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Sudan

August 21, 2026

Khartoum 7:45 pm

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Sudanese army soldier stands in front of a tank

Sudan ramps up Saudi Arabia, Turkey contacts amid growing Red Sea cooperation

Sudanese officials held parallel talks in Riyadh and Ankara as Saudi Arabia and Turkey deepen security cooperation around the Red Sea and fighting intensifies in Sudan.

View of some wreckage after the Rapid Support Forces targeted several civilian facilities in Al-Rahad Abu Dakna, one of the largest cities in North Kordofan, on the national highway linking Kosti and el-Obeid, July 25, 2026.

Analysis

RSF turns to drones, new fronts as Sudan battlefield pressure grows

A wave of RSF drone attacks reflects the group fighting back, but it also points to limited supply lines and difficulty mounting ground offensives beyond its territorial strongholds.

By Rosaleen Carroll

In Washington, DC, US, reporting on the Middle East

Ebrahim HAMID / AFP via Getty Images

Sudan’s RSF attacks Khartoum, seizes border town: What to know

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have escalated attacks after suffering setbacks more than three years into the civil war.

Latest News

Analysis

Amid realignment with Egypt, Turkey steps up support for Sudan’s Burhan

Sudan's de facto leader and armed forces chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan greets supporters in Port Sudan, Dec. 29, 2024.

Barin Kayaoglu

By Barin Kayaoglu

In Ankara, reporting on geopolitics and national security

Explainer

China expands Sudan footprint through ports, debt relief, mining

BEIJING, CHINA - MAY 14: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) shake hands with Omar Seddik, Sudan's newly appointed foreign minister before their meeting during the China-CELAC Forum at Diaoyutai State Guest House on May 14, 2025 in Beijing, China. The summit includes China's key Latin American trade partners, and comes as Beijing and Washington work on defusing a trade war. (Photo by Florence Lo - Pool/Getty Images)

Jonathan Fenton-Harvey

In London, reporting on North Africa and Gulf politics

Rebecca Bradshaw

Sudan's Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources Yasser Abbas (C) participates in a videoconference with his Egyptian and Ethiopian counterparts (unseen) in the Sudanese capital Khartoum on November 1, 2020. - Khartoum said it is to organise a week of negotiations on Ethiopia's controversial dam on the Nile that has riled downstream neighbours Egypt and Sudan, following a three-way videoconference. (Photo by Ebrahim HAMID / AFP) (Photo by EBRAHIM HAMID/AFP via Getty Images)

Sudan calls for expansive mediation for Nile dam talks

Sudan’s call for diplomatic intervention is likely to be rejected by Ethiopia.

KHARTOUM- SUDAN - JANUARY 28: general view shows of the Nile River during the sunset of the city of Khartoum on 28 January 2021.

(Photo by Abdulmonam Eassa/Getty Images)

Egypt, Sudan go in on industrial zone for Khartoum

Egypt is courting Sudan with a joint industrial zone in Khartoum in a bid to boost cooperation against the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

New parties emerge to try to break deadlock in Nile dam negotiations

New countries are seeking a mediation role in the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam crisis as negotiations sponsored by the African Union between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia stumble.

Israeli minister makes first ever visit to Sudan

Israeli Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen met with a top Sudanese leader, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and invited him to visit Israel.

HAMDAYET, SUDAN - DECEMBER 6: A woman walks with a donkey as refugees from the Tigray region of Ethiopia wait to be transferred to a camp with more infrastructure at a UNHCR reception area in the east Sudanese border village of Hamdayet on December 6, 2020 in Hamdayet, Sudan. Last week, the Ethiopian government declared victory in its nearly month-long battle with the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which sent 45,000 people fleeing to Sudan and displaced thousands more within the Tigray Region. In

How Egypt is supporting Sudan in border conflict

As tensions escalate between Sudan and Ethiopia on the border, a Sudanese delegation headed to Cairo raising questions about Egypt’s role in the conflict.

