RSF threaten Babanusa; SLA reinforce El Fasher; SAF bomb Khartoum market
Sudan conflict updates from across the country
The former Darfur rebel groups, long a fractious collective, are making a show of unity in El Fasher, attempting to deter an attack by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Two previously uninvolved groups have dispatched troops to the city, including one group based in Libya and another based in the central mountainous region Jebel Marra.
During a 20-year war between 2003 and 2023, dozens of rebel groups formed, split, united, or joined the government at various times.
The largest and most powerful group at present is the Joint Force of Armed Struggle Movements, led by the Sudan Liberation Army leader Minni Minawi, who is also the governor of the Greater Darfur Region under the terms of a 2020 peace agreement.
Numbering in the thousands, the Joint Force stayed neutral during the first seven months of this war. Last week, however, Minawi and his counterpart in the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), Jibril Ibrahim (whose troops also participate in the Joint Force), announced that they would