Sudan's RSF says it has seized key oilfield in Kordofan

Sudan's ​paramilitary ​Rapid ‌Support Forces (RSF) has announced it ‍took control of the strategically important Heglig oilfield ​in ‍South ⁠Kordofan on Monday. The group said it had chased army troops away from the site and pledged to protect it.

“Our forces emphasise they will secure and protect all vital oil installations in the region ... as well as provide the necessary protection for the engineering and technical teams at oil installations and workers,” said a statement from the RSF, which has been fighting the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in a ruinous civil war since April 2023.

The pipeline that carries South Sudanese oil from the southern border to Port Sudan on the Red Sea is also a vital source of income for impoverished Sudan, which has had its economy destroyed by the war.

Separately, the UN's World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday that as many as 114 people, including 63 children, were killed in “senseless” strikes on a hospital and kindergarten in Sudan's South Kordofan last week. The previous death toll from the attack had stood at 50, according to voluntary groups tracking violence. However, the African Union on Sunday said at least 100 were killed in the attack.

Local official Essam Al Din Al Sayed, head of the Kalogi administrative unit, said Thursday's drone attack, which has been blamed on the RSF, hit “first a kindergarten, then a hospital and a third time as people tried to rescue the children”. Following their capture of El Fasher – the army's last foothold in Darfur – in late October, the RSF has pushed eastward into the oil-rich Kordofan re