By late August 2023, the Humanitarian Aid Commission reported that 9 out of 17 South Kordofan localities had been affected by the clashes, resulting in the displacement of almost 70,000 people (Sudan Tribune, 2023). The SPLA-N offensive on Kadugli alone accounted for the displacement of 50,000 people by early September under ‘near siege conditions’ (Save the Children, 2023). Almost immediately after the outbreak of conflict, SPLM-N controlled territory in the Nuba Mountains became a destination for Nuba (and some Arabs) seeking relief from the new economic and security pressures of the conflict in government areas of the state, as well as Nuba fleeing larger cities such as Khartoum and Obeid. At the end of November, the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Agency reported the displacement of some 320,898 people into areas controlled by the SPLM-N.[34] This flow of displaced people into SPLM-N areas has placed significant pressure on already stretched services, with one humanitarian official worrying that the SPLM-N ‘don’t have the capacity to provide any type of support for displaced people’.[35] By the end of August, the UN warned that Kadugli’s food stocks had been fully depleted, with armed clashes and road blockages preventing aid workers from reaching people (UNOCHA, 2023). In mid-September, a civil society figure in Dilling described conditions in Kadugli and the rest of the western region as ‘terrible, and getting worse’.[36]
[34] Author telephone interview with a UN World Food Programme official, 27 June 2023. Radio Dabanga (2023b) reported that 180,000 people had arrived in South Kordofan as of June 2023.
[35] This pressure on resources and services was already a factor following the displacement of 25,000 Nuba from Lagawa into SPLM-N areas in October 2022 after the RSF-backed Misseriya attack. Author telephone interview with a human rights researcher, 11 September 2023.
[36] Author telephone interview with a civil society figure, 18 September 2023.
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