Kadugli, South Kordofan – Amid the acrid smoke of drone strikes and the relentless echo of artillery fire, hundreds more families fled the besieged streets of Kadugli on Friday, December 5, 2025, marking yet another desperate exodus from Sudan's crumbling heartland. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) confirmed that between 350 and 450 residents — mostly women, children, and the elderly — abandoned their homes in the capital of South Kordofan state, driven by a surge in attacks from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and their ally, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu. These latest displacements, fleeing to makeshift shelters in Abu Zabad (West Kordofan) and Sheikan (North Kordofan), underscore the Kordofan region's transformation into a cauldron of violence, where sieges, famine, and forced recruitment have trapped civilians in a vise of survival. As the civil war enters its third year, Kadugli's plight — once a vibrant hub of Nuba culture — exemplifies Sudan's spiraling catastrophe, with over 41,000 people uprooted from North and South Kordofan in the past month alone.
The IOM's Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) teams, navigating treacherous frontlines, documented the December 5 wave as part of a broader collapse in security. Kadugli, home to an estimated 150,000–200,000 people before the war (though no official census exists), has endured a dual siege since mid-2023: RSF paramilitaries from the west and SPLM-N insurgents from the Nuba Mountains encircling the city, severing supply lines and pounding it with artillery and drones. Local activists described Friday's chaos: RSF fighters, backed by SPLM-N militias, shelled residential neighborhoods, forcing families to load what little they could onto donkey carts and trek southward under cover of night. “The air reeks of fear — children screaming, elders collapsing from exhaustion,” one resident recounted, as gunfire rattled markets already barren of staples.
This is no isolated flare-up. Since November 2025, the three Kordofan states — North, West, and South — have become the war's new epicenter, with RSF offensives slicing eastward from Darfur, their recent conquest of El Fasher in North Darfur providing the launchpad. The paramilitaries have seized Bara in North Kordofan and Babanusa in the west, imposing sieges on El Obeid and Dalang while coordinating with SPLM-N to choke Kadugli. In Kalogi, South Kordofan, RSF drone strikes on a kindergarten and civilian sites killed 116 people — 46 children — last week, drawing UNICEF condemnation as a “horrific violation.”
The human toll defies comprehension. Since April 2023 clashes between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and RSF shattered the uneasy power-sharing pact, the war has claimed at least 150,000 lives — though undercounts from indirect causes like disease and starvation suggest up to 400,000 deaths. Displacement has ballooned to 12 million: 7.7 million internally displaced and 4.3 million refugees, the world's largest crisis. Kordofan's share is staggering: over 175,000 IDPs flooded El Obeid in North Kordofan last month, while 1,600 fled Kertala in the south on November 28 amid RSF abductions for recruitment. In Abu Zabad, newcomers strain water points, sleeping under acacia trees as cholera cases spike — over 4,800 suspected since September.
Compounding the flight is famine's iron grip. On December 5, UNICEF Representative Sheldon Yett confirmed IPC Phase 5 conditions — catastrophic hunger — in Kadugli, where 29% of children suffer acute malnutrition, scavenging leaves and animal feed amid market collapse. The Famine Review Committee projects persistence through January 2026, with risks in 20 more Kordofan and Darfur sites; global acute malnutrition rates hit 75% in some camps. Sieges block aid: Kadugli's hospitals, without electricity or drugs, treat gunshot wounds with saline drips, while 14 of 17 million schoolchildren remain out of class nationwide. “Children are dying quietly — not from bombs, but empty bellies,” Yett said, as 21 million face acute food insecurity, the globe's worst.
The war's roots trace to April 15, 2023, when SAF General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti) turned on each other over integration timelines, fracturing the 2019 Juba accord. What began in Khartoum's palaces engulfed the nation: RSF seized Darfur's five states (barring northern North Darfur pockets), exploiting Janjaweed ties for ethnic cleansing; SAF holds the rest, including Khartoum, but strains against RSF drones and SPLM-N ambushes. Foreign meddling fuels the fire: UAE arms RSF via Chad; Russia eyes Wagner gold mines; Egypt backs SAF. Ceasefire bids — like Jeddah or IGAD talks — crumble; a U.S.-led proposal in November was ignored as RSF pushes for Kordofan's oil fields.
Humanitarian responders teeter on collapse. IOM, UNHCR, UNICEF, and WFP's appeal for $4.2 billion in 2025 is only 25% funded, reaching 13.5 million amid blockades. In Kadugli, mobile clinics treat malnutrition with therapeutic foods, but sieges strand thousands. Activists in service committees decry salary delays and service breakdowns: schools shuttered, hospitals phantom wards.
As dusk cloaks Kadugli's scarred skyline, whispers of resilience persist. Nuba elders organize underground aid networks, smuggling sorghum past checkpoints, while displaced youth in Sheikan dream of return. Yet, with RSF inching closer — 10 km from Dalang — and SAF counterstrikes faltering, partition looms: RSF's western fiefdom versus SAF's eastern redoubt. Sudan's war, devouring its children, begs the world: will Kordofan be saved, or become another forgotten graveyard?
