SPLM-N rebels shell South Kordofan’s Dilling, sources say

June 20, 2025 (DILLING) – Rebels from the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) led by Abdel Azizi al-Hilu shelled the city of Dilling in Sudan’s South Kordofan state with heavy artillery on Friday, causing damage to several homes, local sources said.

Dilling, the state’s second-largest city, has been under a severe siege for months due to the shifting control lines between the army, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), and the SPLM-N faction led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu.

The shelling destroyed at least five homes, though no immediate casualties were reported, the local sources told Sudan Tribune.

The attack follows a week of attempts by the SPLM-N, reportedly backed by the RSF, to isolate the state capital, Kadugli, from Dilling. The Sudanese army said it had repelled the attacks and inflicted losses on the attacking force.

The siege has created a humanitarian crisis in Dilling, with reports of starvation due to severe shortages of food and medicine.

Separately, a political leader from the Nuba Mountains accused the SPLM-N and RSF of killing at least 14 civilians and looting thousands of livestock during an attack on the al-Dashoul area in South Kordofan.

Mubarak Ardol, a leader of the Democratic Alliance for Social Justice, said on the social media platform X that after failing to take al-Dashoul, the RSF-SPLM-N force attacked livestock pens, “committing a human massacre.”

Ardol described the attack as a “systematic revenge operation” aimed at displacing and impoverishing the local population, vowing that the “crimes will not go unpunished.”

The Sudanese military had previously accused the SPLM-N and RSF of killing at least 14 civilians in a joint attack on a town near Kadugli.