Copyright france24
El-Fasher's fall has given the paramilitaries control over all five state capitals in Darfur and parts of the south while the army now dominates northern, eastern and central areas along the Nile and Red Sea. "The RSF, now that they control all of Darfur, has an incentive to try to bring food and assistance into areas under their control, but the army has an incentive to not allow the RSF to consolidate its gains," Hudson said. No details of the ceasefire proposal have been made public, but a senior Saudi official told AFP that it calls for a "three-month truce", during which both sides would be encouraged to hold talks in Jeddah on a permanent peace deal. New explosions On Friday, one day after RSF responded positively to the ceasefire idea, explosions were heard in Khartoum and in Atbara, an army-held city around 300 kilometres (186 miles) north of Khartoum, according to witnesses who spoke to AFP. Khartoum has seen relative calm since the regular army regained control this year, but the RSF continues to mount attacks in several regions. A resident in Omdurman, part of the greater Khartoum area, told AFP on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal, he was awoken "around 2am (0000 GMT) by the sound of ... explosions near the Wadi Sayidna military base". Another resident said they "heard a drone overhead around 4:00am before an explosion struck near" a power station, causing an outage in the area. In Atbara a resident saw several drones before dawn on Friday. "Anti-aircraft defences shot them down, but I saw fires breaking out and heard sounds of explosions in the east of the city," the resident said, also on condition of anonymity. There were no immediate reports of casualties. Neither the army nor the RSF commented on the blasts, though the RSF has been using long-range drones to strike army-held areas since it lost control of the capital. Fighting in Kordofan In the south, the Sudan Doctors' Union accused the RSF of shelling a hospital in the besieged city of Dilling in South Kordofan on Thursday morning, wounding several people. In a statement, the union said that the shelling "destroyed the hospital's radiology and medical imaging department", crippling one of the region's vital health facilities. Dilling has been under RSF siege since June 2023. It lies around 150 kilometres (93 miles) southwest of El-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan – a key crossroads linking Darfur to Khartoum. Famine and oil Independent verification remains difficult due to heavy fighting and communications blackouts in the area, but Dilling faces a severe humanitarian crisis. According to the Rome-based Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), the city is now at risk of famine, while the state capital, Kadugli, is already facing one. Famine has also been confirmed in Darfur's El-Fasher and three nearby displacement camps. Last year, the IPC also declared famine in parts of South Kordofan's Nuba Mountains. South Kordofan, which borders South Sudan, is one of Sudan's most resource-rich areas and home to the Heglig oil field, among the country's largest. (FRANCE 24 with AFP)
