Nearly three years after being forced out of Khartoum, Prime Minister Kamel Idris declared the government’s return from its temporary base in Port Sudan.
Many of the residents speaking to Mada Masr describe the step as breathing life into fading public trust in the government, raising hopes that daily life may inch back toward normalcy after months of service breakdown and deep precarity.
But others remain wary. Reconstruction so far has been marred by policy failures that have pushed vulnerable communities further into hardship. And while officials describe the return as citizen-centered, a former official said the move could drain already-scarce funds from essential infrastructure and services to prepare the government’s own offices.
As the military-led government seeks to project stability in areas under its control, the RSF seeks to expand operations, bringing the war back to states thought to have stabilized. The eastern states have seen fast-moving military escalation in recent weeks as a new front opens along the Ethiopian border.
RSF units massed inside Ethiopian territory bordering Blue Nile State and attempted to cross into Sudan earlier in the week. The military intercepted the advance with airstrikes, blocking what a senior officer described as a bid to create a buffer zone to secure supply routes running through Ethiopian territory.
The following day, the RSF struck the Sennar capital of Singa, killing and wounding several people when two of the munitions hit a security conference attended by military and civilian officials.
Intelligence on RSF camps inside Ethiopia, coupled with rising Ethiopian-Eritrean tensions and unprecedented deployment at a major new base under construction in Ethiopia’s Benishangul-Gumuz region bordering Sudan, has pushed Sudanese officials into high alert.
In response, the military has bolstered its presence across the eastern and southeastern states by boosting troop numbers, deploying defensive systems, raising combat readiness and expanding surveillance along the border, military and state officials told Mada Masr.
According to a field commander, the military fears that if tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea were to escalate into open confrontation, the RSF may seize the opportunity to take hold of Sudan’s border with Ethiopia — a foothold that three RSF field sources said would grant the group major logistical, economic and influence gains.
While the east is scrambling to shut down RSF attempts to carve out new supply corridors, the group is working to reopen them in the west, pushing to secure the last military-held border towns in North Darfur’s Dar Zaghawa along the Chadian border, which sit along critical supply routes from southern Libya.
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Federal govt returns to Khartoum
Prime Minister Kamel Idris announces his return to working from Khartoum, January 11. Courtesy of the Sudan News Agency on YouTube
The federal government has returned to Khartoum State, nearly five months after Prime Minister Kamel Idris said in August that the Cabinet would resume work from the capital before November.
For many in Khartoum who have long waited for the government’s promises for a return to normalcy to take tangible form, the return offers a measure of hope after months of service breakdowns and income uncertainty.
But while the government framed its return plan as citizen-centered, a former official said the move could have the reverse effect, risking diverting already-scarce funds from critical infrastructure and services and taking away from citizens’ pockets.
On Sunday, in a speech that struck a triumphant tone, Idris declared the government’s return from its temporary base in Port Sudan, almost three years after the RSF takeover forced it out.
The official narrative holds that the return plan was charted into three stages that a Cabinet Affairs Ministry source said prioritized service and administrative portfolios that meet basic needs and allow the state to function again.
The first phase began in late August, when — amid a dengue fever outbreak and collapsed services — the Cabinet held its first meeting in Khartoum. A Cabinet secretariat source said the meeting charted the roadmap for restoring services and managing the citizens’ return process. It was at this point that the plans Idris had announced earlier in the month to shift government activity from Port Sudan entered implementation.
The phase, which continued through December, brought back the ministries of culture and information, higher education, industry and trade and human resources and social welfare, according to the Cabinet source.
First Cabinet meeting held in Khartoum since the war started, August 2025. Courtesy of Hashtag Sudan on X
The second phase saw the return of major government agencies, most notably the Sudanese Mineral Resources Company in December. The source described this as a critical milestone, given the company’s role as one of the state’s primary revenue generators, with the treasury currently relying heavily on gold revenues. The company also owns the Minerals Towers, which have become the main administrative hub hosting most ministries as they resume work from Khartoum.
The third phase of the return plan involves core service ministries — health and education — also expected to resume operations from temporary sites until their headquarters are repaired.
