur triggered widespread killing and displacement across their areas, repeatedly spilling over the border. According to the notable, many in the Zaghawa view the supply operations not simply as military logistics but as a form of social targeting, as their communities then bear the brunt of the resulting fighting. In response to the military escalation in the Zaghawa lands, the Chadian authorities have introduced precautionary measures, including closing crossings and banning gatherings near border areas, according to a Chadian security source. These steps, they added, are intended to contain spillover and curb arms smuggling. Amid these heightened security measures, five civilians were killed and 14 others injured on March 20, the first day of Eid al-Fitr, in the Sudanese border town of Um Dukhun in Central Darfur after it came under fire from Chadian forces. While a Chadian military source said the forces were pursuing smugglers, eyewitnesses said the fire struck a gathering of extended families from both sides of the border, assembled on the Sudanese side in a long-standing Eid tradition. One witness said Chadian troops had been patrolling the border and observing the crowd before the shooting began. *** RSF-bound Emirati supplies to Libya decline amid Iranian Gulf strikes Despite the continued flow of Emirati-supplied military equipment to the RSF from warehouse stocks in Chad, two Libyan sources involved in Benghazi’s RSF supply network told Mada Masr that new Emirati arms and equipment supplies leaving Libya have markedly declined during March. Within three weeks, only one convoy of combat vehicles entered Sudan from Libya, one of the sources, a commander involved in escorting the convoys, told Mada Masr. A source in the General Command of the Libyan National Army led by Khalifa Haftar told Mada Masr that the US-Israeli war on Iran and Tehran’s retaliatory strikes against the Gulf, particularly the UAE, have led to a decline in Emirati arms flows intended for the RSF to Libya. The source also cited a shift in supply routes inside Libya, now redirected westward, making them longer. The rerouting came in response to increased drone surveillance and airstrikes linked to the military in exposed desert terrain, heightening the risks associated with overland transfer operations from Libya, according to the source. As a result, supply movements from Libya into Sudan are now smaller in scale and conducted at night, involving no more than two or three vehicles at a time to minimize targeting, the source added. A desert patrol commander from the LNA-affiliated Subul al-Salam Brigade, responsible for escorting arms and military equipment supplies bound for the RSF, likewise said that military convoys departing from the Wahat and Kufra districts in southeastern Libya have significantly dropped over the past month. His unit had escorted a single convoy about three weeks ago, consisting of 83 Toyota pick-up trucks used in desert warfare, he said. The trucks entered Libya through the oil port of Brega and were escorted through the Tazibru oasis in Kufra to the edge of the border triangle with Sudan and Chad, where they were handed over to RSF groups stationed in sites south of Kufra for onward transfer into western Sudan through Chad,  the commander explained. While military equipment supplies declined, fuel supplies, secured by other LNA General Command-affiliated groups, continued at roughly the same rate, according to the commander. A Libyan tribal source informed of dynamics in southeastern Libya told Mada Masr after Fasher’s fall that the General Command of the Libyan National Army led by Khalifa Haftar established a new crossing with Chad to channel UAE weapons to the RSF, compensating for the loss of routes along Egypt’s border. Since the first weeks of Sudan’s war, networks led by the Haftars in eastern Libya have played a central role in the delivery of Emirati military supplies to the RSF. The source in the General Command said that since January, Haftar’s son Saddam has appointed close relatives from the Azwaya and Firjan tribes to oversee operations in southern Libya and manage dealings related to Sudan. Among them is Colonel Abdel Hady Haftar, a nephew of Khalifa Haftar, who has been tasked with overseeing security operations toward Sudan and Chad. The changes followed recommendations from Emirati officials involved in RSF supply, according to the source. *** RSF pushes into Dalang, military repels multi-front assault Sudanese women mourn the people killed by RSF-SPLM-N shelling of residential areas in Dalang, South Kordofan, March 28 - Courtesy: Courtesy of @Gaza24Live on X After weeks of military escalation around Dalang in South Kordofan, RSF forces briefly infiltrated the city earlier this week, pushing into residential neighborhoods before being repelled by military forces. A military source told Mada Masr that RSF fighters, alongside some SPLM-N (Hilu) forces and South Sudanese mercenaries, launched an assault on the city’s defenses on Saturday. According to a former SPLM-N source, many fighters in the group — drawn largely from the