Ad-Dalang: Roads Reopen While Others Stay Cut Off as Authorities Push Civil Servants Back to Work
Atar Correspondent
Drones believed to belong to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and their ally, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement–North (Tasis Alliance forces), struck the city of Ad-Dalang in South Kordofan on the morning of 30 June, injuring several civilians. No fatalities were reported. Jamal Al-Sharif, a resident of Ad-Dalang’s At-Tomaat neighbourhood, told Atar’s correspondent that the attack hit several residential districts, causing partial damage to homes as well as government buildings.
In their continuing effort to control Ad-Dalang, Tasis Alliance forces have maintained a steady campaign of drone strikes and artillery shelling against the city in recent months. Although the intensity of these attacks eased during the past month, allowing a period of relative calm, the alliance has now resumed its offensive, once again relying on drone attacks.
The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) accuse Tasis Alliance forces of deliberately targeting civilians to force them to flee the city, where residents are already enduring an acute and complex humanitarian crisis. A local official in Ad-Dalang told Atar’s correspondent that civilians continue to leave the city, with most heading southeast to Abu Jebayha or east to Kosti in White Nile State, where they face equally harsh living conditions.
In May, soldiers from the SAF and allied units released video footage showing they had entered the Tukmah area east of Ad-Dalang. Later that month, they published another video announcing the reopening of the Tukmah–Dalang–Habila Road after months of isolation caused by military operations and the siege. The breakthrough enabled the SAF and their allies to delivery humanitarian aid and relief supplies to civilians in Ad-Dalang while reinforcing their troops stationed inside the city.
Traders and truck drivers in Ad-Dalang told Atar’s correspondent that reopening the Tukmah–Ad-Dalang–Habila Road is unlikely to significantly revive commercial activity, arguing that its primary value lies in facilitating the delivery of humanitarian cargo. What matters most, they said, is the Ad-Dalang–Al-Obeid highway. As long as that route remains closed, neither the local economy nor living conditions for civilians in Ad-Dalang are expected to improve.
Asmahan Adam Abdelkabir, a resident of Ad-Dalang’s Al-Malakiya neighbourhood, told Atar’s correspondent that conditions for the city’s residents have remained largely unchanged a month after the SAF and allied forces reopened the road linking Ad-Dalang and Kadugli, allowing limited quantities of food, consumer goods, and fuel to enter the city. Despite that development, she said, food prices remain well beyond the reach of most residents, the vast majority of whom have been without work since Tasis Alliance forces besieged the city and severed its road links. Families now depend largely on money transfers from relatives outside Ad-Dalang and members of the Sudanese diaspora.
“Many of us survive on just one meal a day,” she said. “Leaving the city is not an option because the surrounding areas remain engulfed in fighting and are especially unsafe for women and young people, who would rather die inside Ad-Dalang than endure the humiliation and abuse awaiting them outside.”
Markets across Ad-Dalang continue to suffer from severe shortages of essential goods. Al-Basha Jabara, a truck driver operating between Ad-Dubeibat and Ad-Dalang, told Atar’s correspondent that supplies reaching Ad-Dubeibat are themselves scarce and difficult to obtain. At times, he said, he waits as long as a month before securing a shipment of food commodities. Jabara added that he has abandoned commercial freight transport and now works as a driver for an international humanitarian organisation, though only a very limited number of aid convoys ultimately reach Ad-Dalang.
Hamad Koko Kajour, a trader in Ad-Dalang’s central market, said soaring transport costs, combined with the numerous taxes and levies imposed along supply routes, have driven prices sharply higher. A malwa of onions sells for 25,000 SDG ($7.14), a bar of soap for 1,500 SDG ($0.43), a kilogram of lentils for 12,000 SDG ($3.43), a kilogram of flour for 10,000 SDG ($2.86), a malwa of sorghum for 15,000 SDG ($4.29), a kilogram of sugar for 20,000 SDG ($5.71), a malwa of peanuts for 6,000 SDG ($1.71), a kilogram of powdered milk for 30,000 SDG ($8.57), a kilogram of beef for 18,000 SDG ($5.14), a kilogram of mutton for 35,000 SDG ($10.00), a malwa of pigeon peas for 20,000 SDG ($5.71), and a carton of biscuits for 35,000 SDG ($10.00).