A senior TSC source stressed that the return does not imply a sweeping and immediate relocation of staff. Instead, ministries will operate under a “dual-work model” split between Khartoum and Port Sudan until security and services in the capital are fully restored.
For many who stayed and witnessed their hometown ravaged by two years of war, as well as for those who returned at their state’s urging, only to see erratic reconstruction policies and successive crises of disease and infrastructure failure, the government’s return to the capital is a promise of hope.
Ayman Adel, a resident of Bahri, one of the three cities that make up the capital, called it a sign that Khartoum “is regaining its weight” and will see improved services. “We feared the government had turned its back on Khartoum,” he said, pointing to worries that the capital would be permanently replaced.
At Khartoum’s central market, trader Seif Eddin al-Magzoub said the state’s presence will restore business. Insecurity and the government’s absence kept traders away, he said, adding that when the government returns, traders return and entire sectors follow.
For educators, who were ordered back to Khartoum in June, the move promises steadier ground. Primary school teacher Fadia al-Awad hopes the return would mean salaries paid on time and the continuity of schooling.
A secondary school principal echoed that residents will see the step as proof Khartoum is livable again, encouraging them to return to their homes. “They believe that if the capital wasn’t ready, the government wouldn’t have come back,” he said.
But seeing the scale of needs and the uneven distribution of resources, others are less optimistic about what the return could mean for residents in Khartoum’s rural localities and marginalized urban areas.
Resident Saeed Ali said that even with the government’s return, its presence will make little difference as long as it is unable to face the reality that citizens urgently require intensive rehabilitation work in multiple areas across the sprawling capital simultaneously.
For a former member of the Khartoum State government, the government’s return is more a symbolic gesture than a meaningful step toward reconstruction. The government itself requires a functioning working environment in the capital, and preparing that environment will drain resources that should instead be spent on infrastructure and services, they told Mada Masr.
With no clear sources of financing or donor support to launch urgent projects, reconstruction will inevitably fall on the public, the former official warned. With an empty treasury, the government may raise taxes and impose fees on investors and ordinary citizens — a step that could deter returns and derail the entire project, which ultimately depends on repopulating the city, they said.
Signs of this direction have already surfaced over the past months, with the state imposing new exorbitant fees on non-Sudanese residents of Khartoum under the pretense of regulating foreign residency. Migrants and researchers previously told Mada Masr that the government’s policy toward refugees and migrants, today as well as over the past decade, has turned their presence into a source of revenue.
And even if the government tries, Ali said, it is impossible to meet demands everywhere, even as many densely populated areas are left in dire conditions without water or electricity.
Street light on the verge of falling in Hajj Youssef, Khartoum. September 2025. Photographer: Mozafar Ramadan
A joint report by Medical Teams International and Norwegian Church Aid — based on surveys from August to September across five Khartoum localities — found essential services in the capital severely underresourced and unevenly distributed. Operations remain heavily dependent on international aid groups.
Fifty-seven percent of health facilities are non-operational, and 62 percent of staff are unpaid amid acute shortages of personnel, medicine and electricity.
Among 1,250 households surveyed, nearly half that report access to water rely on unsafe sources due to contamination and damaged networks. Only three of Khartoum’s 12 municipal treatment plants operate intermittently.
Prices of essential food items rose by up to 42 percent between June and August as 97 percent of Khartoum’s households face food shortages. Formal employment has virtually collapsed as factories, banks and transport networks shut down. “Coping strategies have turned negative,” the report noted. “Households sell remaining assets, skip meals or withdraw children from school to manage household survival.”
The bid to restore the government to its seat and bring back the millions displaced by the war in Khartoum have unfolded in several forceful and fraught steps since the military took control of Khartoum City in March.
After TSC Chair Abdel Fattah al-Burhan declared Khartoum “liberated” from the RSF, he instructed federal ministries to begin relocating to their premises in the capital, the Cabinet secretariat source said.
The government soon launched a “voluntary return” campaign for Khartoum’s residents to go back with the stated purpose of supporting reconstruction, and in June, ended wartime leave for public sector employees, forcing them to return to a precarious environment.
