The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) announced late Wednesday that they had seized control of the towns of Abu Qumrah and Umm Baru in North Darfur, escalating a military campaign that has intensified across the region in recent days.
In a post on his official Facebook page, RSF commander’s advisor Al-Basha Tabeek said that TASIS Forces, the RSF's newly formed units, had captured the two areas. As of publication time, no independent Sudanese sources or official entities had confirmed or denied the RSF’s claim.
Over the past three days, the RSF has deployed significant reinforcements through the desert axis, a maneuver that local sources describe as preparatory to an offensive targeting the last three localities not under RSF control in the northwestern quadrant of North Darfur: Umm Baru, Karnoi, and Tina.
Darfur region governor Mini Arko Minnawi issued a public appeal on Tuesday, urging residents in these areas to defend their land and resist the RSF advance. He warned of dire consequences should the paramilitary group take full control of the remaining territory in the state.
Conditions in North Darfur have deteriorated rapidly since the RSF captured the state capital, El-Fasher, in October. According to UN estimates, more than 400,000 people have been displaced — the majority now living in dire conditions in the town of Tawila, roughly 70 kilometers west of El-Fasher.
Human rights monitors reported ethnically-motivated massacres, mass abductions, and widespread sexual violence during and after the offensive. Activists had also been warning that full RSF control could reignite ethnically driven massacres, referencing earlier atrocities at Zamzam camp, south of the city.
The civil war between the SAF, led by Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the RSF, commanded by his former deputy Hemedti, has killed tens of thousands and displaced over 12 million people since the war's outbreak in April 2023. The UN warns that Sudan now faces one of the world’s gravest humanitarian catastrophes, with its infrastructure in ruins and millions left without access to essential services.
