Burhan inspects Blue Nile as RSF alliance claims bases along the Ethiopian frontier

Abdel Fattah al-Burhan inspected army readiness in Blue Nile state on 3 September, assessing a division’s combat readiness and visiting a military hospital in Damazin, according to army statements summarised by allAfrica. Fighting has intensified across the state, where the RSF and its SPLM-N ally have made recent territorial gains and have claimed control of the Bakori and Sorkam military bases — a claim by the alliance, not independently confirmed. Sudan Tribune reported on 1 September that advance units of the Joint Force, armed movements allied with the SAF, had arrived in Damazin as reinforcements. The Critical Threats Project, a US think-tank tracker, dates the shift to mid-August: the RSF and SPLM-N al-Hilu took the district capital Geisan on 11 August, roughly 115 miles southeast of Ad Damazin, and retook Kurmuk, some 95 miles south, on 13 August — a town the RSF first captured in March and the SAF regained in July.

CTP assesses the operations were “almost certainly” launched from Ethiopian territory. On 3 September Sudan Tribune reported that Abdelati Mohamed El Faki, commissioner of Kurmuk, accused the RSF of running four training camps inside Ethiopia with alleged Emirati backing; Sudan Tribune said it could not independently verify the allegations, Ethiopia has previously rejected accusations that it facilitates arms transfers or training, and the UAE has repeatedly denied providing military support. On the SAF side, Yasir al-Atta told reserve troops in western Omdurman on 1 September that neither the Security Council nor the UAE could halt the army’s advances and that a major offensive was coming “in the coming days”: “You will advance, and your brothers will advance from many directions. All capabilities are available.” Asharq Al-Awsat reported him on 3 September signalling continuous deployment to fronts in Darfur, Kordofan and Blue Nile.

Assessment: Announced is not launched. Al-Atta named three fronts, which is a way of naming none, and his own title is reported differently by Sudan Tribune and Asharq Al-Awsat — a detail worth settling before his words are treated as command intent. The Ethiopia claim is a government official’s allegation carried with an explicit non-verification note and denied by two capitals; it converges with a think-tank assessment but does not corroborate it. What is measurable is thinning: the IPC’s current analysis states that limited data availability in Blue Nile constrained its scope, and its forward projections now cover 56 localities and some 8.3 million people rather than the country. The front that moved is the one least visible.