Nuba community — refused to take part in ground assaults on the predominantly Nuban city. The attack, unfolding in four waves along three fronts, followed weeks of RSF mobilization in Farshaya to the north, Lagawa to the southwest and northern areas of Kauda — the SPLM-N leadership’s stronghold — to the southeast, according to the military source. The fighting lasted for hours. Backed by armored vehicles, an RSF force managed to break into the city’s neighborhood, but a military counter-maneuver forced them to withdraw after sustaining heavy losses in personnel and equipment, the source said. Another military source said strategic drones played a significant role in repelling the assault. Several RSF commanders were killed in targeted strikes, including prominent commander Yacoub al-Sadig and Ahmed al-Tak, operations chief of the RSF’s Group 13. In a statement on Sunday, military spokesperson Assem Awad said their forces inflicted heavy losses on RSF fighters and their allies in Dalang, destroying 36 combat vehicles, seizing four others and killing dozens of fighters. In the aftermath, the RSF reinforced its positions in Lagawa and West Kordofan’s Abu Zabad, the second military source said. Military drones targeted these positions on Sunday, as well as an RSF drone operation and launch system near West Kordofan’s capital Fula, destroying it and killing its crew, they added. According to the first source, the RSF is seeking to secure gains in South Kordofan ahead of the rainy season in June, which complicates troop and supply movement, aiming to isolate Dalang once again by cutting its link to Kadugli, the state capital. The road between the two cities had only recently been reopened in late January, ending almost three years of siege. However, since early March, clashes have resumed on Dalang’s outskirts, accompanied by intensified RSF-SPLM-N drone and artillery strikes. A former SPLM-N source told Mada Masr that the failure to secure gains in Dalang is partly due to the ethnic composition of RSF-SPLM-N forces operating in South Kordofan. According to the source, the RSF has mobilized fighters from the Hawazma and Misseriya — Arab tribes with a long-standing rivalry with the African Nuba, from whom most SPLM-N fighters are drawn. Given that Dalang’s population is predominantly Nuban, this created internal friction within the alliance. Many SPLM-N fighters, the source said, refused to take part in ground operations, viewing the mobilization of Arab tribes as a form of ethnic targeting against their own communities. This, the source argued, has weakened the effectiveness of joint ground offensives, giving an advantage to military forces. That is why the RSF and its ally turn to artillery and drone strikes in South Kordofan, according to the source. The Sudan Doctors Network said that the RSF and SPLM-N shelled Dalang on Saturday night, hitting residential areas and killing 14 people, including five children, and injuring 23 others. *** RSF-SPLM-N continue push in Blue Nile, military repels advances; both sides ramp up mobilization Military forces celebrate after repelling an RSF-SPLM-N assault in Sali, Blue Nile state, March 30. - Courtesy: @sport6780 on Telegram In the southeastern Blue Nile region, RSF forces and their allied SPLM-N have been working to consolidate recent gains following their takeover of Kurmuk and nearby towns last week. A field source told Mada Masr that the military repelled an attack on Keili in the Kurmuk locality on Sunday, destroying several combat vehicles and killing or capturing fighters affiliated with Joseph Tuka, the deputy commander of the SPLM-N. Keili, one of the historical areas of the Funj people in southern Blue Nile, had been claimed by the SPLM-N last week before the military retook it days later. On Monday, fighting shifted to Sali, south of Damazin, where the military said it repelled an assault by RSF-SPLM-N forces and inflicted heavy losses. Military units had regrouped in the area after withdrawing from Kurmuk. Alongside ground clashes, both sides exchanged airstrikes across the region. In Bau locality, an RSF drone struck a transport vehicle in the Maganza area on Monday, killing and injuring civilians, an activist in Blue Nile told Mada Masr. On Wednesday, military aircraft struck RSF equipment in SPLM-N-held Yabus and Balila near the Ethiopian border, destroying combat vehicles and fuel depots, according to the activist. Further escalation across the region appears imminent as both sides step up preparations. The activist said information from across the Ethiopian border indicates further RSF mobilization in Asosa, in Ethiopia’s Benishangul-Gumuz region bordering Sudan. A military source told Mada Masr last week that forces involved in the Kurmuk offensive had come through this area. On the military side, the Fourth Infantry Division in Damazin has deployed newly trained units to front lines, with additional reinforcements drawn from Sennar, White Nile and eastern Gezira according to the activist. Blue Nile regional governor Ahmed al-Omda Bady called on local administrators last week to urgently