Security Council Report
What's In Blue
Monday 12 October 2026
Friday (16 October)
Open briefing on the situation in Sudan. A UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) official and Personal Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for Sudan Pekka Haavisto are expected to brief.
October 2026 Monthly Forecast
Sudan
Expected Council Action
In October, the Security Council is expected to receive the regular 120-day briefing on the situation in Sudan.
During the month, the Security Council is also expected to vote on a draft resolution to extend the 1591 Sudan sanctions regime.
Key Recent Developments
On 11 September, the Council unanimously adopted resolution 2828 extending the sanctions regime until 9 October. The vote followed several weeks of negotiations on an initial US draft that sought to expand the arms embargo throughout Sudan, apply it to all parties, and explicitly cover drones and related dual-use technology. Differing positions led to members only being able to agree to a one-month technical rollover. The three African members (A3)—the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, and Somalia—alongside China, Pakistan, and Russia, wanted a straightforward one-year renewal confined to Darfur. China and Russia further argued the draft overemphasised the role of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and systems (UAS) in the conflict and their impact on civilians. Divergences also emerged among the A3 over how to engage with the text, though they ultimately made a number of joint proposals. (For more information, see our 10 September What’s in Blue story.)
The security situation has continued to deteriorate on multiple fronts in the past months. In North Kordofan, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) has held the reopened Khartoum–El Obeid corridor and towns retaken in late July, but the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a Sudanese paramilitary force, has continued contesting the corridor and striking El Obeid with drones. El Obeid—whose population has roughly doubled from displacement inflows even as it faced the risk of encirclement in recent weeks—remains under siege-like conditions, with worsening water shortages, a cholera outbreak, and mounting reports of sexual violence.
In Blue Nile, fighting has escalated sharply since the RSF/Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) alliance recaptured Kurmuk and Geissan in mid-August. By early September, the alliance claimed control over Bakori and Sorkam army bases, prompting the SAF to reinforce Ed Damazin, the state capital, which came under direct assault—including by RSF drones—on 4 September. Analysts suggest that the alliance’s gains have brought the capital within closer reach, sharpening concerns about the conflict’s regionalisation amid persistent allegations of Ethiopian territory being used to supply and launch RSF operations.
Efforts to resolve the conflict have continued, although without any breakthrough. The Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy for Sudan, Pekka Haavisto, visited Khartoum on 6 September to discuss de-escalation, protection of civilians, and detainee release/exchange with SAF leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Transitional Prime Minister Kamil El-Tayeb Idris. The Quintet—comprising the African Union, the European Union, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the League of Arab States (LAS), and the UN—followed with an 8 to 10 September good offices visit to Khartoum, engaging with Al-Burhan, Idris, and a wide range of political, civilian, women’s, and youth representatives, including the Sudanese preparatory committee formally launched in late August (an outgrowth of Al-Burhan’s 10 August consultations, for which he pledged legal, political, and security guarantees to participants).
On 14 September, Council members held an informal interactive dialogue, “From Principles to Practice: translating international mediation commitments into a coherent, civilian-led path to peace”, organised by Denmark and the UK, with briefings by respective Quintet members. (For more information, see our 13 September What’s in Blue story.)
Tensions over the mediation track deepened further when the US withheld a visa for Al-Burhan ahead of his scheduled address to the General Assembly on 25 September, a move Sudanese and other sources linked to a US-backed 90-day ceasefire proposal that Khartoum has resisted. Sudan’s Permanent Representative, Ambassador Al-Harith Idriss al-Harith Mohamed, apparently appealed to Secretary-General António Guterres to intervene, arguing that barring Al-Burhan would violate the UN’s obligations to member states. UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said the Secretary-General was “deeply concerned” that the visa had not been issued and was raising the matter with US authorities.
The dispute coincided with deepening divisions among the Quad—Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the US—after US Senior Advisor for Arab and African Affairs Massad Boulos confirmed on 19 September that Washington was working with Quad partners, Qatar, Türkiye, and European counterparts on a renewed push for a humanitarian truce. Saudi Arabia reportedly raised concerns over its ongoing role within the Quad during a ministerial meeting on Sudan hosted by France, the Council’s September president, conveying Riyadh’s objections to what it saw as US favouritism towards the UAE and to language treating the SAF and the RSF as equivalent parties.
The World Food Programme’s (WFP) acting Executive Director, Carl Skau, held a press briefing on 14 September following an eight-day visit to Khartoum, El Obeid, El Fasher, and Tawila, describing Sudan as the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis, with 20 million people in acute hunger, 14 million displaced, and 200,000 at IPC 5 starvation levels. He warned that severe underfunding (WFP is roughly one-third funded compared to last year) risks forcing significant scale-backs in the coming weeks.
