Sudan: Army and allies capture Sarif Ankoush and approach Al-Khuwai in West Kordofan, RSF silent

Sudan’s army (Sudanese Armed Forces, SAF) and its allied Joint Force of Darfur armed movements captured the area of Sarif Ankoush, west of the town of Al-Khuwai in West Kordofan, on Friday, November 13. The operation was announced by Sudan’s official news agency SUNA, which also carried a statement by the Joint Force. Fighting with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) began at dawn, and government forces say they also took surrounding areas along the Al-Khuwai axis. The statement speaks of heavy RSF losses in men and equipment and of the death of the commander of the RSF unit that held positions in the area.

The Joint Force says its units are conducting extensive clearing operations and pursuing the remaining RSF fighters. It pledges to keep fighting alongside the armed forces “until security and stability are restored.” The force consists of Darfur organisations that signed the 2020 Juba peace agreement and have fought alongside the army since the start of the war in April 2023. The RSF had not commented on the developments by Friday afternoon.

Recapture of the town itself unconfirmed

The Sudan Tribune writes, citing military sources, that the army and the Joint Force also took control of Al-Khuwai itself, after a multi-axis operation that began from Sarif Ankoush. According to the Sudanese outlet, Sarif Ankoush is about 20 kilometres west of Al-Khuwai, on the road to En Nahud, the second-largest city in West Kordofan and the main RSF stronghold in the state. The information about the town has not been officially confirmed. Anadolu, for its part, reports, citing military sources, that its forces took control of areas around the town and are seeking to retake it.

Al-Khuwai links North and West Kordofan and is a centre of livestock trade and gum arabic production. The RSF have controlled it since late May 2025, after fighting in which the town changed hands several times. If recaptured, it would be the first town in West Kordofan to pass to the army in the current phase of the advance.

The wider Kordofan front

The US-based Critical Threats Project records that the army took Um Sumeima, about 65 kilometres west of El Obeid, on November 5, and so controls the whole central east-west road axis in North Kordofan. In the north it took Um Marahik on November 3 and Iyal Bakhit, northwest of Al-Khuwai, on November 7. South of El Obeid, the army briefly took Kazgil on November 5, but the RSF reportedly retook it. Fighting has been escalating in all three Kordofan states since October 25. On Friday the army also announced that its air defences shot down a drone over the Dandaro area in Blue Nile state, which according to the army entered from Ethiopia, a country Khartoum has already denounced at the UN and the African Union over RSF drones.

UNICEF warned on Tuesday, November 10 that El Obeid’s maternity hospital is under growing pressure as tens of thousands of people flee violence in neighbouring South Kordofan. According to its spokesman James Elder, two in three child victims of the war this year were killed by drones, while up to 15 power stations were hit in October, in the wave of drone attacks on the electricity grid. More than 15 million people urgently need shelter, a figure also given by the International Organization for Migration, which warned about its empty warehouses in Sudan.