advance popular recruitment and organize civilian ranks in preparation for defending the region. *** Displacement in the wake of Kurmuk’s fall strains humanitarian services, threatens Blue Nile’s food security The fall of Kurmuk in Blue Nile State to the RSF and its ally SPLM-N (Hilu) last week has triggered a new wave of displacement, with around 750 families arriving in the state capital Damazin by Monday, according to the state’s Health Minister Gamal Nasser. Even before the takeover, days of drone strikes by RSF-SPLM-N forces had pushed around 2,000 people out of Kurmuk and toward Damazin. The newly displaced have since been distributed across shelter sites already stretched beyond capacity, including the Karama 3 camp and locations in Bawanig, Maghazza and Bau, Nasser said. Mariam Ali, a mother of three from Kurmuk, reached the outskirts of Damazin after traveling for four days across rough terrain, she told Mada Masr. She fled the city without time to prepare, as fighting closed in and the city fell. She described walking for hours before managing to travel part of the way on animal-drawn carts, with little water or food. Her children, she said, were overcome by exhaustion and fear from the sound of gunfire. Mohamed Ali, also displaced from Kurmuk, said he left with his family on March 23, just a day before the fall. As security conditions in the locality rapidly worsened in the days leading up to the takeover, he said residents started moving out in small groups to avoid being targeted or hit by drone strikes. Ali’s family traveled part of the way in overcrowded trucks before arriving in Damazin after two days. According to Nasser, authorities have been arranging for new emergency shelters, but Damazin and its surroundings are struggling to cope, already hosting 11 displacement camps prior to the latest escalation — the cumulative result of decades of conflict in the region. Describing the current composition of the displaced population in Damazin, Nasser said it falls into three main groups. The first includes people who fled fighting in Khartoum, Wad Madani and Singa since 2023. The second comprises those displaced by earlier rounds of conflict in western parts of the region. The third are the groups fleeing the recent military escalation in the state, including returnees who had come back under the government’s “voluntary return” campaign launched in March 2025, only to be displaced again by renewed fighting. Many of these returnees came from refugee camps along the borders with Ethiopia and South Sudan near Kurmuk, where they faced harsh conditions, including limited basic services, weak healthcare infrastructure, food shortages and fragile security, according to Nasser. More than 500 such families had returned by January, he added. A government source in Blue Nile said this group faces compounded vulnerability, having already lost livelihoods during years of displacement and now lacking the means to rebuild stability. As a result, their needs for shelter, food and healthcare are particularly acute, the source added. Blue Nile’s Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Qisma Abdel Karim told Mada Masr that the scale of requirements among the displaced far exceeds the capacities of both the commission and the regional government. Immediate priorities include tents, bedding and mosquito nets, particularly with the rainy season approaching, when the risk of vector and water-borne diseases rises. She also stressed the urgent need to bolster health services at displacement sites, given the heavy strain on already limited facilities. The onset of the rains also marks the start of the planting season in Blue Nile, a key agricultural region. Another government source in the state noted that much of the population lives in rural areas and depends on seasonal farming, making agricultural activity highly sensitive to instability. Ongoing military escalation, particularly around Kurmuk and nearby rural areas, risks disrupting the farming cycle by displacing farmers, limiting access to land and damaging productive infrastructure. Such disruptions could significantly reduce local food production, on which Blue Nile residents mostly rely, according to the source. Combined with rising displacement and weakened distribution capacity, this raises the risk of pushing the region into a food crisis approaching famine conditions if fighting continues, they added. *** Military launches 3-day drone campaign over Nyala Member of the Tasis leadership Osama Hassan Hussein who was killed by the military in this week’s drone campaign in Nyala. - Courtesy: @sport6780 on Telegram Over three consecutive days, Monday through Wednesday, the military carried out a series of drone strikes targeting South Darfur’s Nyala, the seat of the Tasis-led parallel government and a key RSF military and logistical hub. According to an eyewitness, Monday and Tuesday’s strikes hit military sites in northern and central Nyala, as well as a meeting of leaders from the Tasis alliance. The source said two powerful explosions were heard on Monday near the Nyala International