In July, Burhan issued a directive forming a committee headed by the military’s assistant commander-in-chief and TSC member Ibrahim Gaber to prepare Khartoum for citizens’ return and have it resume its role as the seat of government.
The committee’s record has been marred with aggressive policies that residents, researchers and political sources described as infringing on the rights of marginalized communities and tightening the state’s grip over their livelihoods and mobility.
At a pivotal meeting on August 16, Gaber acknowledged the scale of destruction in the capital and said limited funds meant authorities would focus on restoring only basic services. But government sources and Khartoum residents previously told Mada Masr that the focus of rehabilitation efforts, limited as they are, have largely landed on central Khartoum and parts of Bahri and Omdurman — catering to government and private-sector staff — while much of the capital remains severely underserved.
A few days later, the first meeting of the newly formed Cabinet was held in Khartoum, and the ministries’ return plan was officially launched.
Amid stalled repairs and limited resources, the government has set out longer-term plans for the capital. At the start of 2026, Gaber received Khartoum’s 2026-2036 Reconstruction and Recovery Strategy — a framework focused on transport, education, health and environmental finance.
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RSF drones strike Singa, Sennar; military destroys RSF-SPLM-N convoy crossing from Ethiopia
Burial of the victims of the RSF attacks on Singa, Sennar State, January 13. Courtesy of the Tayba Satellite Channel on X
The RSF carried out drone attacks on Singa, the capital of Sennar State, on Monday, targeting the headquarters of the military’s 17th Infantry Division. An RSF official described the attack as part of a broader expansion of operations across Sudanese states, particularly Blue Nile and Sennar, along the Ethiopian border.
The strike hit a security conference convened to demarcate boundaries between Sennar, Blue Nile and White Nile states, leaving dozens dead or injured, including senior military and civil officials from the three states, according to two medical and military sources who spoke to Mada Masr.
The drones fired three munitions. Two hit a reception hall hosting the conference, while a third detonated near the division’s command, killing, among others, the security guards of the Blue Nile governor and a photojournalist, and injuring several others, according to the military source.
A government source accused the RSF of attempting to destabilize Singa with indiscriminate attacks at a time when residents have begun returning to normal life and commercial activity is picking up.
The RSF official insisted, however, that the group was targeting only military positions and strategic sites, denying hitting civilians.
Military airstrikes on Yabus, Blue Nile State, January 11. Courtesy of the Tayba Satellite Channel on X
The Singa attack followed heavy military airstrikes the previous day on convoys belonging to the RSF and its ally, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) led by Abdel Aziz al-Hilu in the Blue Nile’s Yabus region near the Ethiopian border, a second military source said.
The military launched at least three raids, destroying a convoy of around 150 combat vehicles, according to the source.
A source in the command of the 4th Infantry Division in Damazin said the strikes targeted RSF units which had assembled on the Ethiopian side before infiltrating into Yabus with the aim of building a buffer zone along the border and securing supply lines across Ethiopian territory.
A senior military officer told Mada Masr last week that intelligence services detected three camps set up over the border in Ethiopia, where they said thousands of RSF and allied SPLM-N (Hilu) fighters are being trained, backed by combat vehicles and advanced weaponry.
The officer said that the 4th Infantry Division in Blue Nile has since been reinforced with advanced combat-trained battalions and mobile forces to counter any possible RSF push from across the border.
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Sudanese officials reinforce borders with Ethiopia, in fear of potential turmoil from Addis Ababa-Asmara confrontation
Sudanese military troops in Blue Nile State, published January 11. Courtesy of @AfriMEOSINT on X
Sudanese officials have grown increasingly worried about the southeastern border with Ethiopia as construction on a large military base in Ethiopia’s Benishangul-Gumuz region has progressed, accompanied by large deployments of troops and weapons, according to a Sudanese intelligence source in Port Sudan who spoke to Mada Masr.
A Transitional Sovereignty Council source in Port Sudan and a Sudanese security source in Addis Ababa both said Khartoum has linked developments in Benishangul with rising Ethiopian-Eritrean tensions, treating the evolving reality as a potential threat to border security, that includes spillover effects including the movement of allied forces, cross-border armed activity or large-scale refugee flows — all of which would place additional strain on an already overstretched Sudanese state.
