https://www.scmp.com/rss/524714/feed The latest news and top stories on Rapid Support Forces (RSF). A Sudanese-based paramilitary force, the RSF officially formed as part of the Sudanese government’s security apparatus to combat rebel groups. Since April 2023, the RSF has been engaged in a devastating conflict with the Sudanese Armed Forces and is accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Agence France-Presse Agence France-Presse US federal prosecutors said on Sunday an Iranian national was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport for allegedly trafficking arms to Sudan on behalf of Tehran. Shamim Mafi, 44, is charged with “brokering the sale of drones, bombs, bomb fuses and millions of rounds of ammunition manufactured by Iran and sold to Sudan”, US Attorney Bill Essayli wrote in a social media post. A resident of the Los Angeles suburb of Woodland Hills, Mafi “is an Iranian national who became a lawful permanent... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3350660/woman-charged-us-trafficking-arms-sudan-iranian-government?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3350660/woman-charged-us-trafficking-arms-sudan-iranian-government?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 19 Apr 2026 22:38:32 +0000 Associated Press Associated Press Famine. Massacres. And now badly needed food and other supplies are under strain. Sudan on Wednesday enters a fourth year of war that is being called an “abandoned crisis” as a new conflict in the Middle East throws into shadow the fighting that has forced 13 million people to flee their homes. Sudan has been described as the world’s largest humanitarian challenge, notably in terms of displacement and hunger. There is no end in sight to the fighting between the military and the paramilitary... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3350197/sudan-enters-4th-year-war-abandoned-crisis-grows?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3350197/sudan-enters-4th-year-war-abandoned-crisis-grows?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 15 Apr 2026 11:45:07 +0000 Agence France-Presse Agence France-Presse A strike on a healthcare facility in Sudan has killed 64 people and wounded 89 more, the World Health Organization reported on Saturday. The deceased included 13 children, WHO Director-General ‌Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on social media. The UN’s humanitarian office in Sudan had earlier said it was “appalled by the attack on a hospital in East Darfur yesterday, reportedly killing dozens, including children, and injuring more”. Sudanese rights group the Emergency Lawyers, who document... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3347452/64-killed-including-13-children-attack-sudan-hospital-who-says?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3347452/64-killed-including-13-children-attack-sudan-hospital-who-says?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 21 Mar 2026 23:03:27 +0000 Tom Hussain Tom Hussain Washington’s allies in the Middle East and beyond are facing the prospects of joining rival blocs in alignment with the different visions of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates following a rare clash between the two countries over war-torn Yemen. The Saudi bombing of an arms shipment reportedly provided by the UAE to separatists in southern Yemen last week has exposed the two Arab heavyweights’ divergent foreign policy approaches in the strategically important Red Sea and Horn of Africa,... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3339089/us-allies-saudi-arabia-uae-risk-split-middle-east-over-competing-visions?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3339089/us-allies-saudi-arabia-uae-risk-split-middle-east-over-competing-visions?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 08 Jan 2026 04:00:10 +0000 Agence France-Presse Agence France-Presse The power supply was cut on Sunday following drone strikes in the Sudanese city of El-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, the national electricity company said, as fighting raged in the oil-rich southern region. For more than two years, Sudan has been gripped by a war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), with Kordofan the latest battleground after the RSF launched an offensive to seize the strategic region. “El-Obeid power station ... was attacked by drones,... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3338671/war-sudan-drone-strikes-cut-power-supply-oil-rich-south?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3338671/war-sudan-drone-strikes-cut-power-supply-oil-rich-south?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 04 Jan 2026 10:43:59 +0000 Agence France-Presse Agence France-Presse A drone attack on a busy market in Sudan’s North Darfur state killed 10 people over the weekend, first responders said, without saying who was responsible. The attack comes as fighting intensified elsewhere in the country, leading aid workers to be evacuated on Sunday from Kadugli, a besieged, famine-hit city in the south. Since April 2023, Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have been locked in a conflict, which has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced nearly 12... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3337246/sudan-war-drags-drone-attack-kills-10-darfur-market?