Meanwhile, healthcare conditions in the city’s hospitals remain in catastrophic decline, particularly after an artillery strike hit Ad-Dalang’s main pharmaceutical warehouse and medical supply depot on 21 May. According to the Sudan Doctors Network, the attack destroyed large quantities of medicines, medical equipment, and emergency supplies that local initiatives had previously managed to stockpile.
A medical source at Mother Bakhita Hospital in Ad-Dalang told Atar’s correspondent that the facility is now limited to providing maternity services and could soon be forced to suspend even those services unless urgent assistance arrives in the form of medicines and medical equipment. The warning comes after other hospitals ceased operations and Ad-Dalang Teaching Hospital was reduced to providing only minimal services.
The medical source said the hospital has exhausted its supply of life-saving medications and intravenous fluids, while anaesthetics, surgical gauze, and medical cotton have become critically scarce. The shortages previously forced doctors and volunteers to perform emergency operations on victims of shelling without anaesthesia. The source added that most X-ray machines and laboratory diagnostic equipment have also broken down and require maintenance and replacement parts that cannot be brought into the city under the current siege.
Commenting on a decision by the SAF affiliated government of South Kordofan requiring all civil servants to immediately resume work across the state’s institutions, an employee at the state secretariat, who requested anonymity and has been displaced to a city in central Sudan, told Atar’s correspondent that the measure is intended to “dismiss and further displace employees who have already been uprooted.”
“The state government knows the roads remain closed,” he said. “How are employees inside Sudan and abroad supposed to return under these circumstances?”
He called for transport routes to be reopened before workers are expected to resume their duties.
A teacher who lives in Ad-Dalang and works at one of the city’s schools said she reports to work whenever instructed to do so but has not received a salary in two years.
Al-Obeid: A City on the Brink of Siege, With Only One Way Out
Atar Correspondent
As drone attacks by the Rapid Supported Forces (RSF) continue to escalate around Al-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan, concerns over the city’s security and humanitarian outlook are mounting. Official statements continue to insist that the situation remains stable, but local assessments paint a far more alarming picture, warning of growing threats. Against this backdrop, hundreds of thousands of civilians are confronting conditions reminiscent of those that engulfed Al-Fasher in 2025, when repeated military operations steadily restricted civilian movement and deepened the humanitarian crisis.
Military authorities aligned with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) are encouraging civilians to remain in Al-Obeid, fearing that a mass departure could undermine troop morale ahead of a potential ground offensive. Local sources told Atar that most of those still in the city are internally displaced people who fled other parts of Sudan, while many of Al-Obeid’s original residents have already left. The displacement has been accompanied by a surge in household furniture sales, weakening consumer demand, soaring prices, and sluggish market activity. Most of those leaving are heading to Omdurman or Kosti.
At the city’s main market, trader Mohammed Baqa told Atar’s correspondent that life is marked by a cautious calm to which residents have gradually adapted. Daily activity continues despite growing fears and chronic shortages of water, electricity, and fuel, forcing many residents to travel on foot. He added that the only viable escape route remaining is the highway linking North Kordofan and White Nile State.
Activist Mohammed Wad Al-Haj told Atar’s correspondent that soaring transport costs and rising rents in safer states have severely limited families’ ability to flee. Bus fares, he said, have more than doubled over the past three months, placing evacuation beyond the financial reach of many residents.
Speaking to Atar’s correspondent, Abdelwahab Bob, coordinator of Al-Obeid’s Emergency Response Rooms, said the city is confronting an increasingly complex security, economic, and humanitarian crisis. He noted that the scale of military mobilisation surrounding Al-Obeid mirrors the buildup that preceded the RSF’ capture of other cities, arguing that the official narrative fails to reflect realities on the ground.