In response, the Sudanese military has reinforced its presence in eastern and southeastern regions, particularly in Blue Nile, Kassala and Gadarif states, by increasing troop density, deploying defensive systems, raising readiness levels and expanding surveillance across sensitive border areas, the TSC source said.
The source described the measures as “a message of deterrence and containment rather than preparation for direct confrontation.”
The Ethiopian military base has been under construction since mid-2024, the Sudanese intelligence source said, describing it not merely as a new defensive facility, but rather a marker of a significant shift in regional calculations that places Sudan’s border lands within Ethiopia’s supply and deployment equation as tensions with Eritrea rise.
In recent months, the long-running rhetorical standoff between Addis Ababa and Asmara has taken a sharper turn, with Ethiopia increasingly and explicitly signaling the prospect of military action to regain maritime access lost following Eritrea’s independence in 1993. For more than two years, Ethiopia has insisted on what it describes as its “legitimate right” to access the sea, repeatedly pointing to Eritrea’s Red Sea port of Assab — a port an Ethiopian military official recently described as “our survival interest worth paying any price for.” Recent reports have warned the escalation risks sliding into renewed conflict.
After tactical alignment between Ethiopia and Eritrea during the two-year Tigray war in northern Ethiopia, Ethiopian-Eritrean relations have since given way to “mutual suspicion amid post-war arrangements and the redistribution of military influence in northern and western Ethiopia,” a former official at the Ethiopian embassy in Sudan told Mada Masr.
The recent military buildup in Benishangul cannot be separated from these tensions, the former official said, describing it as a “multi-directional signal of readiness” — one that gives Ethiopia greater room for maneuver and complicates adversaries’ calculations by opening alternative deployment routes away from the immediate northern front.
Benishangul-Gumuz, which spans more than 50,000 square kilometers along Ethiopia’s northwestern border with Sudan, holds exceptional strategic importance. The region hosts the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile — one of the most contentious infrastructure projects in the Horn of Africa.
Water moving past the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam into Sudan, August 2024. Courtesy of the Prime Minister of Ethiopia Office
Historically, the region has been marked by political, legal and security sensitivities, and has experienced ethnic tensions and local conflicts that rendered it fragile. Successive Sudanese governments consider the region to be part of Sudanese territory, and cross-border social ties persist between Sudanese tribal communities and residents of Benishangul-Gumuz. Ethiopia, for its part, accuses Sudan of facilitating the movement of weapons and supplies to fighters in the Tigray People’s Liberation Front.
A former Sudanese military source who served in the eastern military zone told Mada Masr that the design and scale of the base point to a qualitative shift in Ethiopia’s western deployment. According to the source, the infrastructure is capable of hosting large forces and supporting training, assembly and ground deployment, in addition to advanced logistical functions and potential aerial operations through links to nearby airports within the region.
The site, the source said, reflects Ethiopia’s post-Tigray war troop rearrangement and an attempt to strengthen control over its border areas and secure facilities.
A field commander in Sudan’s ground forces said that if tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea were to escalate into a direct or indirect confrontation, the Benishangul base would likely play a complementary role as a rear command hub rather than replacing Ethiopian deployments in the north. Its location, relatively distant from traditional frontlines, provides Ethiopia with strategic depth to redeploy forces, secure supply lines and ease pressure on northern fronts.
The commander added that the military is worried that the RSF could use any turmoil in the border area to seize control of Sudan’s border with Ethiopia.
The RSF stands to benefit from any new military reality between Sudan and its neighbors by strengthening its supply lines and influence, three RSF field sources told Mada Masr. This is particularly the case given that Blue Nile and Gadarif are rich in livestock, the sources said, adding that the RSF can also export to Ethiopia.
The three sources, who have been involved in smuggling since the war began, said they are aware of the significant opportunities the RSF could benefit from if it seizes even partial control of the border.
