The Rapid Support Forces say they have taken Mazbad, Aruri and Kamo from the army and allied movements. The UN migration agency reports about 2,000 people displaced from nearby villages, and a Darfur rights group blames an army drone for killing two civilians in Al Malha.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) said on Thursday 29 October that its fighters had captured Mazbad, Aruri and Kamo in North Darfur after repelling an offensive by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and allied armed movements, seizing vehicles, weapons and ammunition. RSF spokesman Al-Fatih Al-Qurashi pledged that the force would protect civilians and restore water and medical services, The Sudan Times reported, citing Erem News. The battlefield claims have not been independently verified, and the army has not given its own account.
Displacement towards Tina and Chad
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on 31 October that 850 people had been displaced from the villages of Kamo and Toki in Kernoi locality because of worsening insecurity, Sudan War Monitor reported. According to The Sudan Times, IOM also recorded 1,150 people leaving the villages of Muzbat, Oreri, Tari and Umm Haraz in Um Baru locality between 29 and 31 October. Families moved to safer areas within Kernoi, Um Baru and At Tina, and some crossed into Chad. IOM did not attribute the displacement to either side.
The three localities sit on desert routes towards the Chadian border. A political analyst quoted by Erem News said control of these supply and movement corridors could shape the balance of forces ahead of any negotiations.
Drone strike on a passenger lorry
Further east, two civilians were killed on Sunday 1 November when a drone hit a commercial lorry carrying passengers and goods at Wadi Majrur, near Al Hara in Al Malha locality, about 210 kilometres north-east of El Fasher, The Sudan Times reported, citing volunteers quoted by Darfur24 and the Darfur Victims Support Organisation. The organisation named the dead as trader Mohamed Moussa Bakhit Takras and driver Ali Ismail Abkar, and said the passengers were travelling to a weekly market at about 2 p.m. Volunteers attributed the strike to the army. Responsibility and the full toll could not be independently verified, and the organisation said a detailed report would follow.
Al Malha, near the Libyan border, is under RSF control and has been hit by repeated air strikes. The authorities of the Tasis-led Government of Peace and Unity have been promoting returns to El Fasher and the restoration of services in North Darfur. However, displacement figures from the state's northern and western localities show that much of it remains an active front line.
Photo: Dry ground near Tawila, North Darfur. USAID, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.