Airport, shortly after a plane they said carried military equipment had landed. Tuesday’s strikes, they added, came in four waves between 7 pm and 9 pm and were the most intense. A military source told Mada Masr that a weapons and ammunition depot at the airport was struck on that day. The attacks killed Osama Hassan Hussein, a member of the Tasis leadership council, according to a statement issued by the group on Tuesday. The alliance said Hussein was “assassinated by a Turkish-made Akinci drone that targeted his house.” Hussein was among the leading candidates to assume the post of youth and sports minister in the Tasis government. The military source said that this week, the RSF brought dozens of combat vehicles into Nyala overland from the Chadian border, adding that around 50 of its personnel were flown from Nyala airport to Ethiopia on a private aircraft in what they suggested are preparations for deployment in Blue Nile. *** Burhan reshuffles top military command, Atta appointed chief of staff New military chief of staff Yasser al-Atta. - Courtesy: @WarMediaSd on Telegram Transitional Sovereignty Council chair and military Commander-in-Chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan ordered a sweeping reshuffle of the military’s high command. The changes include the retirement and promotion of several senior officers and the redistribution of key leadership roles within the General Staff. At the center of the shake-up is the appointment of Yasser al-Atta — a TSC member and assistant commander-in-chief — as chief of staff. He replaced Mohamed Osman al-Hussein, who has been retired along with his deputy Khaled Abdeen al-Shamy. Lieutenant General Haidar al-Turaify took over as deputy chief of staff, while Lieutenant General Khalafallah Abdallah Idris was appointed as deputy chief of staff for logistics. According to a senior military source and a former General Staff source, Atta’s selection is rooted in his long operational experience in Blue Nile and Kordofan, where he has spent more than two decades, including during campaigns tied to the South Kordofan insurgency since 2011. The center of gravity of the current war has shifted toward these complex regions, where frontlines intersect with agricultural belts and in areas where ethnic and tribal affiliations overlap, the senior military source told Mada Masr. But beyond his operational experience, Atta is also considered a leading hardliner and one of the establishment’s most influential figures, consistently pushing for a military resolution to the war and taking an unwavering stance against the RSF, according to a TSC source. Thus, the former General Staff source said that his appointment could be read as consolidation of a more uncompromising military approach to managing the war, one that could drive both an expansion of operations and a shift in territorial priorities. The decision to entrust a new leadership with logistics, meanwhile, underscores the weight of supply management as a decisive factor in Kordofan and Blue Nile, according to the source. In their assessment, the broader restructuring reflects an attempt to “reset the tempo of the war” after nearly three years of fighting, amid uneven outcomes across multiple fronts and mounting regional and international pressure to move toward a political settlement. A source close to Burhan said Atta’s appointment formalizes an already expanding role, particularly his oversight of the integration file. Earlier this month, Atta announced that the military leadership will begin integrating forces that have fought alongside the military during the war into the state’s security institutions, a matter that the source described as “one of the most complex and sensitive issues” within the establishment since the war began. According to the source, Atta is one of the central figures who has secured a degree of acceptance among various military and political actors, including the joint force, civilian mobilized fighters and reserve forces. The source added that he has been granted broad authority over security arrangements, including oversight of restructuring, integration and redeployment. While the position of assistant commander-in-chief formally remains in place, Atta’s move is expected to open the way for a new appointment to that role, as well as to his seat on the TSC, according to the TSC source. As for Hussein’s retirement, the senior military source said it aligns with the Sudanese military lawArmed Forces Law limiting senior command tenure to five years. Hussein had served as chief of staff for seven consecutive years, following an extension granted shortly before the outbreak of the war. *** Subscribe to our Lens on Sudan newsletter here . The post Sudan Nashra: RSF pushes into Dalang, military repels multi-front assault | RSF-bound Emirati supplies to Libya decline amid Iranian Gulf strikes | Military strikes RSF supplies in North Darfur entering from Chad | RSF, SPLM-N continue push in Blue Nile, region’s food security at risk | Burhan reshuffles top military command, Atta appointed chief of staff first appeared on Mada Masr .