Drone strikes and shelling intensify in Sudan’s South Kordofan, Blue Nile

February 13, 2026 (KADUGLI/DILLING/ED DAMAZIN) – Drone strikes and artillery fire between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) intensified on Friday in South Kordofan and the Blue Nile region, marking an escalation in two of the country’s most volatile border zones.

The RSF launched a wave of “suicide” and strategic drone attacks on Dilling, the second-largest city in South Kordofan, targeting vital infrastructure and military positions. Field sources told Sudan Tribune the bombardment was among the heaviest the city has seen since the civil war began in April 2023.

Further south, RSF drones struck areas surrounding the state capital, Kadugli. Earlier on Friday, a drone strike on al-Kurgal, a transit town linking Dilling and Kadugli, killed at least two people and wounded several others, according to local sources.

In the Blue Nile region, the Sudanese army conducted heavy shelling on the towns of Malkon and Yabus near the Ethiopian border. The area has become a stronghold for an alliance between the RSF and a faction of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) led by Joseph Toka.

Abdel Ati al-Faki, the commissioner of Kurmuk in Blue Nile, told Sudan Tribune that the allied forces were amassing troops south of the town in an apparent bid to seize it.

The southern Blue Nile has become the latest active front in the national conflict over the past month. The alliance between the RSF and the SPLM-N has opened a new theatre of war, complicating regional security near the sensitive Ethiopian frontier.