The military has conducted military drills and exercises to prevent any breach along its eastern front, the commander said. New air defense systems have been redeployed across bases in Blue Nile and Gadarif, they added, stressing that the military will not tolerate any ground or air attacks approaching Sudan’s eastern border.
On the other side of the border, Sudanese areas bordering the Ethiopian region that hosts the base already suffer from acute security fragility due Sudan’s ongoing war, particularly in Blue Nile State. Sudan also maintains complex and overlapping relationships with both Ethiopia and Eritrea, shaped by security coordination and political entanglements — placing Khartoum in a highly sensitive position should a broader regional conflict erupt.
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RSF, military prepare for Obeid battles, Dalang under continued RSF-SPLM-N fire
While the military issued statement after statement this week, boasting of killing hundreds of RSF fighters and destroying combat vehicles across Darfur and Kordofan, North Kordofan is bracing for heavy clashes as both sides mobilize.
The military and allied forces are preparing for wide-scale offensives in Kordofan in response to RSF reinforcements along the Debeibat-Fula axis in West Kordofan and near Jabal Abu Senoun in North Kordofan, a military source said. The RSF, according to the source, is planning major attacks on defensive lines around Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan.
An RSF field source told Mada Masr that they seized Jebel Abu Senoun, about two hours west of Obeid, on Sunday.
The town is a key position for supply lines and control of western entrances to Obeid.
A source in the military-allied joint force of the armed movements denied the claim, saying their units redeployed in the area, while making territorial gains from Alouba into Abu Gleib, near Jebel Abu Sennoun, where they established control and freed captives held by the RSF.
In South Kordofan’s besieged Dalang, heavy artillery fire on Monday killed civilians, and three of the city’s main hospitals were rendered inoperative, with four medical workers killed, according to a source in the Sudanese Doctors Network, who attributed the shelling to the RSF and its ally, Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, led by Abdel Aziz al-Hilu.
Military ground defenses downed an RSF strategic drone over the city on Sunday, a military source said, while other drones managed to strike the main market in Kartala east of Dalang, killing and wounding civilians and humanitarian volunteers.
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Clashes near Chadian border as RSF pushes to capture last military-held Darfuri towns
Military success in Gargira, North Darfur, near the Chad border, published January 15. Courtesy of Wael jamal on X
The RSF is continuing its attempts to capture the last areas still held by the military and its allies in Darfur, following the seismic fall of Fasher — the region’s historic capital — to the RSF in late October.
A source in the military-allied joint force said RSF fighters, backed by units loyal to Tasis alliance members Abu Bakr Hagar and Al-Hadi Idris launched an assault early Friday on North Darfur’s Gargira, south of Tina near the Chad border.
RSF forces initially entered the area with little resistance and took up positions, before joint force troops launched a counter-attack that pushed them out and restored control, according to the source.
A former military officer told Mada Masr that the military’s presence in towns such as Tina, Gargira and Ambru — all within the Zaghawa territory — poses a serious worry for the RSF.
The Zaghawa tribe — long at odds with the Janjaweed, the RSF’s precursor — forms the core of the joint force of the Darfuri armed movements.
These towns sit along critical supply routes from southern Libya through eastern Chad and into Darfur. In addition, the military’s presence there forces RSF units in the region to remain on constant alert and vulnerable to targeted strikes, particularly as much of its main force has been diverted to the Kordofan frontlines, according to the former officer.
With the RSF’s air bridge through South Darfur’s Nyala airport repeatedly compromised by military airstrikes, and the Sudan-Libya-Egypt border triangle corridor effectively closed after Egypt cautioned eastern Libyan leaders not to use it to move RSF shipments, the strategic value of these towns has significantly elevated.
Military strikes on RSF positions in South Kordofan, January 14. Courtesy of Sudan Trends on X
A military source told Mada Masr the military launched some of its heaviest airstrikes against RSF positions in Darfur and Kordofan this week, with the aim of disrupting RSF supply lines, scattering their forces and eliminating senior leadership.
The air campaign killed several field commanders, the source said, most recently Mohamed Saleh al-Nina, the logistics officer for Darfur’s northern axis, who was struck by a drone near Kabkabiya in North Darfur on Monday.
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