Specter of ethnic killing looms in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains
Editor’s Note: We believe that it is important to bear witness to the atrocities underway in Sudan. This update includes disturbing language. If you are unable to read it out of concern for your mental health, we encourage you to read our Sudan Crisis Guide here instead. Thank you.
After ten months of brutal warfare in Sudan, the weight of armed conflict and ethnic mass killing are bearing down more heavily on frontline areas of the southern Nuba Mountains, one of the least known regions of the country.
Sudan has been in a state of extreme civil war since April 2023, when the military regime fractured into two groups fighting for control. The economy and over 70% of the country’s healthcare system has collapsed. Famine is a growing threat. Nearly 25 million Sudanese —roughly half the country— are already in need of some form of humanitarian aid. Sudan is now the largest humanitarian catastrophe on the planet.
The situation in the Nuba Mountains has its own local complexities. Before we get to recent events here, we want to offer some background on the area.
About Nuba
The Nuba Mountains are in South Kordofan state in southern Sudan. This is where our primary Sudanese partners work.
Several dozen African tribal groups living here can trace their beautiful history here back more than 2,000 years. Roughly 1.3 million Christian, Muslim, and traditionalist Nuba people live in harmony.
The Nuba have survived two genocidal wars over the last thirty years by the military regime in Khartoum. Today, the mountains are functionally autonomous underneath an indigenous Nuba armed resistance force.
Map: Location of Nuba Mountains. (Operation Broken Silence)
Who is fighting?
There are three groups of armed actors in the Nuba region:
Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) - Nuba armed resistance force of African ethnicity controlling much of the mountains.
Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) - Sudan’s official military that includes the army, air force, and navy and militia allies.
Rapid Support Forces (RSF) - a regional Arab paramilitary outfit created in Darfur by a previous national regime and militia allies.
The main combatants in Sudan’s civil war (SAF and RSF) used to be allies and have fought together against the Nuba people in the past. The SPLM-N has remained neutral in the war.
Photo: Nuba SPLM-N soldiers on patrol near the southern frontlines of the mountains. (Operation Broken Silence)
Becoming a safe haven against the rising RSF threat
When SAF and RSF ended their alliance and went to war with each other in April 2023, the Nuba Mountains became one of the few safe areas of the country. The Nuba SPLM-N have remained neutral in the SAF-RSF war after having fought off both forces repeatedly in the 2010s. Local Nuba officials estimate that over 900,000 Sudanese have fled into the mountains over the last 10 months, putting significant humanitarian strains on the region.
Most areas of the Nuba Mountains remain calm today, but there are worrying signs this could change in the near future.
Fighting erupted between SAF and the Nuba SPLM-N in June 2023. Combat was sporadic and limited to the west and northwest. SAF controls the state capital of Kadugli and some of Dilling further north. The Nuba SPLM-N controls much of the road in between the two cities and has a strong presence near Kadugli and in some of Dilling’s neighborhoods.
Since December, fighting between the two groups has reduced significantly as the RSF’s presence grows to the west and north. The RSF controls Dibebad in the far-northwest and has overrun a string of other smaller SAF outposts in the north.
Reported frontlines as of February 2024. Click or tap to zoom. (Operation Broken Silence)
A sizable portion of the RSF fighting force adheres to an extremely racist, Arab-supremacist ideology, which states that Darfur’s historic African tribal groups must be cleansed from the region and all other Sudanese Arabs are inferior. This ideology has spread with the RSF into other parts of Sudan throughout the war, leading to RSF fighters executing SAF prisoners of war and civilians, raping and pillaging, and robbing countless more people they deem inferior.
Dilling is home to Arab and African Nuba tribes. There is deep concern that if the predominantly Arab RSF seizes Dilling, they will perpetrate a large-scale ethnic massacre of the African Nuba, similar to massacres they have committed in Darfur. The RSF has tried to arm some citizens in the city who fear SAF, leading one resident to describe the RSF as trying to “start a race war.” SAF has also armed militias in Dilling in response.