Bob told Atar that Al-Obeid has effectively lost several of its access routes, while others are becoming increasingly constrained. He warned that any further military escalation could result in the city’s complete isolation, particularly as Al-Obeid is sheltering large numbers of displaced people from seven Sudanese states, making any further escalation extraordinarily costly from a humanitarian perspective. According to Atar’s correspondent, the highway linking Al-Obeid and Kosti remains the primary route open to civilian movement. However, travellers face persistent threats from armed robbery gangs, in addition to the risk of drone strikes by the RSF. An unpaved road connecting Al-Obeid with Khor Taggat, Zaribat Sheikh Al-Burai, and Ad-Dweim also remains accessible, although it is difficult to navigate, particularly with the onset of the rainy season.
Civil society activist Alaaeldin Kabir told Atar’s correspondent that every route leading north, west, and south of the city has fallen under RSF control, leaving only the Al-Obeid–Kosti Road as the remaining corridor for movement. Even that route, he said, has become extremely dangerous, as the RSF frequently targets commercial trucks and fuel tankers, although passenger buses continue to operate.
Muammar Gaddafi, a human rights advocate and Kordofan affairs researcher originally from Al-Obeid, told Atar’s correspondent that if military operations sever the national highway linking Al-Obeid and Kosti, civilians will likely be forced to rely on the eastern Khor Taggat route through Al-Zariba before continuing to Al-Dweim. He said travel through those areas would most likely have to be on foot because of the acute fuel shortage, which has left transport largely unavailable.
Gaddafi noted that Al-Zariba is widely regarded as neutral territory because of its spiritual significance, but questioned whether it could accommodate the expected influx of displaced people if it became a gathering point or transit hub. He also stressed the need for early planning, particularly the provision of adequate water supplies, warning that access to water would be among the greatest challenges facing any large concentration of civilians.
Civil society activist Taha Raouf told Atar’s correspondent that establishing safe evacuation routes out of Al-Obeid is not the principal challenge. The real obstacle, he said, is residents’ financial ability to leave. Many civilians simply lack the means to flee or travel.
“If they had genuine alternatives, they would no longer be in the city,” he said, emphasizing that a large segment of the population has virtually no options and is therefore compelled to remain.
Mohammed Wad Al-Haj said residents have lost confidence in official statements, with comparisons to Al-Fasher becoming increasingly embedded in public consciousness as fears mount that the city could face the same fate if the military escalation continues.
Military Tensions in Northwestern Darfur Ripple Through Al-Jenaynah's Markets
Atar Correspondent
Northwestern Darfur witnessed intensified military activity over the past week, with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF)-aligned Joint Forces deploying reinforcements around Kulbus and Jebel Moon. Sources told Atar that the Joint Forces have expanded their operations across multiple fronts in recent days to strengthen their presence in border areas, prompting the RSF to reinforce its own positions across the region.
The sources estimated that the RSF dispatched approximately 107 combat vehicles to northwestern Darfur alongside the Joint Forces’ movements. They described information circulating on social media about the deployments as “contradictory and misleading,” saying it had fueled growing anxiety among residents. Tijani Al-Tahir Karshoum, head of the RSF-affiliated Civil Administration in West Darfur, told reporters that the security situation remains under control and that the relevant authorities are closely monitoring developments on the ground.
In Al-Jenaynah, an atmosphere of cautious calm and anticipation prevailed, with local markets quickly reflecting the heightened tensions. Prices of essential commodities rose noticeably following reports of the military reinforcements. A 50-kilogram sack of sugar climbed to about 260,000 SDG ($74.29), a container of cooking oil reached 150,000 SDG ($42.86), and a sack of imported flour sold for 120,000 SDG ($34.29). Bread prices also increased, with three loaves now selling for 1,000 SDG ($0.29) instead of four.