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3337246/sudan-war-drags-drone-attack-kills-10-darfur-market?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 21 Dec 2025 15:26:40 +0000 Associated Press Associated Press More than 1,000 civilians were killed in a three-day attack by the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group earlier this year on the largest displacement camp in western Sudan, the UN Human Rights Office said in a report released on Thursday. RSF stormed Zamzam camp in April as part of its siege of the city of El-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur province. In the attack, hundreds of people were summarily executed, according to the report. People were killed in house-to-house raids... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3337034/un-says-sudans-rsf-killed-1000-civilians-horrific-3-day-attack-camp?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3337034/un-says-sudans-rsf-killed-1000-civilians-horrific-3-day-attack-camp?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 19 Dec 2025 07:11:14 +0000 Associated Press Associated Press A drone strike hit a United Nations facility in war-torn Sudan on Saturday, killing six peacekeepers, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said. The strike hit the peacekeeping logistics base in the city of Kadugli, in the central region of Kordofan, Guterres said in a statement. Eight other peacekeepers were wounded in the strike. All the victims are Bangladeshi nationals, serving in the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA). “Attacks targeting United Nations peacekeepers may constitute... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3336358/6-un-peacekeepers-killed-sudan-drone-strike?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3336358/6-un-peacekeepers-killed-sudan-drone-strike?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 13 Dec 2025 21:38:57 +0000 Agence France-Presse Agence France-Presse The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday that 114 people, including 63 children, were killed in “senseless” strikes on a hospital and kindergarten in Sudan’s South Kordofan state last week. The strikes “hit a kindergarten and, at least three times, the nearby Kalogi Rural Hospital, killing 114 people, including 63 children, and injuring 35 people,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on social media, citing the UN health agency’s Attacks on Health Care monitoring... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3335638/63-children-among-114-killed-senseless-strikes-sudan-hospital-kindergarten-who-says?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3335638/63-children-among-114-killed-senseless-strikes-sudan-hospital-kindergarten-who-says?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 08 Dec 2025 12:59:38 +0000 Associated Press Associated Press A drone attack by the Sudanese paramilitary forces hit a kindergarten in south-central Sudan, killing 50 people, including 33 children, a doctors’ group said. Paramedics on the scene in the town of Kalogi in South Kordofan state were targeted in “a second unexpected attack”, Sudan Doctors’ Network said in a statement late on Friday. Emergency Lawyers, a rights group tracking violence against civilians in Sudan reported in a statement on Saturday the second strike on paramedics treating survivors... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3335485/33-children-killed-drone-attack-sudan-paramilitaries-doctors-say?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3335485/33-children-killed-drone-attack-sudan-paramilitaries-doctors-say?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 06 Dec 2025 23:50:23 +0000 Agence France-Presse Agence France-Presse US President Donald Trump vowed Wednesday to end Sudan’s grinding civil war at the request of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, condemning “tremendous atrocities” in a conflict he has previously overlooked. Trump admitted that the devastating war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) was “not on my charts” before Prince Mohammed bin Salman pushed him to get involved. But Trump said he would now work to “stabilise” the conflict with regional powers, notably including the... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3333465/trump-vows-end-sudan-war-sudden-pivot-thanks-saudi-crown-prince?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3333465/trump-vows-end-sudan-war-sudden-pivot-thanks-saudi-crown-prince?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 19 Nov 2025 23:53:50 +0000 Agence France-Presse Agence France-Presse The US State Department imposed sanctions on the Sudanese government on Friday, accusing it of using chemical weapons last year in its war against rival paramilitaries. Since April 2023, the war between the army and the Rapid Support Forces has drawn widespread accusations of war crimes, with the US determining in January that the RSF had committed genocide. The State Department in May notified Congress of its determination that “the Government of Sudan used chemical weapons in 2024”, in... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3316238/us-imposes-sanctions-sudan-over-alleged-use-chemical-weapons?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/africa/article/3316238/us-imposes-sanctions-sudan-over-alleged-use-chemical-weapons?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 28 Jun 2025 14:28:33 +0000