Sudan: RSF Says It Captures Key Sudan Town Near Ethiopian Border As Army Withdraws

What the report says

Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces said they had taken Al Kurmuk, a strategic town in Blue Nile State near the Ethiopian border, after advancing with allied fighters and pushing Sudanese Armed Forces troops out of the area, according to reporting cited by Addis Standard from Al Jazeera and The National. The reports said army units withdrew and repositioned outside the town, while the RSF claimed it had caused heavy losses and seized weapons and ammunition.

Local authorities in Kurmuk said the town had been under three days of intense attacks involving drones and artillery. They said the attacks came from the regional area and maintained that government forces were still defending the town, residents and public institutions. The National also said the RSF described the takeover as its second gain in Blue Nile State this week, after reporting control of Qayssan on Tuesday.

The fighting matters because Al Kurmuk sits on a cross-border route linking Sudan’s Blue Nile region with Ethiopia and is relatively close to South Sudan. The town has changed hands during the war: the RSF took it in March, and the army later recaptured it last month, according to the article. More broadly, Blue Nile has become a contested front in Sudan’s wider conflict, where the RSF and army have fought since April 2023.