Overview
- UN aid staff gained first access to Al-Fashir since the RSF takeover and reported a largely deserted city, describing it as a crime scene with survivors sheltering in ruins and concerns over the injured and detained.
- Independent analyses, including Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab, documented efforts to remove or destroy human remains in RSF-held areas, with imagery indicating mass graves and evidence erasure.
- Displacement is surging, with at least 107,000 people fleeing Al-Fashir since late October and new camps rapidly expanding, including El-Afadh near Al-Dabba now spanning about 500,000 square metres, as IOM logged over 10,000 newly displaced in late December.
- UNICEF reported an unprecedented emergency in North Darfur, finding 53% of screened children in Um Baru acutely malnourished and one in six severely malnourished, while WFP warns rations will be cut by up to 70% after the UN halved its 2026 appeal.
- Fighting has intensified in Kordofan, with the RSF seizing the Heglig oilfield and pressing toward El-Obeid while maintaining sieges on Kadugli and Dilling, as army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan rejects negotiations and demands RSF surrender.