In early January, a large RSF force moving south from Dibebad attacked Dilling. Eyewitnesses report that Nuba SPLM-N reinforcements promptly entered the city and, together with SAF and small numbers of local militia, pushed the RSF out after intense fighting. Thousands of Dilling’s citizens were displaced, but a large-scale ethnic massacre was likely narrowly avoided. RSF commander Hussein Barshom —whose men have been seen committing war crimes elsewhere in Sudan— was spotted in Dilling during the incursion.
It is unclear if the Nuba and SAF have some sort of agreement, but the reduced fighting between the two sides and their joint counteroffensive against the RSF in Dilling shows just how much their commanders fear the RSF expanding further into the area.
Where the RSF goes, ethnic killing follows
Events over the past several weeks in and around Dilling show that further RSF expansion into the Nuba region will be disastrous for human life. The growing RSF shadow is raising ethnic tensions in the region.
Shortly after the RSF attacked another SAF garrison in early January, a rumor spread through SAF ranks in Dilling that some army soldiers had “enabled” the RSF to gain ground. A rash of extreme violence broke out that included brutality between SAF officers and soldiers. Some of SAF’s 54th Infantry Brigade split along ethnic lines —SAF is a fairly diverse fighting force, although racism exists in its ranks— and engaged in killing, torture, and mutilation of dead bodies. A SAF soldier accused of being a traitor suffered what was described by an eyewitness as a “crucifixion,” with his throat being slit and his body strung up upside down.
Photo: Children living in Yida Refugee Camp, just south of the Nuba Mountains. (Operation Broken Silence)
These events occurred only a few days before the RSF attacked Dilling. Following the RSF retreat a few days later, two more dead bodies were found hanging in the same area. Eyewitnesses reported that the corpses were janjaweed, a pejorative term associated with the RSF. Who displayed the bodies in such a gruesome way is unknown, but it seems to be a warning to the RSF to stay out of Dilling, or else.
Based on the RSF atrocities we have seen in Darfur and rising tensions in the Nuba Mountains, it is evident that any larger conflict involving the RSF in the Nuba region would be catastrophic for the local population. Where the RSF goes, ethnic killing follows.
RSF command-and-control issues and racism may spark a wider conflict
Small-scale RSF attacks have expanded to other SAF garrisons around the Nuba Mountains throughout 2024, a sign that the RSF’s reach is growing in the area. RSF fighters are now pushing up against territory under control of the SPLM-N and the Nuba people who the RSF have a history of persecuting.
Some direct fighting between the RSF and Nuba SPLM-N has already taken place. The town of Habila —east of Dilling— and the army garrison stationed there was overrun by the RSF in early January, forcing roughly 15,000 people to flee into Nuba SPLM-N territory. The Nuba SPLM-N responded on February 9 by driving the RSF out of the town and securing some of the surrounding areas. Many people have chosen not to return home for now as they fear the RSF could strike again. Armed Arab and Nuba tribesmen are now fighting near Habila, risking further escalation between the Nuba SPLM-N and RSF if one group decides to enter the fray.
It does appear that neither SAF nor RSF brass want to fight a full-scale war with the Nuba SPLM-N, at least right now. Picking a fight with the most powerful and well-trained rebel force in Sudan on their home turf would be a strategically dumb move considering how stretched both forces are across multiple frontline areas in the country. The Nuba SPLM-N has been aggressive in defending their own borders and people, including seizing limited amounts of new territory to widen buffer zones, but has also shown little interest in joining the civil war outright.
Photo: The southern foothills of the Nuba Mountains during the rainy season. The rocky terrain gives a natural defensive advantage to the Nuba SPLM-N. (Operation Broken Silence)
Still, this should provide no comfort. Both SAF and RSF have command-and-control issues, especially when it comes to more rural areas where telecommunications are minimal or absent. As the RSF is largely on the offensive in the region, their command-and-control challenges are the most alarming. All it takes is a few too many accidental RSF incursions into Nuba SPLM-N territory —or RSF troops giving into their ethnic killing proclivities— to force the Nuba SPLM-N into a broader war with the RSF.