Blinken warns Nile Dam talks could ‘boil over’

Biden’s nominee to be secretary of state promises "fully engaged” US policy in Horn of Africa, as the crisis between Ethiopia and Sudan escalates.

This picture taken in Hamdayet, eastern Sudan, on December 8, 2020 shows abandoned boats on the banks of the river Tekeze which was a known border crossing point for the Ethiopian who fled the Tigray conflict. (Photo by Yasuyoshi CHIBA / AFP) (Photo by YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP via Getty Images)

Is Egypt behind Sudanese escalation on border with Ethiopia?

With the intensifying border conflict between Sudan and Ethiopia and the success of the Sudanese army in controlling the border areas where Ethiopian farmers have been living for decades, Ethiopia has been hurling accusations of a third party planning, funding and executing the recent confrontations on the border between the two countries.

Sudan's Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources Yasser Abbas (L) and Minister for Foreign Affairs Omar Gamar al-Din, are pictured during a video conference meeting with their Egyptian and Ethopian counterparts, to discuss future steps in Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) negotiations, in the capital Khartoum on January 10, 2021. - Sudan warned today that it cannot continue the "vicious cycle" of negotiations with Egypt and Ethiopia in the long-running dispute over Addis Ababa's controversial Blue Ni

Why the sudden shift in Sudan’s position in Nile dam dossier?

Sudan has recently shifted its position in the negotiations on Addis Ababa’s controversial dam on the Nile River, as Khartoum grows more concerned about the dam’s impact on its own dams and agriculture.

A general view shows Egypt's High Dam in Aswan, some 920 kilometres south of the capital Cairo, on January 3, 2021. - Half a century since Egypt's Aswan dam was inaugurated to much fanfare, harnessing the Nile for hydropower and irrigation, the giant barrier is still criticised its human and environmental toll. But it is also a stark reminder -- amid high tensions today as Addis Ababa fills its collosal Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) upstream, Africa's largest -- of just how volatile politics over t

UAE steps in to ease Nile dam crisis

Sudanese reports recently revealed that the United Arab Emirates is seeking an initiative to bring the views of Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia closer so as to break the deadlock in the negotiations on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

United Arab Emirates

A fisherman is pictured in his boat on lake Tana, in the city of Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, on November 11, 2020. - Lake Tana, a UNESCO biosphere reserve, is the origin of the blue Nile river that feeds the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). (Photo by EDUARDO SOTERAS / AFP) (Photo by EDUARDO SOTERAS/AFP via Getty Images)

Ethiopia lays foundation stone of new dam amid stalled GERD talks

As yet another round of negotiations falters between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Addis Ababa announced the beginning of construction of a new smaller dam on the Blue Nile Basin.

Sudanese dockers unload bags of sorgham (cereal) from one of two US ships carrying humanitarian aid supplies provided by the US development agency USAID, at Port Sudan on the red sea coast on June 5, 2018. - The United States is the largest single donor to the world food program in Sudan and regularly distributes food aid to the East African country. This shipment will be distributed to over a million Sudanese who are in need of assistance. (Photo by ASHRAF SHAZLY / AFP) (Photo credit should read AS

How delays at Sudan’s largest port could actually boost trade with Egypt

Analysts expect the four-month suspension in Port Sudan to accelerate the launch of the Transit Trade Agreement between Egypt and Sudan and eventually bring economic and political benefits to Egypt.

Construction workers stand at the construction site at the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), near Guba in Ethiopia, on December 26, 2019. - The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a 145-metre-high, 1.8-kilometre-long concrete colossus is set to become the largest hydropower plant in Africa.
Across Ethiopia, poor farmers and rich businessmen alike eagerly await the more than 6,000 megawatts of electricity officials say it will ultimately provide.
Yet as thousands of workers toil day and night to finish

Nile dam talks hit yet another snarl

The latest round of talks between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia over the controversial Nile River dam again collapsed amid Sudanese objections and calls for African Union experts to take on a greater role in resolving the dispute.