Drone attacks have continued to hit civilians and aid operations across Kordofan. WFP condemned a 30 August strike on food trucks outside Dilling, South Kordofan, that destroyed over 50 metric tons of food, while a separate drone strike near a courthouse in Umm Rawaba, North Kordofan, killed 13 civilians. Drones have also struck petrol stations in Ed Damazine, killing six and causing severe fuel shortages. Compounding the crisis, on 16 September the collapse of an informal gold mine—the al-Zara mine near Nuhud in RSF-controlled West Kordofan—killed at least 82 people, with dozens more feared trapped.
Human Rights-Related Developments
On 8 July, the Human Rights Council adopted a resolution without a vote at its 62nd session on the human rights situation in and around El Obeid, requesting the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan (FFM) to conduct an urgent inquiry into violations allegedly committed there.
On 3 September, the FFM issued a report, Fuelling Sudan’s conflict: weapons, fighters and external support networks, finding that foreign recruitment and external support networks are driving the war by strengthening both parties’ military capabilities, including through the deployment of up to 2,000 former Colombian military contractors operating alongside RSF units and foreign-supplied drones enhancing both RSF and SAF strike capacity. It found reasonable grounds to believe that repeated RSF drone strikes on El Obeid between July and August 2026 constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law and may amount to war crimes, and that the same support networks fed into RSF operations in Zamzam camp and the takeover of El Fasher, where it documented conduct displaying hallmarks of genocide. The report urged the Human Rights Council to enforce and extend the arms embargo across the whole of Sudan, adding weight to proposals on expanding the sanctions regime’s geographical scope.
Key Issues and Options
An outstanding matter is the extension of the sanctions regime, and whether members can reach substantive consensus by 9 October on expanding the sanctions regime—including its geographic scope, new listing criteria, explicit drone coverage, and a strengthened Panel of Experts (PoE)—as the US has pushed for, or whether the divide that produced September’s rollover will persist, requiring another short-term extension. The US is likely to continue to pursue an expanded sanctions regime, but consensus may be difficult. Among the possible options is another technical rollover for a slightly longer period or a compromise that would allow for a more limited expansion of the regime.
On sanctions implementation, an open question is how the practical impact of the US-proposed expansion of the sanctions would play out on the ground. One option is an informal meeting with the PoE to assess this issue before the vote, alongside greater information-sharing between members and the panel on arms transfers and financing networks.
Building on the 14 September informal interactive dialogue, members could consider how the Council can support the Quintet’s role as a bridge among stakeholders. One option is for the Council to pursue a presidential statement supporting the Quintet’s efforts to advance the political process.
The escalation of fighting in Blue Nile, and the risk it poses to Ed Damazin, has raised concern about the conflict’s regionalisation. Members could consider a dedicated briefing on this front and its cross-border dimension.
The FFM’s El Obeid inquiry, mandated by the Human Rights Council’s 8 July resolution, remains outstanding. Security Council members could take the inquiry’s eventual findings into account in future discussions on accountability and the scope of the sanctions regime once it is released.
Council Dynamics
The divisions beneath the unanimous adoption of resolution 2828 were laid bare in the explanations of vote. The US, as penholder, argued that the current sanctions regime is outdated, insisting that “a long-term technical rollover of this mandate is not an option”. The UK welcomed Washington’s push to “update the regime, in light of a conflict that has changed significantly”, while Latvia argued the conflict “has spread far beyond Darfur” and pressed for explicit designation grounds covering conflict-related sexual violence. China warned that increasing coercive measures risked worsening the humanitarian situation or even “fuel[ling] the prospect of Sudan’s fragmentation”. Russia was the most categorical, stating it “will not allow even a hint of broadening” of the regime and casting this position as aligned with the Sudanese government’s own, questioning why expansion was being pushed now—given the SAF’s current battlefield advantage—rather than in 2023 when RSF threatened Khartoum. It suggested a full one-year renewal without changing the mandate. Sudan’s delegate rejected any expansion outright, invoking Article 51 on self-defence rights, and asked what the penholder had done “to deter the genocide committed by a militia supported by one of its closest partners in the region”.
The 11 September vote crystallised the Council’s underlying divide: the US, UK, and Latvia pushed for a substantively expanded regime against China’s procedural caution and Russia’s outright rejection of any expansion, with Russia explicitly aligning its position with Khartoum’s own objections. The unanimous vote reflected agreement only that more time was needed, not consensus on substance. The US position has been reiterated by the US State Department which recently asserted that neither the SAF nor the RSF “represent legitimate, constitutional governance for Sudan”.
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