Preparing for a larger crisis
As the RSF shadow over frontline areas of the Nuba Mountains spreads, both SAF and the Nuba SPLM-N appear to be preparing for a larger confrontation with the RSF.
SAF is responding by beefing up its presence in the state capital of Kadugli, which will likely become a primary target for the RSF as their presence grows in the region. The 14th Division headquarters there recently received fresh reinforcements and supplies, but their hold on the city still seems less than sure. There is chatter that SAF is going to try to reopen the highway between Kadugli and Dilling, which is nominally under control of the Nuba SPLM-N. Considering the growing RSF threat and the SAF command-and-control issues seen in Dilling, it is unclear if SAF is in a position to try to take this critical road.
Meanwhile, Nuba SPLM-N commanders are keeping wary eyes on their increasingly frayed borders. A large number of Nuba forces have been forward-deployed since the war began 10 months ago. Besides ongoing minor adjustments at the local level, the Nuba SPLM-N seems largely prepared to fight against the RSF at a larger scale if it comes to that. The indigenous force is much more cohesive and restrained than SAF and the RSF are, which is perhaps one of the main reasons why a larger conflict hasn’t sparked yet.
At this point it also seems unlikely the Nuba SPLM-N will sit back and allow the RSF to take Dilling or Kadugli if SAF falls in either city. Both are home to sizable populations of ethnic Nuba who would almost certainly be massacred by an invading RSF force.
Whatever the future brings, the threat of RSF atrocities being unleashed on the Nuba people is real and urgent. At the time of this posting, RSF paramilitaries are rampaging in Kartala near Habila —the town recently liberated by the Nuba SPLM-N— and Jebel El Dayir. Survivors fleeing into nearby areas held by the Nuba SPLM-N report more than 60 people have already been killed and that over a dozen villages have been burned to the ground.
The blaring sirens of genocide being heard in Darfur are now being heard in the Nuba Mountains. We’ve seen this story before. We know how it ends. We must do what we can to help.
We’re a nonprofit organization with over a decade of experience working alongside Sudanese heroes. Our primary education partner is in the Nuba Mountains region and is struggling to meet the growing needs around them. Your generosity will help them bring education to those most in need.
$1,000: Support one teacher for an entire semester.
$750: Deliver three new chalkboards to classrooms.
$500: Provide additional materials and extra pay to teachers who are working with students to prepare them for national exams.
$250: Give pencils, notebooks and other supplies to 40 students in Yida Refugee Camp.
$100: Helps repair classrooms damaged by seasonal rains and provide for general maintenance.
$50: Give soccer balls and other sporting equipment to students.
Checks can be make payable to Operation Broken Silence and mailed to PO Box 770900 Memphis, TN 38177-0900.
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After ten months of brutal warfare in Sudan, the weight of armed conflict and ethnic mass killing are bearing down more heavily on frontline areas of the southern Nuba Mountains, one of the least known regions of the country. https://operationbrokensilence.org/blog/specter-of-ethnic-killing-looms-in-nuba-mountains
Events over the past several weeks in and around Dilling show that further RSF expansion into the Nuba Mountains region will be disastrous for human life. https://operationbrokensilence.org/blog/specter-of-ethnic-killing-looms-in-nuba-mountains
When SAF and RSF ended their alliance and went to war with each other in April 2023, the Nuba Mountains became one of the few safe areas of the country. This could change in the near future. https://operationbrokensilence.org/blog/specter-of-ethnic-killing-looms-in-nuba-mountains
The blaring sirens of genocide being heard in Darfur are now being heard in the Nuba Mountains. We’ve seen this story before. We know how it ends. We must do what we can to help. https://operationbrokensilence.org/blog/specter-of-ethnic-killing-looms-in-nuba-mountains
